Spiders on a Web

1900
Silent

Dare you watch this footage of larger-than-life spiders - one of the earliest nature films of its type?

This is one of the first examples of close-up nature photography, predating the work of science film pioneer Percy Smith by almost a decade. At this scale, the humble spiders appear as fearsome beasts, and although they haven't really been photographed on a web, the circular mask on the frame gives that impression. While this film could have some educational value, its director, showman-turned-filmmaker George Albert Smith, probably just wanted to give the audience something gruesome to gawp at.

Spiders viewed down a microscope.

Inventing Film Language

As with any new technology, it was film’s early adopters whose innovations and discoveries began to map out what is possible.

The first filmmakers had a lot to learn, but they learnt quickly, driven by their own creative ambitions and by audiences' hunger for novelty. Most of the techniques we know today were in place by the end of the Victorian period.

It was the Victorian pioneers who developed the essential building blocks of film; close-ups, pans and travelling shots; editing and principles of continuity. And their ambition spurred them to innovate numerous tricks and effects, from jump-cuts, to double-exposure and even split screen. Generations of later filmmakers would refine these methods, but the groundwork had already been done.