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Member LoginThe First Australian Cinemcamera
Australia’s first cinecamera went under the auctioneer’s hammer in Melbourne in May 19987. It was sold to an undisclosed buyer for A$18,400. This camera, a Lumiere Cinematographe was used to film scenes of the 1896 Melbourne Cup and this is the earliest surviving motion picture record taken in Australia. This camera not only marks the dawn of motion picture down under, but also illustrates that, despite the tyranny of distance, Australia embraced this new medium within ten months of its first public exhibition. Until now this camera had been part of a South Australian stills photographer, Ken Crane’s private collection who has been collecting cameras since the 1940’s.
Primitive, flickering images shot with this camera are of immense importance as the first historical documents of their kind. This particular camera is also a potent symbol of the fact that half the social history of European settlement in Australia is, to some extent at least, recorded on motion picture film.
A Brief History of the Lumiere Cinematographe
True cinematographic films were first exhibited to the paying public by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere at the Grand Cafe in Paris on December 28, 1895. The Lumiere ‘Cinematographe’ combined a cine camera; printer and projector that used 35mm perforated film and had a claw movement to actuate the film through the gate.
The fame of the Cinematographe quickly spread. It was displayed in London at the Polytechnic institution in March 1896 and then went on to be exhibited in all the chief cities of Europe and was first shown in New York in June 1896. Actuality and travel subjects showing distant counties and peoples were especially popular.
According to Jack Cato, author of “The Story of the Camera in Australia” Frenchman Maurice Sestier, one of the Lumiere cameramen dispatched to photograph such exotic locations as the Taj Mahal in India, met Australian photographer Walter Barnett in Bombay and decided to visit Australia. Apparently with the approval of the Lumiere brothers, Sestier and Barnett formed a partnership.
On his arrival in Sydney in September of 1896, Sestier filmed scenes of Sydney Harbour and daily life in the city, but faulty processing ruined the film. However, undaunted, on the 28th of that month Sestier and Barnett opened the first “Salon Lumiere” in Sydney with the same program as shown at the Grand Cafe in Paris. Barnett’s expertise quickly overcame the film-processing problem by constructing a ‘rack and tank’ system of negative development.
On October 31 1896, Sestier and Barnett travelled to Melbourne to film the AJC Derby at Flemington and a week later photographed scenes at the Melbourne Cup.
Thanks to the Cinemateque Francaise in Paris, fragments of the Melbourne Cup filming have survived and a copy is with the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra. That material was included in the history of television news by the ABC in the Four Corners series recently. So the camera marks the genesis of television as well.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have both the camera and the film on permanent public exhibition for all Australians to see now and in the future!
The Lumiere Cinematographer was the first mass-produced camera/printer/projector constructed by the Jules Carpentier manufacturing firm for the Lumiere brothers. It used 35mm film in a 4:3 format but only used once sprocket hole per frame instead of the now customary four and ran at the usual “silent” speed of 16 frames per second. Edison of New York supplied the celluloid-based film
In 1992 Christies London auctioned one of these cameras and described it as “a 35mm walnut-body Cinematographe camera/projector No. 80 with three walnut film magazines, hand-crank, a Carl Zeiss Jenna Tessar lens f/6.3 56mm lens no 83073, makers plate Cinematographe, Auguste et Louis Lumiere Brevete S. D. G. D., J. Carpentier, Ingenieur-Constructeur Paris and internal claw and rotary shutter mechanism and two brass film magazines, in makers fitted case. Estimate £10,000 – £15,000.
At first the simplest way to make a film was to set the camera on a tripod in the open air, direct it towards the chosen subject, either an important public event a simple subject such as a baby being bathed or streetscapes and crank the handle until the film ran out. The camera was not moved unless it happened to be set up on a moving vehicle such as the top deck of a bus, on a steamer or a train. The film was not edited. These primitive films are the first historical documents of their kind.
Pioneer cinematographer Maurice Sestier was more interested in filming living movement at the Melbourne Cup than the horse race itself. Movement was the big attraction, however jerky.
Interest in film of news events was greatly stimulated by the Boer War (1899-1902) and lead to the introduction of the geared-head tripod by De Brie of France, which enables the camera to ‘pan’ (Panorama).
from Australian Cinematographer - Issue 1 - June 1998