- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWilliam Kennedy-Laurie Dickson
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Born in France to British parents, William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson stayed in that country until age 19, when he, his mother and sisters (their father had died sometime before) returned to Great Britain. Once there, Dickson--in an early indication of his lifelong fascination with science and mechanics--began a correspondence with Thomas A. Edison in the US, asking for employment, but was turned down. Eventually Dickson's family moved to the US, and several years afterward Dickson actually did land a job with Edison, and soon proved to be a trusted and valuable associate. He worked closely with Edison on the development of both the phonograph and, closer to Dickson's heart, the motion picture (it was Dickson who eventually decided that motion picture film should be 35mm wide; he also developed the emulsion process used in the film).
In 1889, while Edison was on a trip to Europe, Dickson set up a building in which to conduct his "photographic experiments", the forerunner of the first motion picture studio. In 1890 he and his chief mechanical assistant, Eugène Lauste, showed the results of their experiments, produced on a cylindrical system called the Kinetoscope: a short film called Monkeyshines, No. 1 (1890), featuring one of his assistants. Improvements on this system continued, and in 1891 patents were filed on an improved camera called the Kinetograph. Edison's plans to exhibit the new system at the Chicago World Exposition necessitated not only the production of many new machines but also films that could be shown on them, and the result was the building of a film studio at Edison's laboratory in West Orange, NJ, which was nicknamed "The Black Maria" because it was constructed of wood covered with tar-paper, resembling the police wagons of that era which were known by that nickname.
However, even with Dickson's perfecting of a new version of the Kinetograph camera, not enough films were completed to be shown at Edison's planned exhibition. Dickson, however, did manage to persuade many stage and vaudeville stars to appear in films shot at the West Orange studio, and in the following years the studio was a beehive of activity, with some of the biggest names of the era making short films there. However, friction between Dickson and an executive appointed to oversee Edison's businesses soon broke into open conflict, resulting in Dickson's angrily leaving Edison's employ in 1895. He then joined forces with two businessmen in the development of a way to exhibit films differently than Edison's peepshow-style Kinetoscope. The system eventually developed into what was called the Mutoscope, and the camera that was developed to take pictures for the Mutoscope was called the Biograph. This in turn developed into a filming and projection system that retained the Biograph name.
In 1896 Dickson and three partners began the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. (often referred to as just "Biograph", and generally considered to be the first major American motion picture studio) to produce and distribute films. Dickson produced and directed many of Biograph's early films, but by the turn of the century he had taken over management of the company's European branch, headquartered in England. He died there in 1935.- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com
- ParentsJames Waite DicksonElizabeth Kennedy Laurie
- RelativesAntonia Dickson(Sibling)
- Was the director and star of the very first surviving sound film, Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894).
- Scott Smith's book "The Film 100", which ranks the 100 most important people of the first 100 years of cinema, ranks Dickson at #1 on the list. The reasons given are simple. He was a photographer who was fascinated with the idea of making photographs move in the fashion of magic lantern drawings. He sailed to America, ingratiated himself to Thomas A. Edison and convinced Edison to allow him to work on his dream. He collected for Edison's company the patents for cellulose film and the emulsion for that film. He then developed the movie camera and oversaw the Eastman Company's development of movie film. He also decided that movie film should be 35mm wide. In other words, he ranks as the most important person in motion picture history because he invented them.
- On September 22, 1985, co-founded the K-M-C-D Syndicate, a production company, in Chicago, with his partners Elias B. Koopman, a businessman, and Henry N. Marvin, and Herman Casler, two inventors. On December 21st 1895, the syndicate was reorganized as the American Mutoscope Company, later to become American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., popularly known as American Biograph or just Biograph. Over the next two decades, many of the biggest names of the silent screen would get their first movie jobs at Biograph, including D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Blanche Sweet, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, and Florence Lawrence. The company is the oldest movie company in America, and continues to perpetuate the dreams and doings of Dickson and his partners.
- Some books on the early days of the movie industry incorrectly list him as two separate people (William Kennedy and Laurie Dickson).
- Pictured on one of a set of four 32¢ US commemorative postage stamps honoring "Pioneers of Communication", issued 22 February 1996. Also honored in the set are Eadweard Muybridge, Ottmar Mergenthaler (inventor of the Linoype machine), and Frederick Eugene Ives (inventor of the halftone photogravure printing process).
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