DB7

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Tuesday June 28, 2005
The Guardian

The BBC is again planning to raid the archives of the British Film Institute in an effort to tap into a growing interest in evocative silent movies from a bygone age.
Following the success of the BBC2 series The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon, which offered a fascinating insight into life in late Victorian and early Edwardian Britain, the corporation is dusting down the archives of the pioneering 1920s film-maker Claude Friese-Greene.


Through the restored footage, the BBC hopes to reawaken interest in a landmark film, The Open Road, featuring some of the earliest colour footage of locations around the UK.
The BBC plans to follow the route of a journey made by Friese-Greene from Land's End to John O'Groats in 1924, stopping off at 24 locations en route to show local people the footage from their area.

There will also be five regional events attended by the presenter Dan Cruikshank and experts from the BFI National Film and Television Archive, at which they will attempt to glean greater insight into the history of the people, buildings and landscapes featured in the footage. The resulting series, The Lost World of Friese-Greene, will be shown next year.

The BFI's director, Amanda Neville, said The Open Road was "yet another fantastic gem" from the archives. "It gives us a glimpse into a bygone era which, like Mitchell and Kenyon, serves as a powerful reminder of why it is so important to preserve and cherish our film heritage. The public demand for access to wonderful films like this adds an urgency to our efforts to restore and showcase them."

A surprise hit for the BBC, the films made by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon excited much interest among viewers and critics for their unique insight into life in Britain in the early 1900s.

One programme in the series, currently being repeated on BBC2, shows a 1902 football match between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United.

The BBC2 controller, Roly Keating, said the success of the series "proved how fascinated British audiences are with these astonishing visions of a lost era.

"In the Friese-Greene footage, the sheer quality of colour photography makes this an equally remarkable source of forgotten history."

Rob Compton

Now THAT sounds interesting!

How come it's taking them so long to realise what fantastic riches they have stored away in their own archives (BBC and BFI)

rgds
Rob

DAVID RAYNER

It remains to be seen what kind of “colour film” this will be. That far back, there was, as far as I know, only two-tone colour film or even film painstakingly coloured in by hand frame by frame.

The three colour strip Technicolor, the forerunner of all the modern colour systems, didn’t appear on the scene until around 1933, with a Walt Disney cartoon called The Three Little Pigs; while Becky Sharp, the first feature film in three-strip Technicolor, didn’t appear until 1935. So don’t expect this early 1920’s colour film to be much good and you won’t be disappointed. Of course, it could have been shot in some vibrant colour system I’ve never heard of, but we’ll see.

One suggestion to the BBC if they’re thinking of once again employing Whispering Dan Cruikshank as narrator and linkman on the new series. Get someone else for God’s sake, as he whispers away in such hallowed tones that I can hardly hear a word he says without turning my volume up full blast and one more thing: If you’re going to have little comedy interludes in it of someone dressed as Claude Friese Greene trying to make him look funny by speeding up the footage, forget it. We had enough of that approach on the previous series it simply wastes the running time of the programme and takes up space that could be far better employed showing us more of the historical footage.

Hugo

According to the report in today's Daily Mail, Claude Friese-Greene, (son of inventor, William Friese-Greene) devised a technique in 1923 where each alternate frame was tinted either a red/brown or a blue/green. When the footage is projected at a full speeed of 24 frames per second the eye is deceived into seeing the colours as normal.
The producer of the BBC programme Emma Hindley, claims that it did not catch on at the time because audiences were used to black and white, 'and didn't like seeing people wandering about in colour' which seems very odd to say the least.

Steve Crook

There were a lot of different techniques used for projecting colour film. Many of them were surprisingly effective.

I've been to a few special lectures about them at the NFT
See http://www.powell-pressburger.org/NF...chnicolor.html and http://www.powell-pressburger.org/NF...istColour.html.

Steve

Freddy

Having watched in the last week documentaries on Nelson and Mary Seacole there now does seem to be a tendency to pad out with music and role playing.

regards
Freddy

The world wags on.

penfold

Having seen a couple of presentations of the Friese-Greene material, I can tell you it is wonderful stuff. Odd clips have turned up in such programmes as 'The British Empire In Colour' - it is a bi-filter process, but remarkably effective, though you do get colour fringing when the subject is moving rapidly.
The shots that I recall best; Blackpool pleasure beach, by day and night; barge-living urchins on the Manchester Ship Canal; England V Australia at The Oval; the loading of sheaves onto an ox-pulled haywain in Somerset.
It's wonderful footage, I know the bfi have been trying to edit it together for years...this will be a hit like M&K, but please...Dan Cruikshank again??

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

That's because they assume you're so thick and have such a short attention span that you can't follow a complete documentary.

Although Angela Bruce, the actress that played Mary Seacole, was very good (as she usually is)

Steve

penfold

Claude Friese-Greene is of course in The Magic Box - as a character. He is the schoolboy son of William Friese-Greene (Robert Donat) who comes back from school with a black eye as a result of arguing that Thomas Edison didn't invent moving pictures, his daddy did...
When the colour process failed to catch on, he became a cinematographer in the mainstream of British cinema, until his early death during the war.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Wetherby Pond

...or because Dan Cruikshank is a very popular presenter, which is why the first programme managed to get an audience of four million plus (phenomenal for a Friday evening on BBC2 against high-profile comedies on the other channels) without much in the way of advance hype. The excellence of the footage ensured the audience would return (there was next to no falling-off), but don't underestimate Cruikshank's contribution to securing it in the first place.

And to reply to Rob Compton, the BFI is well aware of what riches it has in the NFTVA - the problem, as ever, is persuading people to stump up the necessary funds to preserve, restore and contextualise it. They've been wanting to do something with the Open Road footage for years if not decades, but it wasn't until the success of Mitchell & Kenyon that it started to look financially plausible.

smudge

I am glad to see another decent strand from the BBC and am going to defend old Dan C.

I like him ; a presenter who is mature, knows his subject and is enthusiastic about it. Anybody who encourages learning is jolly good as far as I am concerned. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clapping.gif[/img] Far better than these young pseudo-presenters who seem to have a limited extent of knowledge and are most interested in getting themselves on the telly...

SMUDGE

[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devil.gif[/img]

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

penfold

He does give the impression of knowing his subject, but as someone on the periphery of the M&K project, I can tell you he did none of the research, and I don't believe he wrote the script either, though I will stand corrected.
The people who do do their own research tend to be the younger presenters - obvious examples are Matthew Sweet and Mark Kermode, the former I keep seeing at festivals of silent or British film, Kermode I see at the bfi library regularly. They both do their own legwork. Even if Kermode has this bizarre passion for Star Wars and The Exorcist, you have to respect them.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Rob Compton

Fair point Wetherby, I just sometimes get a little frustrated at how slowly things move.

However I would take issue with your statement "without much in the way of advance hype" - the M and K films were massively hyped, as are so many programmes on TV - so much so that one might get a little tired of the series before it even starts!

rgds
Rob

Wetherby Pond

On the other hand, on the evidence of the Electric Edwardians DVD, neither Vanessa Toulmin nor Patrick Russell, who did do a huge amount of the research (at least going from programme/DVD credits and their authorship of the accompanying book), would have been an improvement on Cruikshank - though, to be fair, neither of them are professional TV presenters and I doubt this was ever their ambition.

Talking of the DVD, though, doesn't this answer David Rayner's point? By which I mean, had the DVD been broadcast instead of the documentary - i.e. no Dan Cruikshank, the films in their entirety, etc. - what are the chances that it would have achieved that level of success? "Very very slim indeed" would be my prediction - not least because it would have been relegated to a graveyard slot on BBC4 marked "for specialists only".

So I think the BBC and BFI got the balance more or less spot on - a populist documentary to bring in the viewers, then a more scholarly DVD for people who want to explore the films in more depth (plus a DVD of the series). I have no idea how well the DVDs are selling, but I'd be very surprised if they flopped.

DB7

I would say they understand the historic values of the archive but I've seen little evidence they comprehend the commercial values of some of the films or how best to exploit them. It shouldn't take the BBC to give their marketing greater exposure and I wonder whether the BFI give the public what they want... or what they think the public want.