| 1914 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January |
Neptune Films is founded and builds a studio at
Borehamwood, Hertfordshire—the first to be identified with the neighbouring village
of Elstree and the most advanced studio in the UK at the time. It claims to have the
first purpose built dark stage in Europe, over 70 ft (21 metres) long.
|
|
| February 4 |
The World, The Flesh and the Devil, a 100-minute melodrama, the first
full-length feature film in Kinemacolor, is trade shown in London.
It opens at the Holborn Empire on 9 April. |
|
| February 7 |
Vitagraph becomes the first US film production company to go into exhibition by leasing
the Criterion Theatre on Broadway, New York and renaming it the Vitagraph Theatre. It opens with
Vitagraph's first five-reel feature, A Million Dollar Bid. |
â May |
| February 13 |
American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers (ASCAP) is formed in New York to protect creative copyrights. |
|
| early |
Professor A M Low transmits
a crude image from one room to another, apparently using a scanning disc. |
à Predictions 1926 |
| March 29 |
Seven US newspapers collaborate to publish
the first picture supplement, printed by the rotogravure process. |
|
| March |
Tenkatsu film company is established in Japan.
It has studios in Tokyo and Osaka with output of 15 films a month. |
|
| April 4 |
First episode of film serial The Perils of Pauline is premiered in New York. |
|
| spring |
First Finnish cinema newsreels are produced by
Lyyra Filmi, a company formed late 1911 by Hjalmar V Pohjanheimo (1867-1936). |
|
| May 8 |
Paramount Pictures Corporation is incorporated as a distribution company in New York by
W W Hodkinson, the name Progressive Pictures being replaced because a
company of that name exists in New York. Among producers signing to be distributed by Paramount are
Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky. Through a series
of mergers, Paramount comes under the control of Zukor. |
à 1918 |
| May |
Vitagraph leases a second New York site, the Harris Theatre on 42nd Street. The first
programme contains Vitagraph's first eight-reeler, The Christian. No further moves into exhibition
are made, however, following representations by other exhibitors. |
|
| June 8 |
Worton Hall Studios at Isleworth, west London, goes into production with A Study in
Scarlet, the first film depiction of Sherlock Holmes. The studio head is G B (Bertie) Samuelson, a
successful 25-year-old provincial exhibitor before entering production in 1913. The studio officially
opens on July 1. |
à 1928
Samuelson's mission statement |
| August |
Eugène Lauste is about to sign a one-year £25,000 contract
with two English backers to develop the Phonocinematophone when war breaks out.
[0025] |
|
| November 20 |
Regulation comes into force in the US requiring submission of
photographs with passport applications. |
|
| December 19 |
Use of cel overlay animation is patented in the US by Earl Hurd. |
|
| December 21 |
Premiere of Tillie's Punctured Romance, starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand
and Marie Dressler, the first six-reel comedy feature film. |
|
| l |
Kodachrome is introduced, invented by J G Capstaff. |
|
| l |
UK: probably around 3,500 cinemas are now in operation, only six per cent in chains of 10
screens or more; 25 per cent of film releases are British. The largest cinema circuit is Albany Ward’s
(29 screens), followed by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres (PCT, 18 screens) and George Green’s Scottish
circuit (10 screens). |
|
| l |
In the UK only 400 films are offered with 'exclusivity', compared with 6,648 other releases. |
|
| l |
Windsor Film Company is founded by the Italian film distributor the Marquis Serra, and
opens Windsor Studio in Bromley Road, Catford, south London.
[0019] |
|
| l |
Towers Hall
Studio in Bradford, Yorkshire is taken over by Pyramid Films but does not survive for long.
[0019] |
|
| l |
Erich Pommer founds Decla (Deutsche Eclair) after the outbreak of war ends his
activities as Central European representative of the French company, Eclair. |
|
| l |
Denmark's largest film producer, Nordisk Film Compagnie,
makes over 140 fiction films and nearly 50 non-fiction during the year—an all-time peak for the
company. Within three years production begins to fall dramatically because of war conditions. |
|
| l |
William Fox begins making films through his own production company, Fox Entertainments,
in a rented studio with two glass-covered stages at Fort Lee, New Jersey. The first production is A Fool There Was (1915),
starring Theda Bara, the first of the so-called 'vamp' (vampire) movies. |
|
| l |
Nippon Kinetophone makes several short sound films in
Japan but the company does not survive long. |
|
| l |
Opening of the 3,000-seat Strand movie palace in New York by Samuel ‘Roxy’
Rothapfel. The programmes include vaudeville acts, supported by a 50-piece orchestra. The name Roxy is
subsequently used for cinemas outside and well as within the US. |
|
| l |
Film camera is introduced with registration pins fixed to the gate, allowing perfect
register between successive frames and thereby enabling accuracy in composite shots. |
|
| l |
Canadian Bioscope Company makes the country’s first
feature film, Evangeline, directed by E P Sullivan and W H Cavanaugh. |
|
| l |
Union film studio at Alexandra Palace in north London is used to house Belgian
refugees and then prisoners of war.[0019] |
à 1918 |
| l |
 Gaumont begins construction of a glass-roofed studio in Lime Grove,
Shepherds Bush, west London at a cost of £30,000. The glass studio, build on top of a brick ground floor
layout, measures 27.4m (90 ft) x 12.2m (40 ft) and has a height of 6.1m (20 ft), rising to 9.1m (30ft) at the apex.
[0019, 0031] |
|
| l |
Charles Urban takes over Bushey Lodge at Teddington, west of London, and acquires
nearby Weir House for his Kinemacolor Company. Urban's rights to
Kinemacolor expire within months and, renaming the company Homeland,
Urban moves along the river to Boathouse Inn Studio at Kew Bridge.
[0019] |
|
| l |
First dramatic film shot in
• Bulgaria, Such is the War;
• Colombia: The Life of General Rafael Uribe, directed by the Di Domenico brothers. |
|
| l |
So far, gramophone discs have appeared on 76 record labels in the UK. |
|
| l |
Philips Gloeilampenfabrik establishes a research
laboratory in Eindhoven. |
|
