Roundhay Garden Scene | |
---|---|
Directed by | Louis Le Prince |
Produced by | Louis Le Prince |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Louis Le Prince |
Edited by | Louis Le Prince |
Release date |
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Running time | 3 seconds |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | Silent |
Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in Yorkshire on 14 October 1888. [1] It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The camera used was patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888. [2]
According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, Roundhay Garden Scene was made at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 14 October 1888. [3] The footage features Adolphe, the Whitleys, and Annie Hartley leisurely walking around the garden of Oakwood Grange. Sarah is seen walking –or dancing –backward as she turns around, and Joseph's coattails fly as he turns also. Joseph (1817–1891) and Sarah (née Robinson, 1816–1888) were the parents of Elizabeth, Louis Le Prince's wife, and Hartley is believed to have been a friend of the Le Princes. Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was filmed. [4]
Oakwood Grange was demolished in 1972 and replaced with modern housing; the only remnants of it are the garden walls at the end of Oakwood Grange Lane. The adjacent stately home, Oakwood Hall, still stands, and is now a nursing home. [5]
Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded on Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film using Le Prince's single-lens camera. In the 1930s, the Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative [6] before it was lost. The copied frames were later printed on 35 mm film. Adolphe Le Prince stated that the film was shot at 12 frames per second (fps), but analysis suggests that it was shot at 7 fps. The First Film , a 2015 documentary about Louis Le Prince, shows it at 7 fps.[ citation needed ]
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, and director of Roundhay Garden Scene.
The Beiderbecke Tapes is a two-part British television drama serial written by Alan Plater and broadcast in 1987. It is the second serial in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and stars James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne.When a tape recording of a conversation about nuclear waste inadvertently falls into Trevor's hands, Trevor and Jill find themselves being pursued by national security agents.
Roundhay is a large suburb in north-east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Roundhay had a population of 22,546 in 2011.
West Park is a suburb of north-west Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, north of Headingley. It is a mixed area of private suburban housing and suburban council estates. The name derives from its main park containing playing fields together with a conservation area of grassy meadow ending in woodland. The largest housing estate in West Park is Moor Grange.
The following is an overview of the events of 1888 in film, including a list of films released and notable births.
Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon, also known as Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory and Exiting the Factory, is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière. It is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by six and a half years.
The following is an overview of the events of 1890 in film, including a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Roundhay Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a large urban park situated on the north-east edge of the city, bordered by the suburb of Roundhay to the west, Oakwood to the south and the A6120 outer ring road to the north. It covers more than 700 acres (2.8 km2) of parkland, lakes, woodland and gardens which are owned by decree of Charles Frederick Thackray and the Nicholson family by the People of the City of Leeds, it is not owned by Leeds City Council but they manage it for the citizens of Leeds. The park is one of the most popular attractions in Leeds; nearly a million people visit each year.
Oakwood is a suburb of north-east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, that lies between Gipton and Roundhay Park.
The decade of the 1880s in film involved significant events.
Leisurely Pedestrians, Open Topped Buses and Hansom Cabs with Trotting Horses is a 1889 British short silent actuality film, shot by inventor and film pioneer William Friese-Greene. The film depicts life at Hyde Park Corner in London. Hyde Park Corner is claimed to be the first film set in London, as well as the first to be filmed on celluloid, although Louis Le Prince successfully shot on glass plate before 18 August 1887, and on paper negative in October 1888. It may nonetheless be the first moving picture film on celluloid and the first shot in London. It was shown mainly to several photographic journalists who saw it during their lifetime—including Thomas Bedding, J. Hay Taylor and Theodore Brown. It is now considered a lost film with only 6 possible frames surviving today.
Sarah Whitley is credited as the earliest-born woman known to have appeared in a film. She was the mother-in-law of cinematic pioneer Louis Le Prince and was filmed by him 10 days before her death, aged 72.
Joseph Whitley was an English mechanical engineer and metallurgist. He appears in the Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest known film fragment, shot by his son-in-law Louis Le Prince.
Adolphe Le Prince was an English actor. He appeared in Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving film.
John Robinson Whitley, was a British entrepreneur who inaugurated the Earl's Court Exhibition Grounds in West London in 1887. After four major exhibitions on the site (1887–1892), he moved to France where in partnership with Allen Stoneham, he developed Touquet-Paris-Plage and created Hardelot-Plage. He was a brother-in-law of pioneering French cinematographer, Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince and grandfather of Air marshal Sir John Whitley.
Sir Edwin Airey was a British civil engineer and industrialist responsible for the Airey prefabricated houses constructed in the UK after the Second World War.
The First Film is a 2015 British documentary film about cinema pioneer Louis Le Prince, made by David Nicholas Wilkinson. It argues the case that Le Prince, rather than the Lumière brothers, was the true inventor of moving pictures, making Roundhay Garden Scene in Leeds in 1888. Le Prince mysteriously disappeared in 1890.
Roundhay is a ward in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It contains 50 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The ward is to the northeast of the centre of Leeds, and includes the suburbs of Roundhay, Gledhow, and Oakwood. The ward is mainly residential, and most of the listed buildings are houses, cottages and associated structures, farmhouses and farm buildings. The other listed buildings include an open-air bath, a bridge, schools, a hotel, churches and a gravestone in a churchyard, a folly, a row of almshouses, a hospital, a drinking fountain, a shop, and a clock tower.
Annie Hartley was an English woman who appeared in the 1888 short film Roundhay Garden Scene by Louis Le Prince. She is believed to be a friend of Louis Le Prince and his wife.