This approximately 40-second long Lumiere Brothers short (Lumiere No. 105) features frequent Lumiere collaborator Félicien Trewey performing a variation on his famed "chapeaugraphy". Here, sitting in a chair, he dons hats, fake facial hair and even facial prosthetics in quick succession to perform characters for a few seconds before moving on to the next.
While in terms of visual composition Transformation by Hats is not much to talk about, the short is notable and very successful as a further Lumiere Brothers exploration of the fictional possibilities of film. Otherwise, the Lumieres were better known for their "actualities", or short documentary portraits.
Trewey, who was responsible for bringing the Lumieres' cinématographe to England, more often executed his chapeaugraphy with a single large piece of felt which he would shape into different kinds of hats to wear as different characters, relying also on facial expressions and contortions to effect the change--something like John Barrymore's turn at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920). Surely the shaping of felt into different kinds of hats would take more than 40 seconds, so here, Trewey depends on his quick change abilities instead, keeping his hats and accessories on the ground, out of the camera range.
It's remarkable how quickly and "cleanly" Trewey can don each "disguise". Editing had not yet been exploited (even though edits are present in the earliest days of film at least in some Edison company shorts), or surely the Lumieres would have capitalized on that unique property of the new film medium instead.
Of course, it's debatable just how much the Lumieres intended to demonstrate the potential of the new medium rather than simply present a friend performing a part of his live act that had been adapted to suit the limitations of the medium. The truth is probably a mixture of intentions.
At any rate, the effect on the burgeoning film industry was more to give a glimpse of the possibilities of characterization, to show a relatively easy technical way to create various convincing characters on film, as would be necessary in producing the more extensive fictions soon to come.
While in terms of visual composition Transformation by Hats is not much to talk about, the short is notable and very successful as a further Lumiere Brothers exploration of the fictional possibilities of film. Otherwise, the Lumieres were better known for their "actualities", or short documentary portraits.
Trewey, who was responsible for bringing the Lumieres' cinématographe to England, more often executed his chapeaugraphy with a single large piece of felt which he would shape into different kinds of hats to wear as different characters, relying also on facial expressions and contortions to effect the change--something like John Barrymore's turn at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920). Surely the shaping of felt into different kinds of hats would take more than 40 seconds, so here, Trewey depends on his quick change abilities instead, keeping his hats and accessories on the ground, out of the camera range.
It's remarkable how quickly and "cleanly" Trewey can don each "disguise". Editing had not yet been exploited (even though edits are present in the earliest days of film at least in some Edison company shorts), or surely the Lumieres would have capitalized on that unique property of the new film medium instead.
Of course, it's debatable just how much the Lumieres intended to demonstrate the potential of the new medium rather than simply present a friend performing a part of his live act that had been adapted to suit the limitations of the medium. The truth is probably a mixture of intentions.
At any rate, the effect on the burgeoning film industry was more to give a glimpse of the possibilities of characterization, to show a relatively easy technical way to create various convincing characters on film, as would be necessary in producing the more extensive fictions soon to come.