October 6, 1889 Thomas Edison showed the first motion
picture filmed in the United States. Monkeyshines Number 1 was an experimental
short (only a few seconds long) made as an internal test for a new cylinder-form
Kinetiscope camera system. It was shot by William K. L. Dickson and William
Heise, Edison lab workers. Monkeyshines features a blurry figure in white (either
John Ott or G. Sacco Albanese) against a darker background, making broad
gestures with his arms. Edison and his colleagues would go on to shoot other
subjects: a woman dancing, athletes showing their prowess, a man getting a
shave, blacksmiths hammering, a pair of boxers sparring, and a mustachioed man sneezing.
You can find many of these early works on YouTube. Wouldn’t Edison be surprised
to know how much time we spend watching moving pictures today? Or that most of
us regularly shoot and share videos with our phones?
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