D.W. Griffith
He was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the epic 1915 film The Birth Of The Nation and Intolerance.
He was first who used advanced camera and narrative techniques.
Here is an example of his filming.
Lev Kuleshov
He was a Soviet filmmaker and film theorist who taught at and helped establish the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School.
He did a lot of theoretical work. For example Kuleshov Effect.
This footage is the the first demonstration of montage. It changed the meaning of cinema and established editing as an art form and a key tool in the creation of the film.
Sergei Eisenstein
He was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage". He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1927), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958).
