Two seconds. Four people. The entire birth of cinema. No pressure.
The earliest surviving motion-picture film, and believed to be one of the very first moving images ever created, was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera. It was taken on paper-based photographic film in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley family house in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire (UK), on 14 October 1888. The film shows Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince’s son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley (Le Prince’s mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley, and Miss Harriet Hartley walking around in circles, laughing to themselves, and staying within the area framed by the camera. Roundhay Garden Scene is often associated with a recording speed of around 12 frames per second and runs for about 2 to 3 seconds.
Direction
Le Prince invented motion pictures and immediately made people walk in circles.
Cinematography
Paper film, 12fps, and somehow still better framed than some Marvel movies.
Director
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 12fps estimate might be wrong—some scholars think it was shot at 7fps and simply looks faster due to hand-cranking variations. We will literally never know.
Le Prince was supposed to patent his camera in America but vanished from a train. His body was never found, and his family went bankrupt fighting Edison's patents. Cinema's origin story is cursed.
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