Performing new media, 1890-1915

In the years before the First World War, showmen, entrepreneurs, educators, and scientists used magic lanterns and cinematographs in many contexts and many venues. To employ these silent screen technologies to deliver diverse and complex programs usually demanded audio accompaniment, creating a performance of both sound and image. These shows might include live music, song, lectures, narration, and synchronized sound effects provided by any available party-projectionist, local talent, accompanist or backstage crew-and would often borrow techniques from shadow plays and tableaux vivants. The pe.

Cover; Half title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Introduction; Part I Performing on the Screen: Actors and Personalities; Chapter 1 Lois Weber at Rex: Performing Femininity Across Media; Chapter 2 Diva Intermedial: Lyda Borelli between Art, Photography, Theatre and Cinema; Chapter 3 Why Sue 'Little Mary?': How Independent Moving Pictures Company of America v Gladys Smith and Owen Moore (1911) Defined Celebrity and Professionalism for Film Actors; Chapter 4 Camera Distance and Acting in Griffith Biographs; Chapter 5 Performance Times: The Lightning Cartoon and the Emergence of Animation.

Chapter 6 La transparence du Fregoligraph en questionChapter 7 In the Flesh: Personal Appearances and the Picture Personality in Britain; Chapter 8 Performers -- Now Synchronised on Screen; Part II Performing Beside the Screen: Narrators, Showmen, and Musicians; Chapter 9 Missing Believed Lost: The Film Narrator, Then and Now; Chapter 10 Standards of Practice in Transition: The Showmanship of Jasper Redfern as It Emerged; Chapter 11 Showmanship Skills and the Changing Role of the Exhibitor in 1910s Scotland.

Chapter 12 Showing Film in Winter (1904-1906): Albert Fr©·res' Film Galas in Dutch Multipur…