''Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon'' (french: La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon), also known as ''Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory'' and ''Exiting the Factory,'' is an 1895 French short

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière. It is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although

Louis Le Prince Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841 – disappeared 16 September 1890, declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequ ...

's 1888 ''

Roundhay Garden Scene ''Roundhay Garden Scene'' is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in the north of England on 14 October 1888. It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The cam ...

'' pre-dated it by six and a half years.

Content

Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways-‌‌‌‌‌‌the clothing style changes demonstrating the different seasons in which they were filmed. They are often referred to as the "one horse", "two horses", and "no horse" versions, in reference to a horse-drawn carriage that appears in the first two versions (pulled by one horse in the original and two horses in the first remake). Another film with the same theme was made in 1896, that features another factory (or another entrance to the same factory) with different people.

Production

This film was made in the

35 mm format 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a cass ...

with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

Current status

Given its age, this short film is available to freely download from the Internet. It has also featured in a number of film collections including ''Landmarks of Early Film volume 1'', ''The Movies Begin – A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894–1913'' and ''The Lumière Brothers' First Films''. The film has been known by a large number of alternative titles in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

over the years since its production including ''La Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon-Montplaisir'', ''Sortie de l'Usine Lumière'', ''La Sortie des Usines'', ''Les ouvriers et ouvrières sortant de l'Usine Lumière'', ''Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory'', ''Leaving the Factory'', ''Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory'', ''Lunch Hour at the Lumière Factory'', ''Dinner Hour at the Factory Gate of M. Lumière at Lyon'', ''Exiting the Factory'', ''La Sortie des ouvriers de l'Usine Lumière''.

References

Sources

External links