Rocky Shore

1896
Silent

The hypnotic spectacle of waves breaking over rocks

This attractively composed one-shot film offers viewers an uncomplicated view of waves crashing against rocks. The subject of the sea was a common one in early cinema: the unpredictable nature of waves was a perfect subject for showing off the accurate recreations now possible with film. We know from our own experiences how hypnotic it can be to watch waves break, and the film captures something of that quality; such a sight projected on a large screen would have been a captivating spectacle for early audiences.

This film may be one of a series shot in Spain and Portugal in 1896 by the cameraman Henry Short for RW Paul, whose famous Rough Sea at Dover premiered the same year. The proliferation of sea films indicates that they were particularly popular with Victorian audiences.

Robert Paul: Giant of Early Film

The most prolific filmmaker of the pioneer period of British film

The multi-talented Robert Paul (1869-1943) was the first British filmmaker to project film for a paying audience, in 1896. A contemporary of the Lumiere brothers, Paul had been producing film, in partnership with Birt Acres, for his own brand of Kinetoscope viewer since April 1895. Shortly after, he began producing for his Theatrograph and Animatographe machines, enjoying a long run at the Alhambra in Leicester Square. As an engineer, Paul made a number of significant innovations - such as an intermittent mechanism for efficiently projecting film. But he also made key innovations in film language, such as the first two-shot fiction film, Come Along Do! (1898). To cap it all, he was a shrewd businessman, with an instinctive grasp of audience tastes.