Dickson Greeting

This is of course not the first film in history and presumably the Edison Manufacturing Company did dozens of test before actually shooting this and of course also shot "Monkeyshines, No. 1", 2 and 3 prior to this but it is the first film that was shown to a wide audience and press, at The National Federation of Women's Clubs, through a motion picture exhibition device the Kinetoscope, an invention of mostly William K.L. Dickson that let a strip of several images passing front of an illuminated lens behind a spinning wheel. Therefor this 3 second short plays an important part in movie history, as being the very first to be shown to an audience.

The motions are perfect, though because of the shooting speed it all seems to occur in slow motion. There are no jerky movements and also the images is surprisingly clear. The film was shot with a Kinetograph, another William K.L. Dickson invention. He therefor is also credited as the inventor of the motion picture camera. The color white is shiny and the less dark colors of Dickson's clothing distinct itself well from the pitch black background used to film this. You can clearly see Dickson's face and also the more detailed look of his hair.

Still I feel they could had done a bit more with the movement in this film. Show the audience some more of the possibilities of moving images. Instead now basically all Dickson does, is bring his hat from his one hand to the other, as a sort of wave toward the audience and he moves his head slightly, supposedly as a small nod toward the audience but that isn't all too clear to see.

In a way this movie is a great metaphor for William K.L. Dickson and Thomas A. Edison literal greeting and welcoming us to the world of film. It perhaps provides the movie with just as much impact and significance, as it did 116 years ago.

8/10

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It's very fascinating to see the invention of the moving picture in the 1890's, and the short reel shows it off. However, there's certainly more interesting short reels of its time, such as Newark Athlete and the Blacksmith Scene which is certainly more interesting.

Dickson Greeting (1891)

**** (out of 4)

This Edison short was at one time believed to have been the first movie ever made in America but it turned out to be the second behind Edison's three versions of Monkeyshines. In this film, running eighteen seconds, we see a man facing the camera with a hat in one hand and moving that hat to the other hand. This might not sound like much today but this is a very important film in the history of movies because this is the film that showed people moving pictures were possible. The act of the man moving the hate is done six times with three separate shots. This film is also important as we get a visual image of Dickson who is a silent partner in creating this new technology. There's nothing here that's going to blow people away but from a historic viewpoint there aren't many films more important.

After the previous year of filmmaking for the Edison company, in which they had innovated the Kinetograph and used to shoot the first movies in America (that is, the first attempted ones), the famous producer Thomas Alva Edison finally proved himself successful at improving the quality of the picture in order to produce a much clearer film. Continuing to experiment in 1891, his camera tests were now much more viewable, and with much smoother movement. While I would disagree that this film "Dickson Greeting" was really the first commercially exhibited film (since when he showed it to the women's convention, it was merely a private showing and was not publicly shown) it does show how Edison continued to explore filmed movement with his camera. In the same year, he would also record more moving subjects with the camera, and even create a comical variation on "Men Boxing" (in "Monkey and Another, Boxing").

"Dickson Greeting", like all the earliest Edison movies, was filmed what I suppose is the inventor's laboratory and shows a medium closeup of the great man W. K. L. Dickson himself, Edison's right-hand man, greeting the audience with a gesture of his hat. (Why his eyes are closed, I have no idea). Because of how early it was in the filmmaking industry, I think it's also safe to say that this is the first instance in motion pictures to have an actor break the wall (although in the Monkeyshines shorts the factory worker posing could have been looking at the camera and we'd have no way of knowing). As Dickson moves his hat and greets the audience, he thus involves the audience in the action, a concept later to be explored by Cecil Hepworth and James Williamson.

Edison would later experiment with various other subjects on film: a certain James C. Duncan smoking before the camera, a Newark athlete swinging Indian clubs, etc. For now, however, he was merely trying to find good subjects that moved to test the boundaries of his camera and would have to experiment a couple more years before introducing his invention to the general public.

It is wrong credited as a first movie filmed in United States. First movies filmed in US are Monkeyshines 1, Monkeyshines 2 and third part of Monkeyshines which is losted and you will not see it ever, unfortunately.

I read somewhere that is first film which is shown in public, and i think that this fact is true. Quality of this movie is lot better than quality of 2 parts of Monkeyshines and we have clear view on person standing in front of camera. We can clearly see his face and it is positive side of this movie. Negative side was a fact that we can't see anything interesting and it is pretty much boring.