Key architects in the evolution of the motion picture industry, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière established themselves as a European counterpart to the likes of American innovators WK Laurie Dickson and Thomas Edison, laying the groundwork for the development of the cinema both as a means of artistic expression as well as a form of public entertainment. Natives of Besancon, France, Auguste (born October 19, 1862) and Louis (born October 5, 1864) were pushed into exploring motion pictures in 1894 by their father, a painter who during a recent voyage to the United States had been witness to a showing of Edison's Kinetoscope and who challenged his sons to merge moving images with a means of projection.
The Lumières began their research by examining the work of Edison and Dickson, whose cameras were stationary and extremely heavy. Additionally, the Kinetoscope's films could only be viewed through a peephole, by one person at a time. The brothers' aim was not only to successfully combine the camera and projector, but also economize them. By 1895, they had devised the Cinematographe, a hand-cranked camera which trimmed the frame speed of the Kinetoscope from 48 to just 16 while also using less film. Even more impressively, the Cinematographe was a self-contained unit complete with a projector; better still, it was light enough to allow the Lumières to move about freely, allowing them to escape the confines of the studio to explore the world at large.
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