Australian film and television chronology
1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
The 1890s
1892: The Salvation Army's Limelight Department formed
The Limelight Department was formed in 1892 under the direction of showman Major Joseph Henry Perry who had impressed the Salvation Army with his photographic work. Initially, Perry used glass slides projected by magic lantern to give presentations to increase the Salvation Army’s public impact but quickly incorporated the new media of kinematographe and the gramophone into his productions. Limelight’s production and art departments based in Melbourne produced written scripts, a range of highly detailed and elaborate sets and an extensive range of impressive period costumes and props. With the coming of moving pictures, the Limelight Department became one of the first film production units in the country and that played a leading role in the pioneering and development of the Australian film industry from between 1892 and 1910. Its most famous production was Soldiers of the Cross (1900).
Source
Shirley, G & Adams, B 1983, Australian Cinema: the First Eighty Years, Currency Press, Sydney, pp. 10–13.
Ina Bertrand, ‘Perry, Joseph Henry (1863 – 1943)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp 204–206.
1894: Birth of cinema in Australia
The first screening of film in Australia took place in a shop at 148 Pitt St, Sydney. The public paid a shilling to view images of an American circus and vaudeville performers on the Edison Kinetoscope. Unlike the later movie projection of the Lumière Brothers, the Kinetoscope was a box containing a fifty-foot loop of film watched through an eyepiece by a single viewer. 25,000 people paid to watch the Kinetoscope in the first month of exhibition.
Source
Sabine, J (Ed) 1995, A Century of Australian Cinema, Mandarin, Melbourne, p. 2.
1895: First paying audience watches Australian boxer
The first motion picture to be displayed before a paying audience featured Australian boxer Albert Griffiths, AKA Young Griffo, in Young Griffo v Battling Charles Barnett. The bout was filmed at Madison Square Garden and projected at 153 Broadway in New York City. Although the Lumiere Brothers first projected film in Paris on March 22 1895, their public exhibitions did not commence until 28 December 1895. By any method of interpretation it can be said that Young Griffo was the first Australian to receive a screen credit.
1895: 'Talkies' Arrive In Australia
In the Queensland mining town of Charters Towers, the Edison kinetophone made its first Australian appearance. A combination of the Edison kinetoscope and the phonograph Edison had invented, it synchronised images with sound delivered to an earpiece from a wax cylinder. Despite the Rockhampton Bulletin noting ‘indeed every word can be heard with the utmost distinctness’, the kinetophone was not a commercial success.
Source
Sabine, J (Ed) 1995, A Century of Australian Cinema, Mandarin, Melbourne, pp. 12–13.
1896: First film projected in Australia
Calling himself ‘The Premier Prestidigateur’, American magician Carl Hertz projected the first motion pictures in Australia at Harry Rickard’s Melbourne Opera House. Running no longer than fifty seconds each, Hertz’s films were mostly Edison shorts filmed at at 30 frames per second, but projected at 16 frames per second on Hertz’s equipment. Despite such technical flaws, Hertz’s show was a major success.
Source
Sabine, J (Ed) 1995, A Century of Australian Cinema, Mandarin, Melbourne, pp. 10–15.
1896: Melbourne Cup Filmed
The first motion picture film shot in Australia was at Flemington racecourse on Melbourne Cup day. Assisted by Australian Walter Barnett, Lumiere cameraman Maurice Sestier filmed ten 60-second reels chronicling Cup day from the arrival of crowds to the winner, Newhaven, being presented the trophy. On November 24 1896, Sestier and Barnett premiered the films at Sydney’s Criterion Theatre. The six surviving reels were returned from the Cinémathéque Française to Australia in 1969.
Source
Sabine, J (Ed) 1995, A Century of Australian Cinema, Mandarin, Melbourne, pp. 14–16.
1897: First Australian film studio
In 1897 the Limelight Department of the Salvation Army set up a processing laboratory and film studio in an attic at 69 Bourke St, Melbourne. Productions began filming in the Limelight Department studio in October 1897. The Salvation Army continues to operate out of 69 Bourke St.
Source
Shirley, G & Adams, B 1983, Australian Cinema: the First Eighty Years, Chapter 1 ‘The First Decade’, Currency Press, Sydney, pp. 10–11.
1899: First government films produced
The world’s first government films were produced in Queensland by Fred Wills, the official photographer for the Department of Agriculture. Wills was assisted by his eventual successor, Harry Mobsby.
Source
AFC
