Chronicles of Editing (I): The Birth of Film and Editing (Georges Méliès and the Brighton School)

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On December 28, 1895, at the Grand Café in Paris, France, the Lumière brothers publicly screened a moving image called Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (La sortie de l’usine Lumière à Lyon, 1895) using a machine they had developed named the “cinematograph.” From today’s perspective, we can only call it a clip, because it was far too short—just over one minute.

In Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, the image shows a group of workers leaving the factory after work—some on bicycles, some on foot, all in various everyday states. It is a natural, realistic scene; these workers look as ordinary as people today. But for audiences of that time it was overwhelmingly shocking, as if a door to a new world had opened—because they had never imagined that such ordinary sights from daily life could one day come alive on a screen.

Right after that, the Lumière brothers screened another film, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (L’arrivée d’un train à La Ciotat, 1896). The impact of this work was even more dramatic. On the screen, a train roars in as if it’s about to burst right out of the frame. Contemporary audiences thought they would truly be run over, and many panicked and fled in terror. This day is regarded as the birth of cinema.

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is now widely cited as the first film in the world. Of course, there is still debate over which of these two “films” is the “first film” in the strict sense. But this debate is not particularly meaningful, especially from the standpoint of editing. Whichever one you choose, neither involves editing; in essence they are single long takes, mere recordings, without narrative or plot.

Just as the Lumière brothers were achieving great success pioneering public film exhibitions in France, the very next year British filmmaker Robert Paul developed a camera called the “Animatograph,” designed to compete with the Lumières’ projection system. The surviving machine, known as “No. 1 Cinematograph Camera,” was the first camera with reverse movement capability, allowing multiple exposures on the same strip of film. In fact, as early as April 1895, Robert Paul had already begun consciously making films with a hint of “narrative” color (such as The Derby 1895 (1895), Footpads (1895), The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race (1895), etc.). Still, their content remained single long shots and pure documentation. Unlike the Lumières, however, Paul’s images displayed a conscious effort at “narration” and more deliberate composition.

At the time, film projection undeniably triggered a technological craze and began spreading to other countries. But the novelty soon wore off and audiences grew bored, questioning why they should pay to see images they could see in everyday life. This skepticism, combined with the stagnation of the long-take approach, accelerated the emergence of editing.

In 1898, Paul made Come Along Do! (1898), the first film in cinema history to feature the joining of shots—two shots connected to narrate a single action.

In the first shot, an elderly couple eat lunch outside an art exhibition and then enter along with the crowd. The second shot is a still image showing what they are doing inside. This marks the early sign of film editing. Although it contains only two shots, it shows that the creator had begun to develop a sense of “continuous narration.” Paul’s use of a still image to connect the action was highly avant-garde.

Let’s rewind to the day Arrival of a Train was screened. Among the audience members watching that film, one person seemed to glimpse far more creative possibilities for cinema. This man was Georges Méliès, often called the world’s first film director.

Georges Méliès lived a multifaceted life. While working at his family’s factory, he never stopped pursuing his interest in stage magic. After his father retired, Méliès sold his shares in the family business to his two brothers and used that money, along with his wife’s dowry, to buy the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. After some modest renovations, he officially began his career as a magician. This background as a magician would later help him transform film editing from a technical process into a genuine art form.

After watching the Lumière brothers’ premiere from the audience, Méliès immediately tried to buy one of their machines for 10,000 francs, believing his magic show urgently needed such a device. Unsurprisingly, the Lumières refused in order to monopolize the projection technology and protect their patent. They also turned down even higher offers from a wax museum and a music hall in Paris. Méliès then began searching everywhere for a “projector.”

One day, Jehanne D’Alcy, a French actress who was then Méliès’s mistress and would later become his second wife, casually mentioned that on a tour of England she had seen Robert Paul’s “Animatograph” camera. Méliès immediately rushed to London, found Paul, and bought a machine. He also purchased an animated film and several shorts from Paul. After that, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin incorporated film screenings into its regular program, and Méliès officially began his work in filmmaking.

After studying the design of the Animatograph, Méliès modified the machine so it could be used as a motion-picture camera.

Left: the cinematograph camera invented by the Lumière brothers; right: the “Animatograph No. 1” camera developed by Robert Paul

In the autumn of 1896, Méliès was filming a bus emerging from a tunnel in Paris when his camera suddenly jammed. When he restarted it, the bus had vanished and a hearse had appeared in its place. Méliès realized that this “stop-camera” effect could create “special effects.” Today we might call it something like a “jump cut.” This was exactly the kind of trickery magic performances required. Méliès immediately put the discovery into practice: in his films he would frequently keep the camera fixed while changing objects within the frame, creating marvelous sights where things suddenly disappear or transform. As a magician, his film work was almost entirely built on illusions and tricks. He went on to pioneer visual transitions such as fades and dissolves.

However, because Méliès’s thinking was rooted in stage performance, all of his storytelling used a single fixed camera position from the same angle. No matter how many shots he filmed or how many cuts he made, the viewpoint never changed; at that time there was no concept of shot scale. Interestingly, in the more than 500 films Méliès made, he never once moved the camera. This again shows how his creative approach remained confined within the framework of the stage. Take his groundbreaking 1902 science-fiction film A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, 1902) as an example. Méliès poured enormous effort into designing sets and changing positions within the frame, yet never considered moving the camera and then editing the footage afterward—a method that, from today’s perspective, would have achieved twice the result with half the effort.

Even though Méliès advanced cinema with his editing-based special effects, his works did not have fully developed narratives; they were primarily visual pieces. While Méliès was laying the groundwork for visual editing, the Brighton School in England was gradually developing an awareness of continuity editing—that is, narrative editing. Two key figures were George Albert Smith and James Williamson.

In 1900, Smith made As Seen Through a Telescope (1900). The main shot shows a street scene in which an elderly man uses a telescope to observe a young man tying his girlfriend’s shoelaces in the distance. Then we cut to a close-up of the girl’s feet, framed in a black circular mask, and finally back to the continuation of the original scene. In this film, editing introduces changes in shot scale and reveals an early awareness of shot breakdown.

The slightly voyeuristic, mysterious element in As Seen Through a Telescope and the use of close-ups would later be embedded in Alfred Hitchcock’s creative thinking.

Even more notable is James Williamson’s Attack on a China Mission (1900), shot around the same time. The story takes place in a garden, where a force of British sailors defeats the Boxers and rescues a missionary’s family.

In film history, this is the first work to feature shot/reverse-shot editing, and it also drew attention to the 180-degree axis rule.

In 1901, Williamson’s films Stop Thief! (1901) and Fire! (1901) displayed even more obvious signs of editing. In The Big Swallow (1901), he even experimented with extreme close-ups, using editing tricks to enhance the narrative.

In The Big Swallow, Williamson experimented with close-ups and extreme close-ups to examine their impact on storytelling. This bold use of shot scale reveals an advanced sense of editing.

The Brighton School’s continual exploration of how editing and shot scale influence narrative made them crucial figures in the development of film editing.

— Across the Atlantic, another key figure was also beginning to drive editing forward: American director Edwin S. Porter. Porter’s emergence signaled that editing was formally entering the narrative stage.