The actualities (scenes of daily life), the news events (both real and reconstructed), and the worn-out dramatic and comic situations that have become the standard fare of film exhibitions, begin to bore audiences. Attendance at the showing of motion pictures begins to fall.
Due to the cheaper competition from exhibition services using the “standard” 35mm film format, Biograph finds it harder to convince vaudeville theatres to use its projectors that require films using its wider 70mm film gauge. Biograph lowers its fees, and its profits tumble.
Edison hires Edwin S. Porter as a cameraman, and within a year promotes him to the position of Director of Production. Porter’s editing innovations change the way stories are told on film, and in 1903 he releases “The Great Train Robbery” which becomes the most commercially successful American film made up to that time.
Significant Films:
The French film company, Pathè Frères, releases, “Episodes of the Transvaal War”, which is a film of a “reconstructed” news event.