The year 1900 in film involved some significant events.
Events
Reulos, Goudeau & Co. invent Mirographe, a 21 mm amateur format.
The Lumière Brothers premiere their new Lumiere Wide format for the 1900 World Fair. At 75 mm wide, it has held the record for over 100 years as the widest format yet developed.
Raoul Grimoin-Sanson also creates a sensation at the 1900 World Fair with his multi-projector Cinéorama spectacle, which uses ten 70 mm projectors to create a simulated 360-degree balloon ride over Paris. The exhibit is closed before it formally opens, however, due to legitimate health and safety concerns regarding the heat of the combined projectors ons, and releases the format as La Petite.
Gaumont-Demeny release their own 15 mm amateur format, Pocket Chrono.
Release of the first film version of Hamlet, an adaptation of the duel scene, with French actress Sarah Bernhardt playing the title rôle (sic.) and accompanying recorded sound.
Jeanne d'Arc becomes the first film of considerable length (10 mins) to be shown entirely in colour.
William N. Selig made The Chicago Stockyards—From Hoof to Market for Chicago-based Philip Danforth Armour, a prominent businessman in the meatpacking industry, showing the full meatpacking process from cattle being unloaded at the stockyards to canning. Studio lights didn't exist yet so stage spotlights had to be borrowed from the Richard Mansfield Theatrical Company to film inside the slaughterhouse.[1]
Notable films released in 1900
Army Life, a documentary directed by Robert W. Paul on the training techniques of British soldiers. Most of it is currently lost. It was one of the oldest proto-feature films (20 short films that when combined could have been seen as a feature film. Combined together it was originally over an hour in length, and over two hours when combined with a lecture and slides.).