Read the paragraph. Edwin S. Porter, working for the inventor Thomas Edison, made the first movie to tell a story. Prior to this, movies were just a collection of staged happenings such as trains arriving or a man walking his dog. Porter's movie, "Life of an American Fireman," was produced in 1903. It had a character for the audience to worry about, a beginning, a middle, an end, and action scenes to help tell the story and hold the audience's attention. When other movie makers saw what could be done, it changed the movie industry.