Frederick S. ARMITAGE

(1874-1933)
Nationality: American

“An innovative cameraman-director for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. (c. 1899-1905) and the Edison Company (1909- ?). He made an early attempt to combine film and sound (A GAY OLD BOY, 1899) and several prototype “special effects” films featuring innovative cinematography and printing techniques.” - Paul Spehr
“From 1900, Armitage began making a small number of films which utilized what would have then been considered trick effects; in two very similar subjects, THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS and A TERRIBLE NIGHT, Armitage reversed the negative so that the clothes a man removed seemed to be leaping back at him. In A NYMPH OF THE WAVES, Armitage combined two previously existing subjects in a printer in order to create a subject in which a dancer appeared to be floating on top of waves from Niagara Falls; Armitage used a similar technique in DAVEY JONES LOCKER (1900). Armitage deliberately projected part of the negative in THE GHOST TRAIN (1901) and used time lapse photography—taken over a period of a month—in DEMOLISHING AND BUILDING UP THE STAR THEATER (1901). His most astonishing achievement, however, is the time-lapse subject DOWN THE HUDSON (1903), in which Armitage and fellow AM&B cinematographer A. E. Weed filmed a voyage down the Hudson River from Haverstraw Bay to Newburgh in single frames, producing a film lasting three minutes.”

5 MOVIES IN DISTRIBUTION

M. LAVELLE, PHYSICAL CULTURE, NO. 1
1904 / 35mm / b&w / silent / single screen / 1' 33 / 13 €
distribution: Digital file on server
  DOWN THE HUDSON
1903 / 35mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 2' 54 / 22 €
distribution: Digital file on server
  SEEING NEW YORK HARBOR BY YACHT
1903 / 35mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 3' 19 / 27 €
distribution: Digital file on server
  THE GHOST TRAIN / EARLY SUPERIMPOSITIONS
1900-1903 / 35mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 2' 30 / 21 €
distribution: Digital file on server
  BUILDING UP AND DEMOLISHING THE STAR THEATRE
1901 / 35mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 4' 00 / 29 €
distribution: Digital file on server