Earliest Extant Film: Roundhay Garden Scene of 14 October,

Le Prince
quite likely, never knew the importance of his work or the impact these
two cinematographic episodes of common life would have on the world.
He did understand however, that he was one of many men working on the
very same thing during the very same decade. Both Leeds
and Roundhay were experimental films, taken during
the research and development stage of his work. None of his machines
( the LPCC 16-lens camera, the LPCCP MKL single-lens
camera, the LPCCP MKLL single-lens camera
and the LPP 3-lens projector) were anywhere close to
being perfected, but were all successfully patented in the United States,
England and France between 1888 and 1890.
The one exception was the LPCCP MKL single-lens camera
which was refused patent in the United States in 1888. These are the
most important cinematic events simply because they are the first ever
made using a continuous strip (paper or celluloid)
of individually photographed frames that were projected in sequence
providing fluid motion, in history. Le Prince's single lens
camera [MK2] 1888, identified by his son Adolphe
as the

Influenced
By Other Pioneers

The Le Prince family knew Louis Daguerre and considered him
a friend. Daguerre had offered Louis some of his photographic
know-how in 1875. Louis Le Prince as well had seen much of the
work done by Eadweard Muybridge for Stanford. Le Prince wanted
to involve himself in the possibility of creating motion using
photographs.

By early 1888 Le Prince invited carpenter Frederic Mason to
make camera bodies, and James Longley to make the working parts.
By that summer Le Prince had designed and constructed two single-lens
cameras, one photographing at the speed of 12 frames per second
and the other at twenty fps. He takes pictures in the family
garden and at the bridge.

First using non-perforated paper roll film from Eastman, he
later began using celluloid due to non-stability of the paper
film in the machines. Le Prince also designed and constructed
a separate projector consisting of three bands, three lenses
and a Maltese Cross.

In his patent
for the single-lens camera (MK2) of 1888, Le Prince
identified the machine as a . It photographed the now-famous scenes on 60mm
paper film at the rate of twelve frames per second (Roundhay)
and twenty frames per second (Leeds Bridge) according to Adolphe
Le Prince in later commentaries and who was present at both events and
seen on-screen in one.

1889

LOUIS AIME AUGUSTIN LE PRINCE (1841 - 1890)

Le Prince uses sensitized
roll Celluloid for his Cinematograph.

Le Prince

THE HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF CINEMATOGRAPHY
An illustrated Chronological History of the Development of Motion Pictures Covering 2500 Years Leading to the Discovery of Cinematography in the 1800's

http://precinemahistory.net

-- Paul Burns