Making Movies
Making Movies Edison National Historic Site New Jersey National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior In 1893 the Black Maria became the world's first building constructed as a motion picture studio. This odd-shaped structure was designed to keep sunlight on the stage while Edison's film pioneers made kinetoscope films. Although most filming took place around noon, the Black Maria could use available sunlight at all hours. During filming, the angled roof was opened using pulleys to allow sunlight in the studio. The entire building rested on a pivot and wood track. As the sun's angle changed during the day, Edison's movie makers periodically stopped filming to push the Black Maria around a few feet to keep sunlight on its stage. In an early sound film experiment produced in 1894 (right), W.K.L Dickson Thomas Edison's chief motion picture assistant plays a violin as two men dance. The kinetophone, a "talking pictures" system introduced by Edison in 1912, proved unreliable and was soon abandoned. Practical sound films were not achieved until the late 1920s. Motion picture pioneer W.K.L Dickson (left, third from right on top of the Black Maria) poses with assistants, 1895. The original Black Maria stood from 1893 to 1903 on a site near the water tower behind you. This replica was built in 1954. In 1894 long-time Edison assistant Fred Ott was filmed by W.K.L. Dickson in "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" (right)- one of the first motion picture close-ups. Submitted by @lampbane