Photography Pioneer, Motion Picture Pioneer. Auguste and Louis Lumière, who were brothers, were French pioneers in the film industry. Their dozen short films were produced between 1895 and 1905. Their screening on March 22, 1895, for about 200 members of the "Society for the Development of the National Industry" in Paris, was probably the first presentation of a film on a screen for a large audience; on December 28th the same year was their first commercial screening for forty customers. Not only were the brothers sucessful with film but also with colored photography. Gabriela Lippmann's 1891 method of making color photographs, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1908, was not a good commercial success since a two-to three-hour exposure was required to get the colored photograph. Eventually, his pioneer method in color photography was superseded in 1895 by the technique used by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, which was called the Lumière Autochrome. In 1881, 17-year-old Louis invented a new "dry plate" process of developing film, which boosted his father's business enough to fuel the opening of a new factory in the Lyons suburbs. The brothers' father owned a photography portrait studio and eventually attempted to manufacture photographic plates, but it was not until Auguste returned from his military service and made machines to produce the plates that the business was successful. By 1894, the Lumières were producing some 15 million plates a year. They patented several significant processes leading up to their film camera. The brothers traveled around Europe marketing their inventions and eventually around the world becoming very successful in this field. By 1905, the Lumières had withdrawn from the moviemaking business, or "cinema," in favor of developing the first practical photographic color process, known as the Lumière Autochrome.
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