EDWIN STANTON PORTER

He was the most important filmmaker of this early period. Porter was a film projectionist and an expert at building photographic equipment. In late 1900, he went to work for Edison, whom he greatly admired. He was assigned to improve the firm‘s cameras and projectors.In early 1901, Porter began operating a camera there. At this point in cinema history, the cameraman was also the film‘s director, and soon Porter was responsible for many of the company‘s most popular films. Porter has often been credited with virtually all the innovations of the innovations of the pre-1908 period, including making the first story film ― Life of an American fireman‖ and inventing editing as we know it. In fact , he often drew upon techniques already used by Melies, Smith and Williamson. He imaginatively developed his models, however, and he undoubtedly introduced some original techniques. His position as the foremost filmmaker of the preeminent American production company gave his works wide exposure and made them popular and influential. He examined Melies A Trip to the Moon closely and decided to copy its manner of telling a story in a series of shots. From 1902, many of his films contained several shots, with significant efforts to match time and space across cuts. Porter‘s Life of an American Fireman is a notable attempt at such storytelling. His most important film The Great Train Robbery also made in 1903 used eleven shots to tell the story of a gang of bandits who hold up a train. Porter‘s film was gripping in its depiction of violent action. Indeed, a novel extra shot, showing one of the robbers in a close view firing a gun toward the camera, was included; exhibitors had the option of placing it at the beginning or end of the film. Perhaps no film of the pre-1905 period was as popular as The Great Train Robbery. Porter worked for Edison for several more years. In 1905 he directed The Kleptomaniac, a social critique that contrasted the situations of two women who commit theft. Porter left Edison to become an independent producer, but he was soon outshone by others just entering the field. From 1902 to 1905 , Porter was one of many filmmakers who contributed to an industrywide concentration of fiction filmmaking