Pierrette’s Escapades (Le départ d’Arlequin et de Pierrette)
R: Alice Guy. P: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont. Fr 1900
Print: Filmoteca de Catalunya / Gaumont

Au Bal de flore (At the Floral Ball)
R: Alice Guy. P: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont. Fr 1900
Print: Filmoteca de Catalunya / Gaumont

“Guy not only directed films at Gaumont, making her the first female director, but she was also responsible for many innovations in the evolution of both story telling technique and film technology. Along with Edwin S. Porter, the Lumiere brothers, and others, Guy helped to create film ‘language’ and advanced the film narrative. The earliest films were just scenes of every day life. Trains entering a station, people eating lunch or going home from work, etc. Guy was among the first directors to see movies as a way to tell stories rather than just record life. She was behind the camera for the first (though some sources say it was the second) scripted fictional film (1896’s Cabbage Fairy (…), and was one of the first to make a film more than one-reel in length. Technically Guy experimented with tinted film, sound movies as early as 1905 (…). At the Floral Ball and Pierrette’s Escapades (both 1900) are hand colored films, where each frame of a movie was pained by hand. The dress of one lady would be colored red, the other green, frame by frame, and this gave the illusion of a color movie.”
John Sinnott
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>>> ALICE GUY