Lumière, Auguste Marie 1862-1954 and Louis Jean (1864-1948)

French brothers who pioneered cinematography. In 1895 they patented their cinematograph, a combined camera and projector operating at 16 frames per second, and opened the world's first cinema in Paris to show their films. The Lumières' first films were short static shots of everyday events such as La Sortie des usines Lumière 1895 about workers leaving a factory and L'Arroseur arrosé 1895, the world's first fiction film. Production was abandoned in 1900. The Lumière brothers, born in Besançon, joined their father's photographic firm in Lyon. They contributed several minor improvements to the developing process, including in 1880 the invention of a better type of dry plate. In 1894, their father purchased an Edison Kinetoscope (a peephole cineviewer). The brothers borrowed some of the ideas and developed their all-in-one machine, the cinematograph. To advertise their success they filmed delegates arriving at a French photographic congress and 48 hours later projected the developed film to a large audience. Auguste went on to do medical research. Louis invented a photorama for panoramic shots and in 1907 a colour-printing process using dyed starch grains. Later he experimented with stereoscopy and three-dimensional films.