Seawaves No. 1

1898
Silent
1m

Amateur footage of a seaside scene. Waves wash against ramp or breakwater in
the foreground. A pier with pavilion is seen in the background.

Note: The pier is the Central Pier, Morecambe.

Sea Wave Films

The 'sea wave' genre might be one of the more surprising genres to come out of early film. But for Victorian audiences there was something hypnotic about these compact studies of movement.

Surely most of us, if we've ever stood before the sea have found ourselves transfixed by the rhythms of gently lapping waves. The violent churn of a really rough sea gives us something else again - a real sense of the ocean's magnificent, sometimes alarming power.