For five years the BFI National Archive has been working on a project to make freely accessible 10,000 titles from the U.K.’s film collections. As part of this we decided to digitize all of our Victorian films – that is, British films from 1895 to 1901 (up to the end of the year in which Queen Victoria died), a total of some 700 or so titles. As part of the project we are also restoring our large-format early films from this period, in 60mm and 68mm (whether British-produced or not), and the unique nitrate copies in the collection not yet preserved.
Prior to the launch of the completed project we are pleased to offer the audience of the Giornate a little preview of these “in progress” restorations. The large-format restoration work is being overseen by Bryony Dixon, Ben Thompson, and Kieron Webb of the BFI, with scanning work by the expert team at Haghefilm Digitaal, who are of course well known to the Giornate audience.
The project is an exploration of the technical possibilities which a return to the original 60mm and 68mm elements in the digital era can offer, and builds on the excellent analogue restoration of Biograph films originally led by the Nederlands Filmmuseum (now EYE Filmmuseum) at Haghefilm in the 1990s, when the films were reduced to 35mm for preservation and viewing purposes (in fact, they were screened at the Giornate in 2000: see that year’s catalogue, pp.81-98, and Griffithiana no. 66/70).
The research for the project has revealed some new identifications, despite this being a well-documented era of film history. Among the unique nitrates are a wonderful panorama taken by Charles Urban and George Albert Smith on a trip around Italy for the Warwick Trading Company and another new R. W. Paul discovery!

Bryony Dixon

Source of all the films in this programme: BFI National Archive, London. Copia/Copy: DCP; durata complessiva/total running time: 14′.

Annotazioni di/All film notes by Bryony Dixon.

68mm, British Mutoscope and Biograph Company

FEEDING THE PIGEONS IN ST. MARK’S SQUARE (1898) 42″ (30 fps).
W.K.L. Dickson himself with a female companion and a little girl feeding the pigeons.

GRAND CANAL, VENICE (1898) 30″ (26 fps).
A fragment of a panorama of the Grand Canal from a boat.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE VEGETABLE MARKET, VENICE (1898) 34″ (28 fps).
Taken from a boat passing the crowds of vendors on a busy market day.

NEAPOLITAN DANCE AT THE ANCIENT FORUM OF POMPEII (1898) 32″ (26 fps).
A folk dance, staged in the ruins of Pompeii. With the Arch of Tiberius in the near distance and Arch of Caligula in the far distance.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF FRERE CAMP TAKEN FROM THE FRONT OF AN ARMOURED TRAIN (1899) 26″ (20 fps).
“Phantom ride” showing the British encampment at Frere in South Africa during the Boer War. W.K.L. Dickson apologized for the unavoidable vibration, in his account of the filming.

MENAI BRIDGE: THE IRISH DAILY MAIL FROM EUSTON ENTERING THE TUBULAR BRIDGE (1898) 38″ (24 fps).
Glorious view of the express train going across the famous Britannia tubular bridge across the Menai Strait in North Wales.

WARSHIPS AT SUNSET (1900) 22″ (30 fps).
View of four warships cruising with a superimposed “sunset”. It’s possible that this “day for night” print was intended to be coloured.

AMANN THE GREAT IMPERSONATOR (1899) 38″ (20 fps).
The famous quick-change artist Ludwig Amann impersonates Emile Zola and Alfred Dreyfus.

60mm

[PRESTWYCH PLATFORM SCENE] (c.1900) 47″ (16 fps).
Unidentified 60mm film directly taken from a 68mm negative – probably shot at Wood Green station in north London around 1900. The man walking along the platform must be known to the cameraman and may be a British pioneer filmmaker, but we are still working on identifying him.

FAT OX 1897. CAR OF THE ‘SHE-CATS’ – THE HATS (1897) 1′ (10 fps).
prod: Gaumont Company.
A contender for the most bizarrely named film in the BFI National Archive, Car of the ‘She-Cats’ was one of several scenes filmed by Gaumont of the “Promenade du Boeuf gras”, part of the famous Paris carnival, a centuries-old “mardi gras”celebration held in February.

VIENNA STREET SCENE (1896) 42″ (14 fps).
prod: Gaumont Company.
A typical early street scene taken by the Gaumont Company using the Demenÿ 60mm system, which gave excellent resolution and registration, and allowed for more projection light.

Nitrati unici/Unique Nitrates

PANORAMA OF POMPEII (1901) 345 ft., 6′ (16 fps).
prod: Warwick Trading Company.
A 360-degree pan of the ruins at Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background. The film was one of a series taken by Charles Urban and George Albert Smith for the Warwick Trading Company on a tour of Italy.

FUN ON A CLOTHESLINE (1897) 75 ft., 1’15” (16 fps).
regia/dir: Robert W. Paul.
A nitrate that had never been duplicated from the BFI’s collection, listed with a “given” title, [Gypsy Camp Drama], and dated 1896, turned out to be one of my “most wanted” lost R.W. Paul films. Fun on a Clothesline, from 1897, stars Harry Lamore, the famous slack-wire walker.