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Information about Gaumont

Gaumont
Independent and partnership with Sony Pictures for worldwide film production and distribution.
Founded1895
HeadquartersParis, France
Key peopleLéon Gaumont
IndustryMotion pictures
Productsmotion pictures, television programs, film distribution
Website[1]


Gaumont is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont (1864-1946). It is the oldest running film company in the world.[1] Originally dealing in photographic apparatuses, the company began producing short films in 1897 to promote its make of camera-projector. Léon Gaumont's secretary Alice Guy Blaché became the motion picture industry’s first female director. From 1905 to 1914, its studios "Cité Elgé" (from the normal French pronunciation of founder's initials) at La Villette, France, were the largest in the world. The company manufactured its own equipment and mass-produced films until 1907. Then Louis Feuillade became the artistic director of Gaumont. When World War I broke out, he was replaced by Léonce Perret, who continued his career in the United States a few years later.

Among some of the most notable films produced were the serials Judex and Fantomas; the comic Onésime series, starring Ernest Bourbon; the comic Bébé series, starring five-year-old René Dary; and the newsreels of the Gaumont Actualities. Directors such as Abel Gance, Alfred Hitchcock, and the early animator Emile Cohl worked for this studio at one time or another.

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Gaumont-British logo in the 1910s and 20s.
Gaumont opened foreign offices and acquired theatre chains Gaumont British, which later notably produced several Hitchcock films such as The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Along with its giant competitor Pathé Frères, Gaumont dominated the motion-picture industry in Europe until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Gaumont also constructed the Lime Grove Studios.

After significant post-war losses to American productions in market-share/competition, Gaumont experienced the subsequent business reversals of technological change (the advent of sound) and financial depression, and was eventually merged with Franco-Film Aubert in the early 1930s.

Gaumont is still independent and has been recognized as one of the largest producers (Léon, The Fifth Element) and distributors of films in France.

The company has also produced television shows, including four animated series: , Dragon Flyz, and Sky Dancers (the second and third are based on their respective toy lines) and the very popular Oggy and the Cockroaches.

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Current Gaumont-Columbia-TriStar Films logo.


Since 2004 the company has a partnership with Sony for producing films and for theatre and DVD distribution worldwide. Together with Pathe they operate their own cinemas across France.

Logo

Leon Gaumont selected the "marguerite" daisy as the company logo to pay homage to his mother whose first name is "marguerite" Daisy. Today, in spite of regular modifications of the drawing the daisy is always present even if its significance is somewhat forgotten.

References

1. ^ Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914, University of California Press, 1994, p. 10, ISBN 0520079361.

External links

Léon Gaumont, born May 10, 1864 - died August 09, 1946, was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry.

Léon Ernest Gaumont
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Industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent, industrious"), is the segment of economy concerned with production of goods. Industry began in its present form during the 1800s, aided by technological advances, and it has continued to develop to this day.
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Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.
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Aspinwall Classification System (Leo Aspinwall, 1958) classifies and rates products based on five variables:
  1. Replacement rate (How frequently is the product repurchased?)
  2. Gross margin (How much profit is obtained from each product?)

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A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN.
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Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"


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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1860s  1870s  1880s  - 1890s -  1900s  1910s  1920s
1892 1893 1894 - 1895 - 1896 1897 1898

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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Léon Gaumont, born May 10, 1864 - died August 09, 1946, was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry.

Léon Ernest Gaumont
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Alice Guy-Blach̩ (July 1, 1873 РMarch 24, 1968) was a pioneer filmmaker who was the first female director in the motion picture industry and is considered to be one of the first directors of a fiction film.
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Villette can refer to:

People

  • Pierre Villette, French composer
  • Rétaux de Villette, French forger

Places

Villette or La Villette is the name or part of the name of several places in Europe:

France


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Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"


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Louis Feuillade (February 19 1873 – February 25 1925) was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films.
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Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.
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L̩once Perret (May 13, 1880 РAugust 14, 1935) was a prolific and innovative French film actor, director and producer.[1] He also worked as a stage actor and director.
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IMDb profile
Judex is the title of a 1916 silent French movie serial created by Louis Feuillade and Arthur Bernède.

Feuillade had made two earlier serials Fantômas and Les Vampires about cunning criminals.
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Fantômas is one of the most popular fictional arch-villains and master criminals in the history of French crime fiction. He is the creation of Marcel Allain (1885-1970) and Pierre Souvestre (1874-1914), a team of French writers.
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A newsreel is a documentary film that is regularly released in a public presentation place containing filmed news stories.

Created by Pathé Frères of France in 1908, this form of film was a staple of the typical North American, British, and Commonwealth countries (especially
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Abel Gance (October 25, 1889 - November 10, 1981) was a French film director, producer, writer, actor and editor best remembered for his work in silent film.

Napoléon (1927) is among his most innovative works.
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Alfred Hitchcock

Birth name Alfred Joseph Hitchcock
Born July 13 1899(1899--)
Leytonstone, London, England
Died March 29 1980 (aged 82)
Bel Air, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
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Émile Cohl (January 4, 1857 – January 20, 1938), born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet, was a French caricaturist of the largely-forgotten Incoherent Movement, cartoonist, and animator, called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon" and "The Oldest Parisian".
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Gaumont British was the British arm of the French film company Gaumont. The company later became independent of the French parent, and produced such films as Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version of The 39 Steps.
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All Movie Guide profile
/ IMDb profile
The 39 Steps is a 1935 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the adventure novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. The film stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll.
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-1935- 1936 1937 1938  1939 .  1940 .  1941 .  1942  . 1943  . 1944  . 1945 

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All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Originally planned as The Lost Lady
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-1938- 1939 1940 1941  1942 .  1943 .  1944 .  1945  . 1946  . 1947  . 1948 

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Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.

This article deals with their movie company. For their phonograph and record business, see Pathé Records.
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Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea,
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Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.
..... Click the link for more information.
Lime Grove Studios was a film studio complex built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915 situated in a street named Lime Grove, in Shepherd's Bush London W12 near Hammersmith, west London and described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put
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Soundtrack: Sting
Cinematography Thierry Arbogast
Editing by Sylvie Landra
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Gaumont
Release date(s) 14 September 1994
18 November 1994
3 February, 1995
Running time 110 Mins
(Theatrical Version)
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