While the Lumiere Brothers' tended to stick with unstaged moments in time with little narrative, this particular short of theirs appears to be staged due to the main subject being a more action-filled scene. The lack of the participants in the scene hamming it up by smiling at the camera and doing bits of their own 'acting' goes to show more in the way of direction by Louis Lumiere (the cinematographer). Additional probabilities also go to show how such a scene was likely more the work of some simple planning rather than a spontaneously filmed event.
The short documents a snowball fight, in which there seems to be a lack of teams: everyone aims their snowballs at anyone and everyone, a chaotic scene captured through a singular long shot. Intended to be the main attraction, this action becomes minimal as a cyclist enters the scene and tumbles over on the sidewalk amidst the pelting snowballs, capturing the audiences' attention more than the general chaos. As other reviewers have already stated, a cameraman happening upon an unstaged fight scene with his equipment seems highly improbable, leading us to believe that this part of the scene was staged, hence further reason to believe it didn't occur by pure circumstance. The bit with the cyclist could, however, have been a case of luck - the man could have just been passing through the area and found himself in the middle of the confusion, which would have delighted Louis Lumiere further. A charming picture to watch, and certainly with more entertaining merits today than most other actualities of the time period.
The short documents a snowball fight, in which there seems to be a lack of teams: everyone aims their snowballs at anyone and everyone, a chaotic scene captured through a singular long shot. Intended to be the main attraction, this action becomes minimal as a cyclist enters the scene and tumbles over on the sidewalk amidst the pelting snowballs, capturing the audiences' attention more than the general chaos. As other reviewers have already stated, a cameraman happening upon an unstaged fight scene with his equipment seems highly improbable, leading us to believe that this part of the scene was staged, hence further reason to believe it didn't occur by pure circumstance. The bit with the cyclist could, however, have been a case of luck - the man could have just been passing through the area and found himself in the middle of the confusion, which would have delighted Louis Lumiere further. A charming picture to watch, and certainly with more entertaining merits today than most other actualities of the time period.