The Lumière Brothers

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The Lumière brothers pioneered movie photography from their father's factory in Lyon, France.

This is The Lumiere Cinematographe - the first movie camera invented by the Lumière brothers.

Auguste (1862 - 1954) and Louis (1864 - 1948) Lumière were the sons of a wealthy manufacturer who lived in Lyon, France. They were interested in photography. Their father often went to the United States on business and brought them back a very expensive prototype movie camera after one of his trips. In today's money that camera would have cost more than $1 million.

The brothers were fascinated by the movie camera, but horrified at its expense. It was also very hard to use. They decided that they would try to invent a movie camera that was cheap and was easy to use.

It was difficult for the brothers to think of themes for their first movies. They managed to encourage their father's gardener to take part. He had to hose the flowers in the garden. While Auguste turned the movie, Louis stood on the hose. The gardener looked at the hose to see why it was not working and Louis took his foot off. The gardener received a big jet of water in the face. This was the first movie ever made, a comedy. Then Auguste and Louis filmed all the workers leaving their father's factory at the end of the day.

The brothers first showed their films at the Grand Cafe in Paris on 28th December 1895. People were amazed at the new invention. Soon, there were huge queues waiting up to three hourse outside the Café just to see ten minutes of film. These films were made using the Lumière Cinematographe, which they designed and had made by the firm of Jules Carpentier of Paris.

This Lumière movie camera recently sold at auction for $80 000

The Lumière Cinematographe was the first mass produced movie picture camera.

The fame of the Cinematographe quickly spread. It was first shown in London at the Polytechnic in March 1896. It was then shown in all the major cities in Europe and arrived in New York in June 1896.

Although it was 20 000 kilometers away, Australia saw the the first movies within ten months of their first public showing . The Lumiere Brothers quickly sent movie photographers to photograph exotic places in various parts of the world because people wanted to see moving images of distant countries and peoples.

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