Bhartiya Chitrapat (The Indian Cinema) | Part 4: From Spectacle to Studio (1898)

 The year 1898 marked a profound psychological shift in the story of Indian cinema. The medium began to shed its identity as a touring foreign curiosity, transforming into a locally shaped form of entertainment. While the bustling grounds of Bombay witnessed major advancements in public, open-air exhibitions, the cultural heart of Calcutta gave birth to the very first indigenous film production company.

The story of how Bhartiya Chitrapat democratized its spaces and claimed its own narrative in 1898 unfolds across three major chapters.

1. The Birth of the Royal Bioscope Company (Calcutta)

Hiralal Sen portrait illustration.

Following his creative awakening at the Star Theatre in late 1897, the brilliant photographer Hiralal Sen, alongside his brother Motilal Sen, formally established the Royal Bioscope Company in 1898. This was the absolute dawn of institutional filmmaking in India.

Sen didn't just want to copy the unedited everyday snapshots filmed by Europeans; he wanted to capture the living, breathing soul of Indian arts. Borrowing a motion picture camera from the traveling exhibitor Professor Stevenson, Sen rolled film on a captivating dance sequence from the popular opera The Flower of Persia at the Star Theatre.

This brief clip is historically recorded as the very first creative film sequence ever shot by an Indian filmmaker. Empowered by this commercial success, the Sen brothers took a giant leap forward later that year, ordering an advanced "Urban Bioscope" projector and camera directly from the Warwick Trading Company in London to launch a regular stream of local productions.

The Magic of Theatre Intervals

In 1898, Hiralal Sen also pioneered a brilliant, psychological marketing masterstroke. He realized that the long, tedious scene resets between acts in live theater broke the audience's immersion.

To bridge this gap, he began projecting his short, silent recordings of the plays—like The Flower of Persia—onto a screen during the stage intermissions and intervals. The audience sat spellbound. Seeing the exact same actors they had just watched live suddenly moving silently on a glowing screen felt like stepping into a dream. This clever presentation method made the Royal Bioscope Company an instant commercial hit and proved to investors that Indian audiences craved local faces, art, and stories far more than foreign scenery.

2. Open-Air Moving Pictures and Tents (Bombay)

An illustration of Tent in Azad Maidan

While the elegant brick-and-mortar theater halls catered primarily to the wealthy elite, cinema truly reached the masses in Bombay during 1898 through the ingenuity of open-air showmen.

Two Italian exhibitors, Colorello and Cornaglia, arrived in the city and did something revolutionary: they erected massive, structured canvas tents right in the middle of Azad Maidan. By setting up large-scale film screenings inside these makeshift structures, they birthed the iconic concept of the "tent cinema." This nomadic style of exhibition would go on to dominate rural India for the next half-century, ensuring that cinema belonged to the common man.

These open-air tents also expanded the narrative horizons of the audience. In January 1898, they introduced Indian viewers to some of the world's earliest special-effect and narrative films. The most popular imported titles that gripped the public imagination that year included The Death of Nelson, Noah's Ark, and Call on the London Fire Brigade.

3. Save Dada Prepares for the Historic Leap

Meanwhile, back in his Bombay studio, Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar (Save Dada) spent the entirety of 1898 quietly mastering his newly arrived equipment from London.

Instead of rushing to exhibit unpolished works, he operated with the discipline of a scientist—experimenting with chemistry in makeshift darkrooms, understanding exposure times under the Indian sun, and fine-tuning his lenses. His rigorous, silent practice throughout 1898 laid the precise technical foundation for his historic recording of The Wrestlers at the Hanging Gardens, an iconic masterpiece he would successfully execute and exhibit the very next year, in 1899.

The Filmography of 1898

While much of this early celluloid has been lost to time, historical records preserve two foundational titles that defined this year:

1. A Panorama of Indian Scenes and Procession – Captured by Professor Stevenson.
2. The Flower of Persia – Captured by Hiralal Sen (Highlighting the dancing scenes from Stevenson's broader production).

— Ritesh Choubey

                                              Founder & Chief Editor, 

                                          The Sovereign Vāk Journal

👉Read Part 5: Bhartiya Chitrapat | The Lens Captures Reality (1899) (Coming Soon)

👉Read Part 3: Bhartiya Chitrapat | The Spark of Creation (1897)