Dickson and Edison’s original 35mm to 70mm, providing a clearer picture. In order to showlonger motion pictures without the film ripping, the Lathams created a small loop of excess filmpreceding the gate, easing the tension from the feeding reel. The Lathams patented this and theidea is still used in modern 35mm cameras and projectors, known as Latham’s Loop (Mast andKawin 19).Now facing directcompetition in the US,Edison doubled his effortsto keep pace. InSeptember 1895,Thomas Armat demonstratedhis projectionmachine, thePhantoscope, cocreatedwith CharlesFrancis Jenkins, at anexposition in Georgia.Informed of Jenkins’sand Armat’s invention,Edison reached anagreement with the twomen which allowedEdison to manufacturea projection machine under his name incorporating the other inventors’ devices. The projectorwas called the Vitascope and premiered on April 23, 1896, in New York City (Fulton 28-30).Edison’s premiere program, although sufficiently promoted and a financial success, did not havethe same impact on its spectators as the films of the Lumières. Edison relied on the same films hehad used for his Kinetoscopes. The one film that received attention was “A Rough Sea atDover,” an English film shot by Birt Acres and supplied by Robert W. Paul, that again causedsome audience members to react with excitement. From this moment, Edison used his “BlackMaria” studio less, sending his filmmakers to shoot actualities similar to those of the Lumièresand Acres (Sklar 30-31).
The movie industry was born in these years, but the ideas of what the industry could and would
become had not yet been completely conceived. Films were still a novelty and an experiment.
However, with the advent of the now available Cinématographe and Vitascope, theaters opened
across Europe and the US, and filmmakers began to create new forms of what would soon be understood
to be not only a new form of art but a profitable one
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