Brook Trout Fishing

Brook Trout Fishing (1902)

Biograph film showing a man catching a fish and netting it.

Automobile Race for the Vanderbilt Cup (1904)

Biograph shorts is a pretty interesting one if you enjoy car races or just watching very old cars work. Once again, due the technology of the time we get the race from various cameras, which is a bit uneven.

Assembling a Generator, Westinghouse Works (1904)

Biograph short shows some men putting a generator together. Not very safe equipment if I may say so. G.W. Bitzer on camera.

Assembling and Testing Turbines (1904)

Biograph short shot at the same time as the above film but this time we see (shock) just what the title says. Bitzer on camera again.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Parade (1902)

Biograph film showing a parade down Fifth Avenue with cowboys, indians and more.

I've seen two or three short films of anglers at play from this period, and this one shot by Frederick Armitage has something in it that the others haven't: a second person.

Otherwise, it's much the same, with the angler casting and reeling in a fish, which causes me to wonder why Armitage decided to place another human on the screen. At first I thought this was going to be a comedy short in which the observer plays a trick on the fisher, perhaps stealing his catch. That doesn't happen. Instead, he enters the screen, and watches the action. This changes the composition and forces the viewer tosplit his attention. Surely this is not a good thing.

I'm going to conclude that the presence of a viewer changes the film ina sort of Planckian manner, and call it an experiment gone wrong.