"Those Awful Hats" (1909)

[dachshundonstilts]

This D.W. Griffith short is almost certainly the earliest use of a traveling matte I've ever seen. Interestingly, the two original negatives seem to have been separately restored and recombined at a later date, because the nitrate deterioration appears at different times on the two film elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyjs5W3mRbI

Wonder if this could have been the first movie about people watching a movie.

[donnie]

Ah, this is one of my favorite Griffith Biographs! Fascinating!

I had to look up "traveling matte." I learned a new term!

Interestingly, the two original negatives seem to have been separately restored and recombined at a later date, because the nitrate deterioration appears at different times on the two film elements.

Yes, I seem to remember reading something about the "movie" portion being restored later. I wonder which film that was? An earlier Biograph, most probably, and appears to be one of those infamous static early ones where they just set up a camera and filmed a stage play.

Wonder if this could have been the first movie about people watching a movie.

The only earlier one I can think of is the Edison film Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902), though that one only shows a tiny peek of the spectators rather than the whole interior of the theatre as Hats does. Another one of this vein that comes to mind is Mabel’s Dramatic Career, but that's much later, 1913.