Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Edwin S. Porter cut between locations and even panned the camera. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a movies & tv fact?

Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

The Great Train Robbery ran twelve minutes in 1903

Edwin S. Porter cut between locations and even panned the camera Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery told a complete story in about twelve minutes using fourteen separate shots, including a camera pan and a character firing straight at the audience. It was filmed partly on location in New Jersey rather than entirely on a stage. It became one of the most popular films of its era. It sits in Mondo's movies & tv collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Library of Congress

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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More facts like this

The oldest surviving film is about two seconds longLouis Le Prince shot Roundhay Garden Scene in Leeds in 1888 The first nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905Harry Davis converted a storefront into a cinema charging five cents The rotoscope traced animation from live footageMax Fleischer projected film onto paper so animators could draw over it King Kong was animated one frame at a timeWillis O'Brien posed a jointed model and shot single frames of each pose Disney's multiplane camera added depth to cartoonsSeveral layers of artwork moved past the lens at different distances Most hand-drawn animation is shot on twosEach drawing is photographed twice, so twelve drawings fill a second

Tags: 1903, edwin-porter, early-cinema

The Great Train Robbery ran twelve minutes in 1903: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Edwin S. Porter cut between locations and even panned the camera. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a movies & tv fact?: Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.