Solar Eclipse
- 1900
Two for the price of one! Two items were joined together on this reel, discovered among a small haul of early films and fragments discovered and donated to the BFI in the 1990s. The first is believed to be Birt Acres' A Corner of Barnet Fair.
The other item is a street scene whose location and filmmaker remains unidentified to this day. Any thoughts, on a digital postcard, as to where it was filmed will be gratefully received. The image on both items was already severely deterioriated prior to their rediscovery and urgent duplication, but even in this compromised form these are precious artefacts of the early days of film in Britain.
ACTUALITY. Two items on one reel.
1.A merry-go-round by some terraced houses with children riding. The name `Cavan' as the owner appears on the top of the merry-go-round.
Note: Believed to be Birt Acres' A CORNER OF BARNET FAIR. (17 feet)
2. An unidentified street-scene with shopfront and children sitting in a doorway. Several horse and carriages pass by. (37 feet)
References:
John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, p 206.
It was a lucky filmmaker who managed to be on hand to capture real 'hard news', as in the disastrous launch of HMS Albion. The second Boer War, the biggest international story of the late-Victorian era, lured several cameramen to South Africa. Others responded to audience demand for moving pictures of such events by dramatising them for the camera.