Through the 3D looking glass
Wild West days for formats

HERE’S A QUESTION for you. If we say 3D game changer we’re sure that most of you will think of James Cameron’s record breaking Avatar, possibly the first film in a while to be widely acclaimed for its technological merit alone. However, it was the Lumerie brothers, inventors of the cinematograph, who staked the first claim as 3D game changers.

Back in 1895, the Lumerie brothers achieved something James Cameron and his crew were still trying to pull off over a hundred years later. The brothers filmed “L’Arrivée d’un Train”, a 50 second shot of a train coming towards their camera. The brothers were trying to achieve a 3D effect on their cinematograph and urban myth has it that the audience ran out screaming to avoid the oncoming train. The legend probably isn’t true. The cinematograph wasn’t one of the increasingly popular stereoscopic 3D cameras but, as the first to present a realistic 3D scenario on screen they can’t be beaten. The brother even went on to reshoot the train in 3D and show the movie at the French Academy of Science.

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