Solar Eclipse
- 1900
Seaside festivities captured by one of the world's earliest amateur filmmakers.
This record of festivities at the Lancashire resort can reasonably be described as one of the world's earlier amateur films. It was shot by William Henry Youdale of Cockermouth, Cumberland. A draper by trade, he was also a magic lantern operator who, off his own bat, made several forays into film - the new media of its day.
The distinction, in this early period, between the films of such 'amateurs' and the budding 'professional' industry is not a hard and fast one. But this film does anticipate something of the hobby filmmaking to come in decades ahead - parades, carnivals and similar special occasions would continue to be favourite subjects for generations of amateur filmmakers.
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.