By this time, the Lumière Company's production was in sharp decline; after 1905, their catalogues featured nothing new. The Lumière brothers themselves had given up personally making films years before this subject, "Namo Village, Panorama Taken from a Rickshaw". Unlike with many of the company's other films, the cameraman behind this innovative early film is known. The filmmaker is Gabriel Veyre, who helped introduce the Cinématographe and, thus, cinema to Mexico City, Cuba, Japan, China and elsewhere. For this film, Veyre was in Indochina.
The film is a panorama shot-scene lasting just under a minute. The panorama film, as coined by Lumière, is a moving-camera shot--usually accomplished by placing the camera on a moving transport, such as a boat or train. Lumière cameraman Alexandre Promio is generally credited with having introduced the panorama film in 1896 with "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau", where he placed the Cinématographe in a gondola and travelled the canals of Venice. One of the next, most interesting innovations was the "phantom ride" films, where the camera was placed on the front of a moving train. American Mutoscope's "The Haverstraw Tunnel" (1897) is oft credited as the first of these.
Here, Veyre placed the camera in a rickshaw. As he's pulled away, children chase after him and the camera. Unlike other panoramas, and because of the rickshaw vantage point, the camera-work is unsteady. Consequently, this is a beautiful and unique early actuality film, which remains in excellent quality and is available on the highly recommended "The Lumière Brothers' First Films" (1996). Moreover, with its moving, exiting framing and chasing children, the film seems to be an appropriate farewell to the company, filmmakers and the Cinématographe that were most responsible for introducing cinema to the world.
The film is a panorama shot-scene lasting just under a minute. The panorama film, as coined by Lumière, is a moving-camera shot--usually accomplished by placing the camera on a moving transport, such as a boat or train. Lumière cameraman Alexandre Promio is generally credited with having introduced the panorama film in 1896 with "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau", where he placed the Cinématographe in a gondola and travelled the canals of Venice. One of the next, most interesting innovations was the "phantom ride" films, where the camera was placed on the front of a moving train. American Mutoscope's "The Haverstraw Tunnel" (1897) is oft credited as the first of these.
Here, Veyre placed the camera in a rickshaw. As he's pulled away, children chase after him and the camera. Unlike other panoramas, and because of the rickshaw vantage point, the camera-work is unsteady. Consequently, this is a beautiful and unique early actuality film, which remains in excellent quality and is available on the highly recommended "The Lumière Brothers' First Films" (1996). Moreover, with its moving, exiting framing and chasing children, the film seems to be an appropriate farewell to the company, filmmakers and the Cinématographe that were most responsible for introducing cinema to the world.