Buzz
Modern cinema, shaped by the brilliance of Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick, and others, owes much to the visionary work of earlier filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith. These figures are revered today for laying the foundation of the cinematic art form, but they were also building on the contributions of many lesser-known pioneers who made equally significant strides in the evolution of film.
Though these influential filmmakers are celebrated, many of their achievements were made possible by a generation of often overlooked creators. These pioneers, working quietly in the background, made groundbreaking contributions that are just as vital to the cinematic world as those of the names most people recognize. Here's a look at 10 such figures who helped define the world of film.
10. George A. Smith – The Master of Editing
Film is a unique form of expression, a visual language. But unlike spoken language, which relies on words and grammar, film uses shots and angles—like close-ups and points of view (POV)—to tell a story. While we can't pinpoint the very first person to combine words into sentences, we can say with certainty who created the film language we know today: two men from Brighton, both sporting impressive mustaches.
George Albert Smith, alongside his collaborator James Williamson, helped establish the fundamental vocabulary of cinema. For instance, the 1900 film Grandma’s Reading Glass featured the first-ever POV close-up. While pioneers like Thomas Edison had filmed people up close, Smith and Williamson were the first to realize the narrative power of juxtaposing close-up shots with wider frames.
Smith became known for skillfully combining shots to build a cohesive narrative. In 1899, he edited together three shots to show a train departing a station, along with the action inside a carriage, marking the first example of continuity editing. In 1901, James Williamson adopted this technique for his film Fire!, which dynamically shifted between different points in time—a groundbreaking innovation in an era where most films were limited to static shots of two characters.
Williamson’s 1901 film The Big Swallow was even more audacious. This comedic short broke the fourth wall, with a talkative man accidentally swallowing the camera operator. It defied cinematic conventions before they were even established. However, it wasn’t the duo’s most impressive feat; in 1903, Smith came incredibly close to being credited with the invention of color film.
9. Edwin S. Porter – The Pioneer of 3-D Films
Edwin S. Porter is often considered one of cinema’s greatest imitators. His 1903 film The Life of an American Fireman is frequently regarded as the first to utilize crosscutting, although it bears a striking resemblance to Williamson’s earlier work, Fire! However, there is one groundbreaking innovation that Porter can claim credit for: he is the creator of 3-D films.
Porter’s achievement in 3-D filmmaking occurred in 1915. On June 10 of that year, he showed test footage to a private audience using his new stereoscopic process. Along with scenes from an upcoming film, he presented 3-D images of Niagara Falls, shots of the American countryside, and a scene with people walking along a road.
The audience was ecstatic. Critics in attendance described the experience as the dawn of a new era of realism in cinema. The stunning realism of the 3-D shots moved viewers to tears. This moment marked the beginning of what seemed like a cinematic revolution.
Or at least, it should have been. Unfortunately, 3-D never truly caught on. Even a century later, it continues to suffer from declining sales. Despite his groundbreaking work, Porter never fully capitalized on his invention, although it did earn him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
8. Francis Martin Duncan – Pioneer of Nature Documentaries
In the 1903 film Cheese Mites (pictured above), a seemingly mundane scene of a man eating his lunch while reading a newspaper abruptly shifts to a grainy, long shot of tiny crab-like creatures crawling across some aged Stilton cheese. This quirky premise marked the first-ever nature documentary.
This unintentional milestone was commissioned by Charles Urban and created by his new hire, Francis Martin Duncan. Urban, often considered the world’s first superstar producer, worked with legendary figures from the Lumière brothers to Georges Méliès and George A. Smith and James Williamson.
At the time, Urban was producing scientific films by request when he brought Duncan on board. Duncan had been using a microscope to capture still images of minuscule creatures, and Urban immediately tasked him with filming any small organism they could find. These films were marketed to the public as products of the “Urban-Duncan Micro-Bioscope.”
The results were spectacular. Part of a series called Unseen World, Cheese Mites was screened alongside footage of bees, toads, and Canadian pondweed. This collection of shots amazed contemporary audiences. Thanks in part to the positive reception, filmmakers began to experiment with more intricate nature films, eventually leading to the elaborate BBC documentaries we enjoy today.
There’s an often-repeated, though possibly fictional, story that Cheese Mites became the first film to be banned in the UK. Allegedly, cheese manufacturers feared it would scare the public and lobbied for its censorship.
7. Oscar Micheaux – A Trailblazer in African-American Cinema
The years following 1915 were a challenging time for African-Americans in the United States. D.W. Griffith’s infamous film Birth of a Nation had sparked a dangerous revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and race relations were at a low point. African-American entertainers often found themselves performing alongside white actors in blackface. It was into this difficult environment that author Oscar Micheaux made his impactful entrance into cinema.
Micheaux was a visionary who sought to reveal the true experience of being Black in America to moviegoers. While others had made short films touching on the Black experience, Micheaux aimed for something grander. His goal was to produce the first Black film ever to be shown in a whites-only theater.
Remarkably, that’s exactly what he achieved. Overcoming a range of financial, legal, and technical obstacles, Micheaux swiftly created his low-budget features and personally took them to various cities to arrange screenings. With his charismatic personality, he attracted financial support, got his films shown in Europe, and even managed to get them into 'white' theaters. At the time, this was a monumental feat—one that becomes even more astonishing when you realize he did this while making a total of 44 films.
6. Eugene Pirou And Albert Kirchner: The First Pornographic Film
Whenever a new technology emerges, there’s always someone who finds a way to incorporate it into adult content. Currently, virtual reality and artificial intelligence are being used in this way. But over 120 years ago, cinema itself became part of this trend, thanks to Eugene Pirou and Albert Kirchner.
Pirou and Kirchner, possibly linked through their involvement in the risque postcard industry, were the first to recognize cinema’s potential for eroticism. Less than a year after the Lumière brothers captivated audiences with their film of a train pulling into a station, Pirou and Kirchner unveiled Le Coucher de la Mariee (pictured above). Starring actress Louise Willy, fresh from a saucy stage play, the film consisted of three minutes showcasing a sensual striptease.
The film became an instant sensation. Pirou earned enough money to quickly acquire three additional venues for screenings, and his success was so profound that he persuaded the renowned Georges Méliès to begin making striptease films. This sparked a wave of erotic films in France, known as scenes grivoises d’un caractere piquant, and elsewhere, it became known simply as pornography.
When Pirou took his footage to England, it caused a public outcry. Even more peculiar was the fate of Kirchner. As a direct result of his successful venture into pornography, he ended up directing Christian propaganda films for the Catholic Church.
5. William Dickson: The First Sound Film
If you ask most movie fans to name the first sound film, they’ll likely mention 1927’s The Jazz Singer. While The Jazz Singer was indeed the first widely distributed film to feature sound, it wasn’t the first film to include an audio track. That distinction belongs to William Dickson. More than 30 years before The Jazz Singer made history, Dickson created the Dickson Experimental Sound Film (pictured above).
At the time, Dickson was employed by Edison. (Or rather, Dickson’s inventions were being taken by Edison, who claimed all the credit.) After inventing the first American movie camera, Dickson sought to synchronize sound with his silent films. He filmed himself playing a short tune on a violin in front of an oversized recording device. This became the first instance of sound in film history.
It came close, but not quite. Unlike The Jazz Singer, which successfully synchronized sound with the film, Dickson only managed to record his performance on a separate wax cylinder. At that stage, he seemingly abandoned the project, leaving his attempts to fade into history. It wasn’t until 1998 that the Library of Congress was able to merge the sound and image for the first time.
But there's a twist to this story. Later in life, Dickson claimed that he had actually created a synchronized film and phonograph recording as early as 1889. Perhaps the first sound film is still out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
4. Jean Painleve: Underwater Photography
Jean Painleve led a life that could fill an entire library. A French scientist, educator, filmmaker, and inventor, he once escaped the Nazis by swimming to Spain using his homemade scuba gear. However, it was in cinema that his true talents were revealed. Passionate about marine life and filmmaking, he merged both interests and invented several innovative techniques in the process.
Painleve's work revolutionized both underwater photography and educational science films during his time. In 1928, when he first premiered his scientific film The Stickleback’s Egg: From Fertilization to Hatching, French intellectuals were skeptical, claiming that cinema couldn’t serve as a medium for education. Painleve quickly disproved them.
In the early 1930s, there were no dependable methods for capturing footage of deep-sea creatures. Painleve, however, was the pioneer in developing reliable techniques to film the marvels of the ocean. After mastering these methods, he began documenting everything from sea horses to octopuses.
Painleve was also one of the earliest filmmakers to create 'political' nature documentaries. Similar to how March of the Penguins was controversially edited to advocate for monogamy and traditional Christian beliefs, Painleve purposefully chose to highlight bisexual or hermaphroditic animals to support alternative lifestyles. Unsurprisingly, this stance made him highly unpopular with the invading Nazis.
3. Alice Guy-Blache - The First Fiction Film
Alice Guy-Blache's life was filled with groundbreaking accomplishments. She was the first woman to direct a feature film, the first to head a major film studio, the first to create a feature-length biblical epic, and the first to direct an entirely African-American cast in a film. Despite all these remarkable feats, her greatest achievement was becoming the first person to make a fiction film.
In 1896, the world was still absorbing the impact of the Lumières’ first film screening. Companies across Europe and the US were rushing to launch their own movie cameras, leading to intense competition. At the time, films were primarily 'actualities,' showing everyday life, like trains arriving at stations. When her boss, Leon Gaumont, asked Alice Guy-Blache to showcase the potential of his company's new camera, he probably expected her to capture something similar. Instead, Guy-Blache went on to do something truly revolutionary.
With her camera positioned in a cabbage patch, the young director captured the surreal image of a woman 'magically' pulling naked babies from the vegetables. While The Cabbage Patch Fairy (shown above) may seem odd and unremarkable by today's standards, it was a groundbreaking step in the evolution of cinema.
As noted by the Encyclopedia Britannica, Guy-Blache’s quirky short film likely predates the fantasy works of Georges Melies by about three years. In essence, every iconic fiction film you’ve ever seen—from Inception to The Godfather—can be traced back to this one pivotal moment. Not bad for a director who remains largely unknown to most of us.
2. The Skladanowsky Brothers - The First Commercial Film
In a more just world, the Skladanowsky brothers would be household names. Often overshadowed by figures like Edison and the Lumière brothers (the Lennon and McCartney of early cinema), they were nonetheless pivotal innovators. The brothers' most unique achievement is being the first people to show a film to a paying audience.
In 1895, the two German brothers were earning money by presenting 'magic lantern' shows in Berlin. At some point, they decided to experiment with moving images, leading them to develop their makeshift camera/projector called the Bioskop. Though rudimentary, it was capable of producing films of sufficient quality for a public showing. On November 1, 1895, they screened nine six-second films to a paying audience in a Berlin theater. One of those films, The Boxing Kangaroo, is shown above.
If you're familiar with early cinema, you may have noticed that November 1 predates the Lumiere brothers' more famous screening by several weeks. However, since the Lumieres had already held several private showings throughout the year, they are remembered as the inventors of cinema, rather than the Skladanowskys. The Lumieres' superior system also led theaters that had booked the Skladanowskys to cancel in favor of the French duo. While the Lumieres became internationally renowned, the Skladanowskys faded from history.
1. Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon - British Documentary
British documentaries, with their focus on working-class lives, have a distinct character compared to their American counterparts. Figures like Humphrey Jennings and Lindsay Anderson spent the 1930s and 1940s producing films with class-conscious and often political themes that continue to shape documentary filmmaking in the UK. However, they weren't the first to explore ordinary lives on film. As early as 1900, Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon were already capturing the everyday lives of working people for a living.
Mitchell and Kenyon, part showmen, part filmmakers, had a straightforward business approach. They would travel to a bustling town, set up their camera and projection equipment in a public area, and film as many people as possible. Afterward, they would distribute flyers all over town, inviting locals to come and watch themselves on screen. That evening, curious townspeople would gather at their projection booth, and the duo would make a substantial profit.
This approach wasn't entirely original. The concept of 'factory-gate films' had been in circulation since 1895, with Cecil Hepworth practicing something similar in southern England. However, Mitchell and Kenyon’s focus on everyday northern communities was uniquely aligned with British documentary tradition. Their work laid the foundation for the documentary boom of the 1930s, which continues to influence UK filmmaking, while also providing future generations with a window into a long-lost world.
