Media History – Biograph Company

To really understand how media works in Canada, you need to know a little bit about media both here and with our neighbours to the south. Let’s take a stroll through history shall we? Let’s start off by going to the mecca of media – but it’s not Hollywood!

In 1910, the small dry-district municipality of Hollywood was annexed by the city of Los Angeles in order to establish water and sewer systems. It would soon become a center of film making, but contrary to popular belief, this was not the origin of film in America.

The Chicago Biograph Theater where Dillinger was shot July 22, 1934

As early as 1895, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company had been dedicated to making films for display with their proprietary camera. The founder, William Kennedy Dickson, had worked at the Edison laboratory, and had left to start his own company based out of New Jersey. Their cameras used a whopping 68mm size film frame, until 1903 when they changed to the less expensive 35mm format.

What is most interesting for our discussion on changing media is the kinds of films the Biograph company shot between 1895 and 1908:

• Less than two minutes in length
• Primarily “actualities”, documentary-style of real-life images
• Occasional narrative pieces, usually comedy
• One-shot takes with minimal editing

In 1908, the Biograph company was becoming more invested in narrative work over their short documentary-style films. With this, they saw the need to move from their New Jersey location to a converted brownstone mansion in Manhattan. With this, they became the very first indoor studio in the world relying on artificial light.

Lucky Jim – D.W. Griffiths 1909

It is interesting to note the change in format that occurred with the shift from “actualities” to narrative style films. This was handled primarily by D.W. Griffith, who joined the company in 1908. He became Biograph’s first lead Director, and he popularized many of the conventions of film used right up to today, such as cross-cutting, flashbacks, and fade transitions. Griffith was creative, and willing to experiment in many different genres.

Under Griffith’s direction, Biograph attracted and became known for many of the early stars of film – actors who gained fame by their introduction to narrative film, such as Mary Pickford.

And now we finally do travel west, along with the “acting troupe” of Biograph who in 1910 went to L.A. to shoot the film “Ramona” in an authentic setting. While there, they fell in love with a quiet little place, just that year annexed by Los Angeles – Hollywood.

Birth of a Nation, 1915, shows the depth of Griffiths growth in the space of six years

The Sad End of Biograph

While a true innovator in media, the Biograph made a few mistakes, primarily based around failing to realize that their true business was the creation of entertainment media. They maintained the point of view that the media was the means of promoting their specialized camera equipment, and in fact in 1908 had joined the Edison company in attempting to regulate film distribution through patents.

Between 1908 and 1915, the Biograph company was largely shielded from competition by their trust arrangements with Edison and several other industry players. In a way, this heavy-handed approach helped seal their doom as new companies looked to the west coast as a way to escape the notice of the Motion Picture Patents Company. In 1915 Biograph were found guilty of antitrust violation and the General Film Company, their distribution corporation, died.

Even prior to this, the highly protected environment that the Biograph company worked in caused them to miss the opportunity to become a leader in feature film production. By 1913 when they moved to the Bronx to begin making features, their star director had already left taking most actors with him. And their competitors had already produced and distributed 69 feature films.

Independent companies were doing more interesting work, and Biograph simply could not attract the right talent. Well behind in high-quality content production, by 1916 the company was getting by re-releasing it’s old films and renting it’s facilities, and was no longer a serious contender. They were bought out in 1928.

Think the piracy issue around films is new to the internet? Think again. In the early 1900′s the Biograph company needed to insert their logo at random parts of their films to combat the underground “duping” industry – illegal duplication and distribution of films to theaters with their titles and credits removed.