William Nicholas Selig

William Nicholas Selig was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry. In 1896 he created one of the first film production companies, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago. Selig produced a string of commercially successful films in the early years of the film industry. His The Tramp and the Dog (1896) is considered the first narrative film set in Chicago. Selig claimed to have made the first narrative film shot in Los Angeles, The Count of Monte Cristo, and, in 1909, established what may have been the first permanent L.A. studio, in Edendale, Los Angeles. He also produced the first Wizard of Oz film in 1910, the first U.S. company to shoot a two-reel film, Damon and Pythias (1908), and the first true serial, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913–1914).