🎬Edwin S. Porter

Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Influenced by both the "Brighton school" and the story films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). In them, he helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing, paving the way for D.W. Griffith who would expand on Porter's discovery that the unit of film structure was the shot rather than the scene. Porter, in an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickelodeons, left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company which he eventually sold in 1912.

Porter remains an enigmatic figure in motion picture history. Though his significance as director of The Great Train Robbery and other innovative early films is undeniable, he rarely repeated an innovation after he had used it successfully, never developed a consistent directorial style, and in later years never protested when others rediscovered his techniques and claimed them as their own. He was a modest, quiet, cautious man who felt uncomfortable working with the famous stars he directed starting in 1912.

He has directed four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) and Tess of the Storm Country (1914).

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Recent movies

#	Name	Character
1	Tess of the Storm Country (1914)	Director / Writer	5
2	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910)	Director / Writer	5
3	A Suburbanite's Ingenious Alarm (1908)	Director / Writer	3
4	Tale the Autumn Leaves Told (1908)	Director / Writer	2
5	The 'Teddy' Bears (1907)	Director / Writer	3
6	Laughing Gas (1907)	Director / Writer	3
7	Poor John (1907)	Director / Writer	2
8	Jack the Kisser (1907)	Director / Writer	3
9	Three American Beauties (1906)	Director / Writer	7
10	Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)	Director / Writer	7
11	Getting Evidence (1906)	Director / Writer	3
12	How the Office Boy Saw the Ball Game (1906)	Director / Writer	4
13	A Winter Straw Ride (1906)	Director / Writer	7
14	Life of a Cowboy (1906)	Director / Writer	5
15	Waiting at the Church (1906)	Director / Writer	6
16	Scenes and Incidents, Russo-Japanese Peace Conference, Portsmouth, N. H. (1905)	Director / Writer	3
17	Coney Island at Night (1905)	Director / Writer	7
18	The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog (1905)	Director / Writer	4
19	The Seven Ages (1905)	Director / Writer	4
20	I.B. Dam and the Whole Dam Family (1905)	Director / Writer	4
21	How Jones Lost His Roll (1905)	Director / Writer	1
22	The Little Train Robbery (1905)	Director / Writer	5
23	The Life of an American Policeman (1905)	Director / Writer	2
24	The Miller’s Daughter (1905)	Director / Writer	5
25	The Boarding School Girls (1905)	Director / Writer	7
26	The Kleptomaniac (1905)	Director / Writer	4
27	The Watermelon Patch (1905)	Director / Writer	1
28	The White Caps (1905)	Director / Writer	2
29	The Night Before Christmas (1905)	Director / Writer	5
30	The Train Wreckers (1905)	Director / Writer	3
31	The Great Train Robbery (1904)	Director / Writer	5
32	The Strenuous Life; or, Anti-Race Suicide (1904)	Director / Writer	2
33	The Ex-Convict (1904)	Director / Writer	4
34	A Rube Couple at a County Fair (1904)	Director / Writer	4
35	Fighting the Flames, Dreamland (1904)	Director / Writer	5
36	Buster's Revenge on the Tramp (1904)	Director / Writer	4
37	Scenes in an Infant Orphan Asylum (1904)	Director / Writer	6
38	Treloar and Miss Marshall, Prize Winners at the Physical Culture Show in Madison Square Garden (1904)	Director / Writer	5
39	R. F. Outcault Making a Sketch of Buster and Tige (1904)	Director / Writer	2
40	How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the 'New York Herald' Personal Columns (1904)	Director / Writer	5
41	Japanese Acrobats (1904)	Director / Writer	7
42	"Weary Willlie" Kisses the Bride (1904)	Director / Writer	2
43	Capture of Yegg Bank Burglars (1904)	Director / Writer	3
44	Crossing Ice Bridge at Niagara Falls (1904)	Director / Writer	5
45	European Rest Cure (1904)	Director / Writer	3
46	Scarecrow Pump (1904)	Director / Writer	5
47	Rube and Mandy at Coney Island (1903)	Director / Writer	8
48	White Wings on Review (1903)	Director / Writer	1
49	Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903)	Director / Writer	2
50	The Great Train Robbery (1903)	Director / Writer	7.3
51	Life of an American Fireman (1903)	Director / Writer	6
52	Fireboat 'New Yorker' in Action (1903)	Director / Writer	5
53	New York City Dumping Wharf (1903)	Director / Writer	4
54	The Messenger Boy's Mistake (1903)	Director / Writer	4
55	Sorting Refuse at Incinerating Plant, New York City (1903)	Director / Writer	3
56	The Unappreciated Joke (1903)	Director / Writer	3
57	Panorama Water Front and Brooklyn Bridge from East River (1903)	Director / Writer	6
58	Panorama of Riker's Island, N.Y. (1903)	Director / Writer	4.5
59	Panorama of Blackwell's Island (1903)	Director / Writer	5
60	New York City 'Ghetto' Fish Market (1903)	Director / Writer	6
61	Electrocuting an Elephant (1903)	Director / Writer	1
62	New York Harbor Police Boat Patrol Capturing Pirates (1903)	Director / Writer	4.5
63	Burning of Durland's Riding Academy (1902)	Director / Writer	6
64	How They Do Things on the Bowery (1902)	Director / Writer	5
65	Appointment by Telephone (1902)	Director / Writer	3
66	Jack and the Beanstalk (1902)	Director / Writer	5.5
67	Capture of the Biddle Brothers (1902)	Director / Writer	6
68	The Twentieth Century Tramp; or, Happy Hooligan and His Airship (1902)	Director / Writer	4
69	Charleston Chain-Gang (1902)	Director / Writer	5
70	Babies Rolling Eggs (1902)	Director / Writer	4.5
71	Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce (1901)	Director / Writer	3
72	Laura Comstock's Bag-Punching Dog (1901)	Director / Writer	5
73	Life Rescue at Long Branch (1901)	Director / Writer	4
74	Sampson-Schley Controversy (1901)	Director / Writer	3
75	Day at the Circus (1901)	Director / Writer	5
76	The Reversible Divers (1901)	Director / Writer	2
77	Another Job for the Undertaker (1901)	Director / Writer	2
78	The Esquimaux Village (1901)	Director / Writer	5
79	Pan-American Exposition by Night (1901)	Director / Writer	6
80	The Old Maid Having Her Picture Taken (1901)	Director / Writer	6
81	Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901)	Director / Writer	4
82	Panorama of Esplanade by Night (1901)	Director / Writer	6
83	President McKinley and Escort Going to the Capitol (1901)	Director / Writer	6
84	The Martyred Presidents (1901)	Director / Writer	1
85	Circular Panorama of Electric Tower (1901)	Director / Writer	5
86	Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King (1901)	Director / Writer	5
87	Love by the Light of the Moon (1901)	Director / Writer	5
88	A Trip Around the Pan-American Exposition (1901)	Director / Writer	3
89	The Old Maid in the Horsecar (1901)	Director / Writer	3
90	The Tramp's Unexpected Skate (1901)	Director / Writer	4
91	The Kiss (1900)	Director / Writer	5
92	An Animated Luncheon (1900)	Director / Writer	6
93	A Dull Razor (1900)	Director / Writer	3
94	Uncle Josh's Nightmare (1900)	Director / Writer	6
95	Faust and Marguerite (1900)	Director / Writer	3
96	Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel (1900)	Director / Writer	4
97	An Artist's Dream (1900)	Director / Writer	2
98	The Magician (1900)	Director / Writer	3
99	The Mystic Swing (1900)	Director / Writer	2
100	Ching Ling Foo Outdone (1900)	Director / Writer	4
101	Strange Adventure of New York Drummer (1899)	Director / Writer	6