Watch D.W. Griffith: Years Of Discovery: Episode 17 - The New York Hat

In the span of five years, pioneering director D.W. Griffith delivered some 450 films for the Biograph Company at a rate of two or three films per week. One and two reels in length, these works showed the filmmaker inventing, borrowing, and perfecting techniques he later used to memorable effect in "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," "Way Down East" and "Orphans of the Storm." But the Biographs were more than that; they helped shape cinematic narrative for generations to come. Plots are simple and direct, revealing an extraordinary dramatic talent of brilliant force, and Griffith assembled the foremost film ensemble of his day, including Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, and Mae Marsh.