Cinema Before Cinema (November 2005)

The British Universities Film & Video Council has published an English translation of Virgilio Tosi's Il cinema prima di Lumière, first published in Italian in 1984. Tosi's book tells the story of the scientific development of cinema in the nineteenth century, with emphasis on the work of Muybridge, Marey and the first scientific filmmakers, such as Dr Doyen and Lucien Bull. The book has been retitled Cinema Before Cinema: The Origins of Scientific Cinema, and has an introduction by Paolo Cherchi Usai. The film is to be accompanied by a DVD of The Origins of Scientific Cinema, Tosi's three-part documentary which recreates the work of the nineteenth-century chronophotographers in details, and has a number of rare films from pioneers such as A.C. Haddon, Gheorghe Marinescu and Wilhelm Pfeffer. The book is available from Amazon and the DVD is available from December from the BUFVC.

Anima no more (November 2005)

Sadly, Charl Luccassen's wonderful web site Anima has been taken down. The site was dedicated to chronophotography, proto-cinema and optical toys, and included some hypnotic animations of the work of nineteenth century sequence photographers such as Muybridge, Marey and Albert Londe. Unfortunately, it was these animations (frequently plundered without permission by other sites) and rights issues over some images which has led the author to close what was undoubtedly the best web site on its subject anywhere.

Georges Méliès' Cléopâtre discovered (September 2005)

A copy of Georges Méliès' 1899 film Cléopâtre has been discovered in France, according to a report from Agence France Presse. Méliès produced over 500 films between 1896 and 1912, of which some 170 survive. The short film shows a diabolic figure cutting Cleopatra's mummy into pieces, before magically reconstructing it. For further information, see Le Monde (in French), although so far little information has been released concerning the film's contents, or indeed its present whereabouts.

Hopwood on CD (September 2005)

The Projection Box has published a CD edition of Henry V. Hopwood's 1899 publication Living Pictures: Their History, Photo-Production and Practical Working, together with R.B. Foster's 1915 revision of the text, Hopwood's Living Pictures. Hopwood was Custodian in the library of the Patent Office in London, and produced a thoroughly researched and lucid account of the new science. This classic text, with its detailed patent descriptions and sound comments on production and presentation, has been admired by film historians ever since. The CD is one of a series published by The Projection Box, including Magic Lantern Inventions and Motion Picture Equipment Catalogues 1900-1910. For further details, visit http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~s-herbert/hopwoods.htm.

Moving Image Technology (August 2005)

Leo Enticknap's long-awaited book Moving Image Technology: From Zoetrope to Digital has been published by Wallflower Press. The book provides a thorough and lucid history of film, video and sound technologies, from the 'pre-cinema' era to the digital age. The book integrates economic, cultural and theoretical concerns within its comprehensive survey, often providing provocative argument in its insistence on an understanding of moving image technologies from those who would study the art of film. There is much that relates to Victorian cinema, in such chapters as 'Film', 'Cinematography and Film Formats', 'Colour' and 'Sound'. Available from Amazon.co.uk.

Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers (August 2005)

The British Film Institute has re-issued its influential 1980s video compilation Primitives and Pioneers on DVD for the first time, with the original commentary by film historian Barry Salt and a new piano score by Neil Brand and others. Originally made as a two-part videotape release, the combined double-disc DVD contains 60 films from the 1895-1910 period, taken from the collection of the National Film and Television Archive. Victorian filmmakers featured on the discs include Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, Thomas Edison, Cecil Hepworth and Edwin S. Porter. Available from the BFI and Amazon.co.uk.

Visual Delights Two (July 2005)

Papers from the 2002 Visual Delights Conference at the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield, have now been published as Visual Delights Two: Exhibition and Reception, edited by Vanessa Toulmin and Simon Popple (John Libbey, 2005). Articles related to Victorian cinema include: 'Film and Postcards - Cross Media Symbiosis in Early Bamforth Films' by Richard Brown; 'The Neo-Institutionalisation of Cinema as a New Medium' by André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion; 'The Sensation of the Century: Robert Paul and Film Exhibition in Brighton in 1896/7' by Frank Gray; 'The Brighton School and the Quest for Natural Colour' by Luke McKernan; 'The May Irwin Kiss: Performance and the Beginnings of Cinema' by Charles Musser; and '"What the Vicar Saw" or "The Kiss in The Park"' by David R. Williams. Available from Amazon.co.uk.

Electric Edwardians (May 2005)

The British Film Institute is releasing Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon, a follow-up DVD to the very successful The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon DVD, originally a three-part BBC television series based on the work of the Blackburn filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon. The new DVD presents the films in their entirety rather than the extracts featured in the television series. There are thirty-five titles (plus five 'hidden' items), arranged thematically, with a number of extras including a voiceover commentary by Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive, and an introduction by film historian Tom Gunning, voiced by the actor Paul McGann. For further details, see the BFI website. Electric Edwardians is available in the United States from Milestone Films.

Early Popular Visual Culture (May 2005)

The latest of issue of the retitled and repackaged journal Early Popular Visual Culture (formerly Living Pictures) has been published. Now handled by Routledge, the multidisciplinary journal has extended its coverage to all popular forms of image production (still and moving) to 1930, covering magic cinema, photography, magic lanterns and music hall within the fields of entertainment, education, science, advertising and the domestic environment. The new issue includes articles on Alexander Black, Birt Acres and Ludwig Stollwerck, and the Who's Who of Victorian Cinema web site. For further details, visit www.tandf.co.uk.

Giornate del Cinema Muto (May 2005)

The twenty-fourth Giornate del Cinema Muto annual festival of silent film will take place 8-15 October 2005. After a number of years in Sacile, this year the festival returns to its traditional home of Pordenone. The themes announced so far include Japanese cinema, the Griffith Project part 9, Ince revisited, André Antoine, and Silly Symphonies. A more detailed programme will be published nearer the time. Further details, including registration and accommodation information, are available from the Giornate web site.

Sequences exhibition (April 2005)

Sequences is an exhibition of contemporary chronophotographic work that uses sequences of images to explore ideas of space, time, movement and duration, in the tradition of the nineteenth-century chronophotographers Eadweard Muybridge, E-J. Marey, Georges Demenÿ, Albert Londe and others. The exhibition, which has already visited several venues, runs from 28 May to 23 July at the Lighthouse, Poole, and 20 August 1 October 2005 at Q Arts, Derby. Further information on the venues and artists is available from the Sequences web sites, and an accompanying book is due to be published by the Projection Box.

Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (February 2005)

Routledge has published the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, edited by Richard Abel. It is an exceptional achievement, with ten consultants and nearly 150 contributors who have produced 950 entries over 791 pages that embrace almost very imaginable aspect of scholarship in early cinema, 'both traditional and revisionist'. The book covers filmmakers, performers, technologies, modes of production, audiences and exhibition, and diverse critical approaches. It is also impressively international, going beyond Europe and America to covering filmmaking in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South and Central America. In covering filmmaking for its first twenty-five years, it therefore serves as an excellent guide to Victorian cinema. At £130, it is most likely to be encountered by researchers on a library shelf, but it is going to be indispensible.

Visual Delights III (January 2005)

Early Popular Visual Culture (formerly Living Pictures) in association with the National Fairground Archive and the University of Leeds will hold a third event examining the use and exploitation of the projected image within the fields of entertainment, education, science and the domestic environment. The theme of this three-day conference is Magic and Illusion and will be a combination of academic papers, performance and film screenings. The conference incorporates both academic and non-academic historians, collectors and performers and will to bring together the worlds of photography, film and mass visual culture to a wider and more inclusive audience. The conference will take place at the University of Sheffield between 15 and 17 July 2005. For further information, visit http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/vdelights.

Mitchell and Kenyon (January 2005)

The remarkable collection of 800 Mitchell and Kenyon films is being made public, following the completion of the British Film Institute's restoration programme and detailed research conducted in the films' exhibition history by the National Fairground archive. The premiere screening will be at King George's Hall, Blackburn, on Friday 14 January, and on the same day the BBC will broadcast the first episode in its three-part series The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon, with a DVD release to follow. A UK touring programme, 'Electric Edwardians', will open in February. For further information, visit BFI Collections.