William Kennedy Dickson

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William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (August 3, 1860 – September 28, 1935) was a Franco-Scottish^[1][2][3] inventor who is credited with the invention of the motion picture camera under the employ of Thomas Edison.

[edit] Biography

Dickson was born on 3 August, 1860 in Minihic-sur-Rance, Brittany, France, to a French mother and a Scottish father. His father died when Dickson was young.

[edit] Film innovator

Dickson’s invention, the Kinetoscope, was simple: a strip of several images was passed in front of an illuminated lens and behind a spinning wheel. In fact, Edison saw very little value in the contraption, but thought that it might be served to endorse his phonograph.

On January 7, 1894, Dickson received a patent for motion picture film. Shortly afterwards, after a great deal of debate with Edison and West Orange film colleague Jonathan Campbell, Dickson switched from the 19 mm width, single sprocket film he was using, to the more stable 35 mm double-sided sprocket film. Edison didn't see the need or benefit for redesigning the equipment to accept the larger negative, but Dickson and Campbell believed it was essential if the technology was to advance. Today's standard is still 35 mm double-sided sprocket film.

Late in 1894 or early in 1895 Dickson became an ad hoc advisor to the motion picture operation of the Latham brothers, Otway and Grey, and their father, Woodville, who ran one of the leading Kinetoscope exhibition companies. Seeking to develop a movie projector system, they hired former Edison employee Eugene Lauste, probably at Dickson's suggestion. In April 1895, Dickson left Edison's employ and joined the Latham outfit. Alongside Lauste, he helped devise what would become known as the "Latham loop," allowing the photography and exhibition of much longer filmstrips than had previously been possible. The team of former Edison associates brought to fruition the Eidoloscope projector system, which would be used in the first commercial movie screening in world history on May 20, 1895. With the Lathams, Dickson was part of the group that formed the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, before he returned permanently to work in the United Kingdom in 1897.

[edit] Publications

• The Biograph in Battle (Flicks Books, UK, reprinted in 1995)
• A Brief History of the Kinetograph, the Kinetoscope and the Kinetophonograph (SMPTE Journal, Vol 21, December 1933)
• An Authentic Life of Edison. The Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison. (with Antonio Dickson, 8 volumes. New-York. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 1894) ^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Gordon Hendricks, The Edison Motion Picture Myth (Arno Press, USA, 1972)
• Ray Phillips, Edison’s Kinetoscope and its Films - a History to 1896 (Flicks Books,UK, 1997)
• Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: the American Screen to 1907 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, USA, 1990)
• Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company (University of California Press, USA, 1991)
• Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, USA, 1990)
• John Barnes, Filming the Boer War (Bishopsgate Press, UK,1992)
• Richard Brown and Barry Anthony, A Victorian Film Enterprise:The History of the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company (Flicks Books, UK,1997)

[edit] See also

• Dickson Experimental Sound Film
• Blacksmith Scene
• Fred Ott's Sneeze (film)
• Edison's Black Maria
• List of people on stamps of the United States
• Eugene Lauste
• List of William Kennedy Dickson films

[edit] External links

• William Kennedy Dickson at Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
• Biography of Dickson
• Adventures in motion pictures The Scotsman newspaper
• Click here to view filmde:William K. L. Dickson

fr:William K.L. Dickson no:William Kennedy Dickson