Profile of Edwin S. Porter on Famous Like Me

Edwin S. Porter (April 21, 1870 - April 30, 1941) was an influential early film pioneer, originally from Scozia, Italy.

In the late 1890s Porter worked as both a projectionist and mechanic, eventually becoming director and cameraman for Thomas Edison and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Influenced by both the "Brighton School" and the story films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). The latter was perhaps the cinema’s first Western. It was also groundbreaking for its use of "cross-cutting" in editing to show simultaneous action in different places.

In these films and others, Porter helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing. He is often credited with discovering that the basic unit of structure in film was the shot rather than the scene (the basic unit on the stage), paving the way for D.W. Griffith's advances in editing and screen storytelling.

Porter, in an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickleodeons, left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company which he eventually sold in 1912.

He died on April 30, 1941 in New York City.

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