Blacksmith Scene (1893)

Interesting facts

Blacksmith Scene is an 1893 American short black-and-white silent film directed by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish-French inventor who, while under the employ of Thomas Edison, developed one of the first fully functional motion picture cameras. It is historically significant as the first Kinetoscope film shown in public exhibition on May 9, 1893, and is the earliest known example of actors performing a role in a film. It was also the first U.S. motion picture film ever copyrighted that same year.

Production

The film was produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company, which had begun making films in 1890 under the direction of William K.L. Dickson. It was filmed entirely within the Black Maria studio at West Orange, New Jersey, in the United States, which is widely referred to as "America's First Movie Studio". It is believed to have been filmed in April 1893 and was shown publicly, in a Kinetoscope viewer, at the Brooklyn Institute on May 9, 1893.

According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the film was made in a 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The movie was intended to be displayed on a Kinetoscope. Dickson selected a lens that worked best for medium shots and medium close-up shots and probably stationed his camera approximately ten to twelve feet from the anvil.

The men featured are not true blacksmiths, nor are they in a blacksmith shop working on metal: they are performers on a set mimicking blacksmiths and to have a drink in between. While the background is simply left black, the crew went through some trouble to bring in a real anvil, real sledgehammers and leather aprons.

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