Frames from Incident at Clovelly Cottage, 1895.Clovelly Cottage, 19 Park Road, Chipping Barnet.Birt Acres' Kinetic Camera, 1895.
Birt Acres (23 July 1854 – 27 December 1918) was an American and British photographer and film pioneer. Among his contributions to the early film industry are the first working 35 mm camera in Britain (Wales), and Birtac, the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector. He also directed a number of early silent films.
Acres invented the first British 35 mmmoving picturecamera, Birtac which was the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector; he was also the first travelling newsreel reporter in international film history and the first European film maker who had his films shown in the United States in public performances. He contributed much to the introduction and development of cinematography in all its aspects, from the construction of cameras, projectors, film viewers, coating and slitting machines and the manufacture of highly sensitized 35 mm raw film stock, to mobile newsreel reporting and the public projections of moving pictures.[citation needed]
With his partner Robert W. Paul, he was the first person to build and run a working 35 mm camera in Britain. Incident at Clovelly Cottage was made in March 1895[3] and featured Acres' wife with their infant son in a pram[4] outside Acres' then home of Clovelly Cottage, Park Road, Chipping Barnet, which still exists.[5] Acres and Paul fell out after Acres patented their design in his own name on 27 May 1895. He made some very early silent films during the Victorian era including in 1895: a film of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, The Arrest of a Pickpocket, The Comic Shoeblack, The Boxing Kangaroo and Performing Bears.
Acres was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. On 14 January 1896, he demonstrated his Kineopticon system to members and wives of the Society, at the Queen's Hall in London.[7] Robert Paul's first solo theatrical programme was at the Alhambra Theatre on 25 March 1896.
aka H.R.H. The Prince of Wales accompanied by T.R.H. The Princess of Wales, Princess Victoria, and Princess Maud, arriving at the Cardiff Exhibition, June 27th, 1896.Newsreel coverage of the Prince and Princess of Wales' visit of the 1896 Cardiff Exhibition. Now a lost film, it's considered the first time the British Royal Family was filmed.[9][10][11]
^Barnes, John (2015). The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894-1901. Exeter. pp. 106–107.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
