Research Catalog
The man who made movies : W.K.L. Dickson / Paul Spehr.
- Title
- The man who made movies : W.K.L. Dickson / Paul Spehr.
- Author
- Spehr, Paul C.
- Publication
- New Barnet, U.K. : John Libbey ; Bloomington, IN : Distributed in North America by Indiana University Press, c2008.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | PN1998.3.D4855 S64 2008x | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- vi, 706 p. : ill.; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "W. K.L. Dickson began his career as an assistant to Thomas Edison. He was in charge of experimentation that led to the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph, the first commercially successful moving image devices. Dickson also established what we know today as the 35mm format (in 1891-1892); designed the Black Maria film studio and facilities to develop and print film; and he supervised production of more than 100 films for Edison (he acted as producer-director using an assistant to operate the camera)." "After leaving Edison, Dickson was a founding member of the American Mutoscope Co. (later American Mutoscope & Biograph, then Biograph). He also set up production, designed a studio, trained staff and supervised film production. In 1897 he went to England to set up the European branch of the company and repeated all that again. During his career he made between 500 and 700 films, many of which are icons used by scholars of the period - Fred Ott's Sneeze, Sandow, Annabelle's Butterfly Dances, etc." "Dickson is a key figure in early film history and this well-illustrated book on his career also offers insights into the beginnings of the international film industry. It is also a window on Thomas Edison, but from a quite different perspective."--Jacket.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Biographies
- History
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [657]-669) and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- Prologue: Introducing Mr. Dickson; 1: Family Matters; 2: Goerck Street; 3: The Business of Invention;; Electricity, Ore and the Phonograph; 4: Personal Matters; 5: From a Ladies Watch to a Locomotive: The New Laboratory; 6: The Germ of an Idea; 7: The Kineto-Phonograph: The Beginning of a Quest; 8: Trials, Errors, Mergers, Shenanigans and Speculation; Cylinders, Electricity, Phonographs and Iron; 9: Competition! There Were Others?; 10: A Certain Precipitate of Knowledge: The Kinetograph, Spring 1889; 11: Mr. Edison Triumphs in Europe and Dickson has a Busy Summer; 12: 'Good Morning, Mr. Edison': The Strip Kinetograph; 13: Caveat, Film, an Announcement and a Conundrum; the Kineto after Paris; 14: 'We Had a Hell of a Good Time ... ' Ore Milling and Electricity, Dreams and Reality; 15: The Nickel-in-the-Slot Phonograph; 16: 'Come Up Stairs and See the Germ Work' ... Edison 'Out-Edison's; Edison' 1891: Problems, Success and Revisions; 17: Edison's Agent; 18: 'A Method of Taking and Using Photographs' Patenting the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph; 19: ' ... Unaltered to Date': Creating the Foundation of the Modern Motion Picture; 20: The Kinetoscope and Black Maria; 21: Personal Affairs: Pictures, Words, Inventions; 22: Wizard Edison's Wonderful Instrument: The Kinetoscope; 23: A Discontented Winter; 24: Between Careers; Publishing and New Opportunities; 25: The Age of Movement: A New Enterprise; 26: The Playful Specter of the Night: The Biograph on Screen; 27: Home Again; 28: The Pope and the Mutoscopes; 29: News in a Pictorial Way; 30: The Road to Ladysmith; 31: To Pretoria and Beyond: The Heart of the Biographer at Rest; 32: The Hope to See a Bright Future; The W.K.-L. Dickson Laboratory; 33: A Peculiar Memory for Details; 34: Forgotten by History? Evaluating Mr. Dickson.
- ISBN
- 9780861966950 (hbk.)
- 0861966953 (hbk.)
- OCLC
- 216935817
- SCSB-12538346
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library