The Lumière brothers are credited with the development and emergence of cinema, but strived to discover and invent things that would change the world.
We toured the Lumière Museum which is housed inside the mansion of Antoine and Joséphine Lumière. Antoine would lead the family’s factory that produced cameras and photography plates, whole their two oldest sons, Auguste and Louis, would develop many of the cameras and film equipment themselves. Auguste and Louis, (not the only sons, but) known as the famous “Lumière brothers,” had high aspirations of inventing new products that would help others. For example, Auguste worked on bandage dressing to help speed up wound recovery, while some of Louis’s other projects included some of the first prosthetics and early corrective eye-lenses.
The brothers would solve the problems of creating motion of projected images and capturing color in photography. The brothers were fond of new technology and their inventions often came about from the reapplying the concepts of other innovations in a creative way.
After our pre-reading and site visit, I am left wondering: How would technology/society look different if the Lumière brothers had neglected moving pictures and instead focused on other areas? (Personally, I would assume others would eventually find the same scientific principles, but the method of problem solving and order of development used would probably look different as it is more related to creativity).
The question you ask at the end is definitely a big thing to think about. We see films and cinemas as everyday things, but with some of the powerful messages or just simply good times these have created for us, the slightest change to the history of film making could have made a world of difference for us today. Evwn if others picked it up, there is no guareentee it would have been the same.
ReplyDeleteI found it really interesting to find out about how large the Lumiere family is. I never really realized how many siblings the famous Lumiere brothers have. I think it is interesting how even though two of the brothers were the most famous and got the only attention the entire family was very close together and didn't seem to resent one another despite only part of the family being famous.
ReplyDeleteI somewhat wonder what would happen if the Lumiere family had adapted technology slightly differently. What would happen if they had the technology of the days "modern" analog electronics while developing their film equipment? Or how the preserved film library they have today would be different if they had incorporated some sort of tourbillon into the crank power mechanism to ensure film was being exposed at a constant frame rate instead of however-fast-the-camera-operator-was-cranking?
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