National Short Film Day was created to honour and celebrate the birth of “film” as an art form. On this day in 1895, The Lumiere Brothers revealed their collection of short films projected in front of a public audience for the very first time. Auguste and Louis gathered 33 paying customers at the Grand Cafe in Paris, France, and presented a series of 10 short films. Each film was only about 50 seconds long, but utterly captivated their audience! Until that fateful December day, there had never been anything like it.
The Lumiere brothers were pioneers of photographic and early motion-picture cinematic equipment. In fact, their first projector was called the “Cinematographe” (based off of the Kinetoscope concept) and is where we derived the word “cinema!” The first ever motion picture captured by the brothers was titled “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory” and is the earliest known video recording. The brothers captured this short movie 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! They also pioneered the first newsreel and documentaries, thus popularizing a very modern way of delivering information. They even sent a crew of cameraman across the globe to capture additional footage as well as show their work to new audiences. One might be able to call them the great great great grandfathers of Youtube and TikTok, if you will.
Hard to believe that this incredible event over 120 years ago spawned one of the most popular forms of media entertainment. Yes, that’s right, you have the Lumiere Brothers to thank for all of your favourite car, racing, and automotive blockbusters!
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 HBO Max, 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!
