Edison Studios

The rise and fall of the Edison film production business was swift when compared to the longevity of the existing majors; it survived just 30 years before Thomas Edison withdrew from the industry he founded, unwilling to finance the feature-length films necessary to survive in the face of fierce competition. For much of his time in the film business, Edison had attempted to monopolise the industry through fair means and foul and retired from it with the world believing he was the ‘father of the moving picture.’

From 1888, Edison employee W.K.L. Dickson developed the kinetograph, a camera that would record a series of images on perforated celluloid that could be viewed through the peephole of a device he also invented, called the kinetoscope. This device was first demonstrated on 20thMay 1891. The first film publicly shown on the device – on 9th May 1893, was Blacksmith Scene, which was filmed at Edison’s new purpose-built studio – the world’s first – on the grounds of his laboratory complex in West Orange, New Jersey. Nicknamed the Black Maria because of its resemblance to the police vans of the same name, it was a tarpaper-covered building with a glass-windowed roof and a revolving base to allow optimum use of the sunlight. The camera inside was mounted on a pedestal on tracks to allow movement. Built under Dickson’s supervision, the studio cost $637.67. It was there that Edison manufactured his Vitascope projector, after purchasing the patent for its design from Thomas Armat.

A key staff member who enabled the Edison Studio’s rapid growth was Edwin S. Porter. He was given responsibility for shooting the films, a responsibility that evolved into the position of director as the two roles diverged. Porter developed the idea of telling a dramatic story by editing together various scenes, first with The Life of an American Fireman(1903), and then with the groundbreaking The Great Train Robbery, a film that transformed cinema. Movies had been relegated to the status of ‘chasers,’ a means of chasing stragglers from music hall theatres between shows, but The Great Train Robbery revitalised public interest in the medium.

By 1904, narrative films accounted for 85% of Edison’s sales. By then, Edison had moved production to a glass-roofed rooftop studio at 41 East 21st Street in Manhattan. The Black Maria was closed in January 1901 and demolished in 1903. The Manhattan studio was replaced by a large studio complex on Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, New York.

Thomas Edison played no part in the making of the films released under his name; production was overseen by a succession of general managers. In December 1908, Edison established the Motion Picture Patents Company, an organisation made up of the leading film producers, in an attempt to control the industry and drive smaller ‘independent’ companies out of business. The Trust, as it came to be known, also sought to control distribution through the General Film Company. After many legal battles, both the MPPC and General Film Company were found to be in breach of antitrust laws and were dissolved.

The Trust had resisted the development of longer-form films, insisting that those companies falling within its control limit a film’s running time, ideally to two-reels. With the dissolution of the Trust, the Edison Studio suddenly found itself competing with an explosion of feature releases, both domestic and foreign. Edison began producing features from 1915, but the break-up of the Trust, the loss of key foreign markets because of the war and its lack of star names proved to be insurmountable difficulties for the ailing studio. The studio limped along until early 30th March 1918, when Edison, seeing no possibility of any further return on his investment, sold the business to Lincoln & Parker Film Co. of Massachusetts.

In its thirty-year lifespan, the studio produced approximately 1200 films, around 54 of which were features.