| 1907 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January 26 |
Riots break out at the premiere of J M Synge's play The Playboy of the Western
World at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and continue throughout the following week. The focus of
offence to Irish modesty: 'It's Pegeen I'm seeking only, and what'd I care if you brought me a drift
of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this place to the eastern world.' |
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| February 17 |
Bell & Howell company is incorporated in Chicago, founded by projectionist Daniel H
Bell and engineer Albert S Howell. (Bell sells out his share in 1917.) First product: Kinedrome projector. |
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| February 22 |
Central Hall, a purpose-built cinema, is opened in Colne, Lancashire, England by the
Premier Picture Company, run by Joshua Duckworth. It remains in use as a cinema until the advent of sound in
1927. The building still stands (in 2002). |
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| March 2 |
First dramatic short films made in Austria are a scene from the opera Ein
Walzertraum and a Saturn production, In der Garderobe (In the Wardrobe). |
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| spring |
Second Finnish film company formed—Pohjoismaiden Biografi Komppania (Nordic
Biograph Company)—which produced 49 shorts and two features between 1907 and 1916. |
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| l |
Première of L’Enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Child), the first European
film running more than an hour (90 mins), made by Marcel Carré by photographing the stage version and
shown at Théâtre des Variétés, boulevard Montmartre, Paris. |
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| l |
Auguste Lumière’s improved process for colour reproduction through auto-chrome plates. |
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| July 25 |
Boris Rosing in St Petersburg applies for the first patent covering cathode ray tube
(patent no 18076, granted 30 October 1910). Rosing conceives the first television system using cathode
ray tubes and mirror drums. |
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| July |
Edison film production moves from New York City to a purpose-built studio
on Decatur Avenue in the Bronx. |
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| December 16 |
A radio broadcast from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York includes a performance by
Eugene H Farrar of a song, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?—perhaps the first broadcast of a song. |
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| l |
DC biasing is introduced in the Telegraphone steel wire recorder. |
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| l |
Don Juan is produced by Pathé Frères, a coloured film with synchronous sound
from gramophone records. |
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| l |
First dramatic film made in Finland is Salaviinanpolttajat, directed by
Louis Sparre. |
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| l |
British film producer Will Barker buys a mansion with grounds on Ealing Green in west London
and builds a three-stage glass-covered film studio.0019 |
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| l |
Essanay Company formed by George K Spoor and Max Arenson Anderson. |
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| l |
First Finnish fiction film: Salaviinanpolttajat (Bootleggers), directed by
Louis Sparre, a Swede, and produced by Karl Emil Ståhlberg’s production company, Atelier Apollo. |
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| l |
Eugène Lauste is granted a master patent (number 18057)
in England, covering all fundamentals of optical sound recording. [English patents last for 16 years.]
Sound energy from a microphone is fed to a thin metal strip that vibrates, constantly altering the focus
of the light as it passed through a slit onto the film, creating a variable area image. Lauste has a
workshop in Brixton, South London and is funded by London Cinematograph.
0025 |
|
| l |
Léon Gaumont's Chronophone makes its commercial
debut at the Hippodrome in London. 0027 |
|
| l |
Cameraphone sound film system is developed by E E Norton, a former employee of the
American Graphophone Company (later Columbia Records). Sound
is pre-recorded on Columbia discs to which the artists mime in front of the camera at the Cameraphone
studio above Daly's Theatre on Lower Broadway,New York. The first screening is given at Sevin Point,
Rhode Island. |
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| l |
Parson’s Auxetophone uses compressed air to increase the amplitude of vibrations
in the diaphragm of audio speakers. |
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| l |
Louis Lumière develops a process for colour photography using a three-colour screen. |
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| l |
British film-maker Theodore Brown (1870-1938) patents the Spirograph film system
using a 10½-inch disc on which approximately 1,200 images are recorded in a spiral formation. A
crank handle rotates the disc and advanced the lens and lamp housing through a mechanical coupling. [A
Spirograph projector is held in the National Museum of Technology and Art, Washington DC.] |
à Brown's Kinoplastikon,
1913
à Spirograph, 1923 |
| l |
Lee de Forest, American inventor, adds a controlling electrode, the grid, to
Fleming’s valve. |
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| l |
Dr Leo Baekeland invents bakelite, based on phenol formaldehyde, the first synthetic
plastic, much used for radio receiver casings in mid-century. |
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| l |
Inter-titles are used in film and soon become very prolific. |
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| l |
Italy has 500 cinemas, Hungary 127. First cinema opens in India. |
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| l |
Kinematograph Film Makers’ Association is founded in the UK. |
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| l |
Film projectionists are refused membership of the Variety Artists Federation and
form their own trades union, the Bioscope Operators’ Association, later called the National
Association of Cinematograph Operators. |
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| l |
Kinoreformbewegung (Cinema Reform Movement) in Germany promotes the educational
potential of films. |
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| l |
A board of police film censorship is established in Chicago. |
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| l |
The first Western movies shot in the real West are made by the Selig-Polyscope
Company. This indirectly stimulates the move of the US film industry to Hollywood. |
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| l |
The Gramophone and Typewriter Company moves its headquarters to Hayes, Middlesex. |
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