Edwin S. Porter Edison Company Vitascope Méliès Thomas Edison Georges Méliès film editing dissolves narrative
The American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter started making films for the Edison Company in 1901. A former projectionist hired by Thomas Edison to develop his new projection model known as the Vitascope, Porter was inspired in part by the works of Méliès, Smith, and Williamson and drew upon their newly crafted techniques to further the development of continuous narrative through editing. When he began making longer films in 1902, he put a dissolve between every shot, just as Georges Méliès was already doing, and he frequently had the same action repeated across the dissolves.
