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 performances were not immune to the influence of social and cultural forces, such as censorship or reform movements. This collection of essays considers the ways in which different visual practices carried out at the turn of the 20th century shaped performances on and beside the screen.

Performing on the screen : actors and personalities -- Lois Weber at Rex : performing femininity across media / Shelley Stamp -- Diva intermedial : Lyda Borelli between art, photography, theatre and cinema / Ivo Blom -- 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 / Leslie Midkiff DeBauche -- Camera distance and acting in the Griffith Biography / Charles O'Brien -- Performance times : the lightning cartoon and the emergence of animation / Malcolm Cook -- La transparence du Fregoligraph en question / Frederic Tabet -- In the flesh : personal appearances and the picture personality in Britain / Chris O'Rourke -- Performers : now synchronised on screen / Ian Christie -- Performing beside the screen : narrators, showmen, and musicians -- Missing believed lost : the film narrator, then and now / Martin Loiperdinger -- Standards of practice in transition : the showmanship of Jasper Redfern as it emerged / Peter Walsh -- Showmanship skills and the changing role of the exhibitor in 1910s Scotland / María Antonia Velez-Serna -- Showing film in winter (1904-1906) : Alber…