Lumière brothers

Auguste Lumière

(credit: Boyer—H. Roger-Viollet)

French inventors. August Lumière (b. Oct. 19, 1862, Besançon, France—d. April 10, 1954, Lyon) and his brother Louis Lumière (b. Oct. 5, 1864, Besançon, France—d. June 6, 1948, Bandol) were sons of a painter turned photographer and early excelled in science. In 1882 Louis developed a method of making photographic plates, and by 1894 the brothers' factory was producing 15 million plates a year. They worked on improving Thomas Alva Edison's Kinetoscope and patented their combination movie camera and projector, the Cinématographe, in 1895. Their film La Sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumière (“Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory”), which they showed to a paying audience in Paris in 1895, is considered to be the first motion picture. In 1896 the brothers, led by Louis, made more than 40 films recording everyday French life. They made the first newsreels, sending crews all over the world to shoot new material and show their films. In addition to the films he directed, Louis served as producer for some 2,000 films. The brothers also made basic innovations in colour photography.