Louis Le Prince

For this, my second post in a single day (!), I would like to shift gears slightly, from older music media to older film; in particular, let's look at the true (and forgotten) father of film, a man most of you have probably never heard of: Louis Le Prince.

A French inventor, Le Prince spent most of his life working in England, studying photography; he became interested in the art of "moving" photography later in life, spending years toiling over a way to somehow capture life. His first camera had sixteen lenses, which he used several times while in the United States in the mid-1880s, but upon his return to England, he had created (and patented) a camera with a single lens that could successfully film from life: His MkII Camera.

With it, he filmed some of the world's oldest surviving films, but, before he could promote his camera in America, he mysteriously disappeared after boarding a train to Paris on September 16th, 1890; his body was never found, and his pioneering work soon fell into obscurity.

In this day and age, however, Le Prince's work has been rediscovered, and, indeed, celebrated for its ingenuity as the foundation for the motion pictures we see today.

Without further ado, then, I would like to present to you the filmic legacy of Louis Le Prince; they may not be much, but they are precious treasures of world history:









Enjoy them, but try to enjoy them for what they represent, not what they are.