Edwin S. Porter

Edwin S. Porter was born April 21, 1870, in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. In 1897, he invented the Beadnell film projector. As the Edison Company's director-cameraman, Porter filmed The Great Train Robbery. He later invested in his own film equipment company, but the 1929 stock market crash put him out of business. In the 1930s he worked on home-movie cameras. He died on April 3, 1941, in New York City. (Biography.com)

'Life of an American Fireman' combined stock actuality footage of fires, firemen and fire engines with dramatised scenes which Porter shot, this juxtaposition added tension and release to the film making it truly dramatic in contemporary setting, unlike Méliès whose filmatic drama was derived from his films’ …show more content…
A short film has a slightly different narrative structure than a feature. Everything has to be set up rather quickly, but Griffith always made sure not to rush the narrative of the stories he was trying to portray. Instead, Griffith would telescope the action to fit within one reel so that he would shorten the story with a title card or narrative device. It was even reported that Griffith would often insist that the cameraman crank slower so that he could fit more scenes into the film. His style of photography also differed greatly from others at the time. While his staging had great depth, it was usually filmed with a more narrow scope – creating what seemed to be a crowded scene with only just a few actors. You can see a good example of this in his 1912 short, Musketeers of Pig Alley where Griffith strings the camera away from the actors but uses a camera angle that makes it seem like there are quite a few people in the shot. He often only showed rooms from one camera angle to trick the audience into thinking that the room is larger than it actually