Henri Joly facts for kids
Henri Joly (born in 1866, died in 1945) was a clever French inventor and a smart businessman. He helped create some of the very first versions of movie film, cameras, and projectors. His work was super important in the early days of cinema!
Henri Joly's Life Story
Henri Joly was born in a place called Viomenil, in France, in 1866. By 1889, he was teaching gymnastics at a school. This is where he first learned about the new technology of moving pictures. Famous pioneers like Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demenÿ (who was also a gymnast) came to the school to study how people moved.
Joly also learned about the Kinetoscope machine, which was invented by Thomas Edison. The Kinetoscope let one person at a time watch short films through a peephole. It became public in Paris in 1894. In 1895, Joly met Charles Pathé, a merchant who sold phonographs (record players). Pathé started bringing Kinetoscopes into France that were copied from another inventor, Robert W. Paul, in England.
Joly's Film Inventions
The short movies shown on the early Kinetoscopes weren't very exciting, and they wore out quickly. Henri Joly noticed these problems. He offered to build a camera for Charles Pathé that could make new films for the Kinetoscope. Pathé agreed to pay for this new invention.
On August 26, 1895, Joly applied for a patent for his new camera. This camera could make films for both a projector and the Kinetoscope. It used a special mechanical system and film with holes along the edges, which helped the film move smoothly. Joly made his first movie, called Le Bain d'une Mondaine, in late 1895.
On October 8, 1895, Joly got another patent for a machine he called the "Photozootrope." This was like a very big Kinetoscope that four people could watch at once. He sold a few of these, but it wasn't a huge success.
Charles Pathé saw how much money could be made from Joly's camera. In 1896, he ended his agreement with Joly. Pathé then got the rights to Joly's camera and his film process. Pathé went on to become very successful in the movie business.
In 1896, Joly applied for three more patents. One was for another camera. The second was for a way to stop the "flicker" that made early projected images shaky. The third was for a way to make movies look like they had more depth, almost like 3D.
In the late 1890s, Joly worked with a French businessman named Ernest Normandin. They made and showed movies together. Their system was officially called Joly-Normandin. It was also known as Cinematographe Joly and later Royal Biograph. Their films were being shown at a place called the Bazar de la Charité in 1897 when a terrible fire happened there. The system was later shown in England and Ireland.
In 1900, Joly, Normandin, and Normandin's brother Edgar started a company called "Société du Biophonographe." Their goal was to make movies that had sound playing at the same time from a phonograph. The company made and sold several short films. However, they ran into financial trouble and closed in 1902. Joly sold the rights to his inventions to Georges Mendel, who kept working on making talking films.
Joly started another company in 1906, called the Société des Phonographes et Cinématographes Lux. This company also made several short films. He left the company in 1908 after disagreeing with the other leaders. He then continued his research on his own.
One of his ideas for recording sound for films involved using a beam of light that bounced off a mirror. This mirror would vibrate when it heard sound waves. He thought of this in 1905, but he couldn't build the machines needed to make it work.
Henri Joly was never able to achieve big commercial success with his later inventions. He worked in different factories to support himself. When he died in Paris in 1945, he was working as a night watchman. He passed away without much notice and without a lot of money.
Images for kids
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Share of the Société des Phonographes et Cinématographes Lux, issued November 5, 1906.
