Jenkins returned to Washington and made a demonstration at the Pure Foods Seminar, screening life-size images onto a twenty-foot screen. He then filed the Phantoscope projector patent and completed work on his Kinetographic rotary-lens camera which would be used in concert to record motion pictures. Jenkins continued in his government job and attended the Bliss Electrical School at night in search of a way to solve the illumination problems he encountered with the Phantoscope.
He formed a fateful partnership with a fellow Bliss student, Thomas Armat. The two entrepreneurs decided to work together on the Phantoscope - for a period of fifteen years.
In late 1894, Thomas Edison discovered his protégé Laurie Dickson had assisted the Lathams to build their own peepshow projector and the young engineer soon left his employ. Dickson joined with Elias Koopman, Harry Marvin, and Herman Casler to form the K.M.C.D. syndicate. It made the cast-iron ornate Mutoscope machines which gave viewers the illusion of motion by showing flip-cards advanced by a hand crank.
Author David Crockwell notes:
"It is estimated that over 4,000 (Mutoscope) titles and 100,000 reels were printed and distributed during this period."
K.M.C.D. was renamed the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company with its headquarters at 841 Broadway, New York City. It became known simply as Biograph. With funds from the success of the Mutoscope, Casler began work on a film camera called the Mutograph and a projector, the Biograph.
To avoid infringing on Edison's patents, Dickson did not carry out any of the design work and Casler created a different film format. He used continuous movement friction rollers (not intermittent movement by sprockets) to move 68 mm film (not 35 mm) in the camera at 30 fps, not the standard 16 fps. By virtue of the Biograph projector using a much larger frame area than was customary at the time, images were sharper and better quality, though its operation required dedicated projectionists.
Christopher Beach wrote in A Hidden History of Film Style:
"As a result, Biograph's movies had a more defined image than Edison's, a feature apparent to early audiences."
The Smithsonian Institute summarizes Biograph’s films:
"Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope.
The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s."
Biograph arguably became the world’s first dedicated movie production company. Ryan Lintelman from College of William and Mary explains Dickson’s role as producer and director:
"(Dickson) created a diverse slate of subjects, from simple but titillating films of strongmen and dancers to joke shorts like ‘Hard Wash’ and actualities like ‘United States Flag’ and ‘Bicycle Parade on Boulevard’."
1895 appears to be a pivotal year in film history.
In production, and projection.
As many in the peepshow and magic lantern industries waited for their official Edison Kinetoscopes to ship, such a device was probably already outdated. The need to screen to more than one person was obvious and Englishman Cecil Wray was one of the first to act when he patented an accessory that would allow a kinetoscope picture to be enlarged and projected onto a screen in January 1895.
The Latham family imagined many people wanted to watch an entire boxing match without needing to stop. Working in secret, Laurie Dickson and former Edison mechanic, Eugene Lauste created the Eidoloscope.
In April 1895, the Lathams debuted the new projector in New York with a screening of a boxing film Young Griffo - Battling Barnett. In order to accommodate the length of film, Dickson and Lauste had created what became known as Latham's Loop - a loop placed in the film just before it reached the camera's gate, thereby allowing the film to be rapidly paused and advanced without pulling directly on the rest of the film on the spool. While the invention did not impact editing directly, it allowed filmmakers to also film sequences whose only constraint was the size of a camera magazine.
The English duo of Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres had, by this time, created their own 35 mm camera which ran at 40 fps. Acres, an accomplished photographer, shot the first British motion picture film, Incident Outside Clovelly Cottage, Barnet. Richard Brown and Barry Anthony note in The Kinetoscope: A British History:
"Acres' first film was quite unlike anything that Edison or Dickson had produced...it depicted a slice of everyday life, photographed not on a shallow stage in a cramped studio but in a real street in the open air."
He followed with another groundbreaking film a few months later.
Meanwhile, Auguste and Louis Lumière had finalized their Cinématographe - a device that was "reversible". It was able to act as a camera or in reverse action, as a projector. If the owner wanted it could also serve as a contact printer for making prints from negatives. The Cinématographe was much lighter and mechanically simpler than Edison's Kinetoscope. The Lumières filmed and screened 'La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumiere' to a small group of invitees at the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie in Paris.
In what was a technological race spread across the globe, the incumbent Edison had barely started as his rivals were close to finishing.
In September 1895, Charles Jenkins and Thomas Armat demonstrated the Phantoscope at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. Initially, people were unsure about venturing into a dark room with strangers to see what the Phantoscope signage promised -"Moving Pictures". The young entrepreneurs changed the wording to - "Come Inside and Rest. And Look at Moving Pictures"
The Atlanta Journal wrote:
"This is unquestionably the most wonderful electric invention of the age."
The Baltimore Sun was even bolder:
"Mr Edison Outdone".
Despite the publicity, the two men were unable to draw audiences. Unknown to the journalists, the two Phantoscope projectors tore through the sprockets of Jenkins' films and screenings stopped.
The public instead flocked to booths for the Latham's Eidoloscope and Edison's Kinetoscope.
Meanwhile, the Skladanowskys ushered in the first cinema experience. The Berlin-based brothers possessed the three elements that ultimately defined filmmaking and distribution: a film camera, films to show and a projector.
Two local businessmen had seen a demonstration of the Skladanowskys' Bioscop device and booked it to screen short films at their Wintergarten Theatre.
The Skladanowskys could lay claim to the first paid public movie screening as the Bioskop event began on November 1st, 1895. The event continued for four weeks, with a total of 23 projections. The program, which included titles such as ‘Das Boxende Kanguruh’ (The Boxing Kangaroo) lasted for three hours and was held daily at 7.30pm.
The Bioskop was probably never set to dominate film screens as researcher Deac Rossell writes:
"Their film system, with its projection of alternate frames, was a hand-made operation equally incapable of commercialisation."
The leaders in the moving pictures industry remained Charles Pathé and Thomas Edison. Then the Lumières debuted the Cinematographie.
Louis Lumière, who was a devoted photographer, had