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French film director

Ferdinand Zecca (19 February 1864 – 23 March 1947) was a pioneer French film director, film producer, actor and screenwriter. He worked primarily for the Pathé company, first in artistic endeavors then in administration of the internationally based company.

Ferdinand Louis Zecca was born in Paris on 19 February 1864 into an Italian family steeped in the entertainment world. His father was the stage manager at the Paris Théâtre de l'Ambigu while his brothers were actors. Zecca also became a stage manager and then an actor, before working as an entertainer, playing the cornet and singing in Parisian cafés. He was playing the cornet at the Foire au Pain d'épices, when he encountered filmmaker Léon Gaumont.

From 1891, Zecca had worked occasionally recording voice overs for phonograph records for the Pathé Frères company, a pioneer in the cinema and audio recording industries. After 1895, Pathé became more involved in cinema. Gaumont first hired Zecca as an actor in 1898 but Zecca directed his first film for Pathé, an experimental sound production, Le Muet mélomane (1899) based on a musical Zecca and another artist, Charlus, were performing. At the request of entrepreneur Georges Dufayel, owner of the Grands Magasins Dufayel, they acted the piece before a ciné camera. His next film, Les Méfaits d'une tête de veau (1899) was for Gaumont. In 1900, unable to personally do the work, Charles Pathé had Zecca set up the Pathé pavilion in the Paris World Fair (Exposition Universelle). After seeing his work, Pathé offered Zecca a position in his film company in Vincennes, first as an assistant to a director. Engaging Zecca "for a few weeks", he quickly became Pathé's right hand man and was soon creating and directing his own films. Zecca explored many themes from the mundane to the fantastic. In À la conquête de l'air (1901), a strange flying machine, called Fend l'air, was seen flying over the rooftops of Belleville. By using trick photography, the one minute short was notable in being the first aviation film, predating the flight by the Wright Brothers by two years.#tag:ref|Zecca had filmed an actor in the strange contraption suspended from the studio roof with the camera having half the frame blocked. The film was then rewound and the city landscape was shot in the previously blacked out portion, creating the first split screen effect. Between 1900 and 1907, Zecca oversaw the production of hundreds of Pathé films from many important Pathé directors including Nonguet Lucien, Gaston Velle, Albert Capellani, Louis J. Gasnier, André Heuzé and Henri Pouctal. Zecca also acted, directed, produced, and, on occasion, wrote films. After Pathé bought the rights to Star films, Zecca started editing films by George Méliès. Appointed Managing Director of Pathé in 1905, in 1913 Zecca was sent to the United States to take charge of the American Pathé production house. He returned to France in 1919, where as a co director with René Leprincee, he made Le Calvaire d'une reine, his last film. In the same year, Zecca was appointed to head the Pathé Baby division, producing equipment and cameras for thin film, where he worked until his retirement in 1939. In March 1947 at the age of 83, in his residence at Saint Mandé, France, Ferdinand Zecca died.