Summaries

Synopsis

The Photo-Drama of Creation, or Creation-Drama was a religious film (4 parts, altogether 8 hours) produced under the direction of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Bible Student movement. Production began as early as 1912, and the Drama was introduced in 1914 by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. It has the distinction of being the first major screenplay which incorporated synchronised sound, moving film, and colour slides. A book by the same name was also published in 1914 and contained representative slide images with a page of accompanying text to explain the chronological progression of Jehovah God's plan from the creation of the earth through to the end of the 1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ.Combination shows of magic lantern slides and movies were common in this period, but the addition of recorded speech was unusual, and the sheer size of the distribution effort and the audience for a single religious production was extraordinary.The premiere was in January 1914 in New York, in summer 1914 in Germany. In North America, Great Britain, Europe, New Zealand and Australia, over 9,000,000 people had already seen either the full "Photo-Drama" or its abbreviated version called the Eureka-Drama.