Atlantic Hyundai Blog | A Celebration of Short Film

National Short Film Day was created to honour and celebrate the birth of “film.” We’ve come a long way since then from short films to major motion pictures and blockbuster films, and the industry continues to grow by leaps and bounds. We can even watch movies on the road in our car now! Pretty cool, if we may say so. But do you know how movies got their start? You’ll have the Lumiere Brothers to thank for that! Learn all about it on today’s blog, and check out our picks for cool car themed short films!

On this day in 1895, The Lumiere Brothers premiered their collection of short films in front of a public audience for the very first time. 33 guests joined Auguste and Louis at the Grand Cafe in Paris, France, to view the first ever series of 10 short films. Each film was only about 50 seconds long, but their duration hardly mattered as they all truly captivated the audience, as the likes of it had never been seen before!

The brothers captured their movies using their Lumiere apparatus: a single camera used for photography and projecting moving images at just 16 frames per second. They used this device to capture daily life in France, creating more than 40 films in 1896 alone! The first ever motion picture captured by the brothers was titled “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory” and is the earliest known video recording. Yes, that’s right, you have the Lumiere Brothers to thank for all of your favourite car, racing, and automotive blockbusters! In fact, their first projector was called the “Cinematographe” (based off of the Kinetoscope concept) and is where we derived the word “cinema!”

They sent a crew of cameramen across the globe to capture additional footage as well as show their work to new audiences, and helped create the first newsreels and documentary films! Without their hard work, we wouldn’t have access to nescasts or historical documentation on film. You know, come to think of it, one might even consider them to be the great great great grandfathers of Youtube and TikTok!

We’ve come a long way since then from short films to major motion pictures and blockbuster films, and the industry continues to grow by leaps and bounds. We can even watch movies on the road in our car now! Pretty cool, if we may say so.

If you’re craving more Short Film content, we recommend browsing streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Each of these services is host to a litany of short films in multiple genres! In addition, you can also find incredible content for free on sites like YouTube or Vimeo, and even TikTok!