J.S Edwin Stanton Porter.

Edwin Porter was an early American film pioneer. He is most famous for directing The Great Train Robbery and Life of an American Fireman, both in 1903. He first started working in motion picture in 1896, a few years later in 99 he then moved on to working at the Edison Manufacturing Company where he soon become to be in charge, he would direct the actors and operate the camera.

Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery are both very famous films in their own rights. Life of an American Fireman is best known for it's unusual editing techniques such as cross - cutting, that's when Porter first experimented with cross - cutting. He then moved on to The great Train Robbery which become even more famous as there was more debately noticeable cross cutting and then added camera movement.

The Great Train Robbery is considered a massive development in film making as it was the first to really use different shots and angles. To this day it is still massively famous. It is twelve minutes long and the thing that really set it apart from others at the time of it's release is that it was the first film to ever use cross cuts and camera movement as well as on location shooting. At this time cross cuts were extremely new and advanced techniques to be used.
At this time filming on location hadn't really been done before, like we do now they used sets mostly. By filming on location it would of been a big milestone as the actors would of had to remember their dialog and film a scene all the way through without stopping to check over lines. This would mean more work.


This film was basically the first big step in film making. Edwin Porter would of known straight away that by doing this he would have a massive audience for the film as this was pretty much never before seen editing techniques.