Did you know that Les studios Lumières played a pivotal role in the birth of cinema? Auguste and Louis Lumière were French manufacturers of photography equipment. They are best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system. They produced short films between 1895 and 1905. This places them among the earliest filmmakers.
The Lumière brothers were born in Besançon France. Their parents were Charles-Antoine Lumière and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière. They married in 1861 and moved to Besançon. Here, they set up a small photographic portrait studio. Auguste, Louis, and their daughter Jeanne were born here. Later, they moved to Lyon in 1870. Their other two daughters, Mélina and Francine, were born here. Auguste and Louis attended La Martiniere. It was the largest technical school in Lyon.
The Lumière brothers patented several significant processes. These led to their film camera. Most notably, they used film perforations. Émile Reynaud originally implemented this as a means of advancing the film. The original cinématographe was patented by Léon Guillaume Bouly. The Lumières further developed this three-in-one device. It could record, develop, and project motion pictures. The brothers patented their own version in 1895.
Louis claimed to have shot the first film in August 1894. This was before the arrival of the kinetoscope in France. Historians question this. They believe a functional Lumière camera didn’t exist before 1895. The Lumière brothers viewed film as a novelty. By 1905, they had withdrawn from the film business. They went on to develop the first practical photographic colour process. This was the Lumière Autochrome.
The first film screening at Les studios Lumières took place on March 22 1895. It was held in Paris at the Society for the Development of the National Industry. The audience included Léon Gaumont. He was the director of the company Comptoir Général de la Photographie. The Lumières privately screened a single film. It was called Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. Louis’s conference focused on recent developments in the photographic industry. It mainly covered research on colour photography. To Lumière’s surprise, the moving black-and-white images garnered more attention. They were more interesting than the coloured stills.
Les studios Lumières gave their first paid public screening on December 28 1895. It took place at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. This presentation consisted of 10 short films. Each film was up to 17 meters long. When hand-cranked through a projector, it ran for about 50 seconds.
The Lumières toured with the cinématographe in 1896. They visited Brussels Bombay London Montreal New York City Palestine and Buenos Aires. Only a few months after the initial screenings in Europe, films by the Lumière Brothers were shown in Egypt.
The brothers stated that “the cinema is an invention without any future”. They declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers. One such filmmaker was Georges Méliès. Consequently, their role in film history was brief. Alongside their cinema work, they experimented with colour photography. In 1903, they patented a colour photographic process. It was called the Autochrome Lumière. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Lumière company was a major producer of photographic products in Europe. The brand name Lumière disappeared. This happened following a merger with Ilford.
Louis died in 1948 and Auguste in 1954. They are buried in a family tomb in Lyon. Their legacy lives on here at Les studios Lumières. It is a testament to their groundbreaking contributions to film.