Ибраев Е.Е. Костанайский государственный университет. Казахстан

A Brief History of the British Film Industry

The British film industry, which came into being in the last years of the 19th century, has produced some amazing footage during its 118 years of existence. Documentaries, plays and news plus literally hundreds of superb films have entertained, amazed and enthralled us all. But how many people know that the world's first single lens motion picture camera was patented in Leeds, England in 1888 by a Frenchman, Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince? Le Prince started commercial development of his motion picture camera in early 1890 and gave a well documented demonstration to M. Mobisson, the Secretary of the Paris Opera.

The first films were made on a sensitised paper roll which measured a little over 2 inches wide. In 1889, M. Le Prince was able to obtain celluloid roll film from Eastman when it was introduced in England.

We don't know if he got an order from the Paris Opera, but we do know that M. Le Prince was at the centre of the first real cinema mystery. On September 16 1890, he boarded a train at Dijon bound for Paris carrying with him his motion picture camera and films. He never arrived in Paris. No trace of Le Prince OR his motion picture camera were ever found. The mystery was never solved however a photograph of a drowning victim from 1890 resembling Le Prince was discovered in 2003 during research in the Paris police archives

Just a few years later in 1895, a pair of Greek showmen, George Georgiades and his partner George Tragides, were at the centre of a row with the already powerful American Edison company. The pair originally purchased six Kinetoscopes from Edison forming the American Kinetoscope Company and opening Kinetoscopes at several locations in London, amongst them The Strand and Old Broad Street.

They wanted to expand their operation but machinery was both rare and expensive so they approached R. W. Paul who owned an optical instrument works in Saffron Hill, to manufacture some "spurious' Edison Kinetoscope projectors as Edison had not patented them in the UK. Unfortunately Edison refused to sell films for pirated machines, so Paul approached American born cinema pioneer Birt Acres (The first man successfully to take and project a 35 mm film in England) to help construct a camera to shoot their own films. They obtained film from the American Celluloid Co. of Newark, N.J. and started filming their own with Birt Acres as the cameraman.

Unfortunately the halcyon years came swiftly to an end when by 1909, Pathe and Gaumont began flooding the British market with films and the UK fell rapidly behind.
World War I slowed the British film industry almost to a halt. Immediately after the war, efforts were made to pick up the industry and resume production although films remained very live theatre oriented with producers filming plays exactly as they had been performed on stage down to the same actors and sets.

Sadly, the British film industry could not keep pace with advances being made abroad and soon became technically out of date. The industry wasn't helped by the great British public who only wanted to see American films. By 1918, the money ran out and home production virtually ceased.

British production finally stopped in 1924 but then Parliment passed the Cinematographers Trade Bill, designed to ensure there was a guaranteed home market for British made films. It limited the number of movies coming from other countries to give home studios a chance. The result was more British movies, but poor quality was a major issue. The appearance of sound helped the British Film Industry's unstable financial position. In 1929, 138 films were made and growth looked promising.

In 1936 the British film industry had over produced, making 220 pictures. The result were poorly made, rushed films that were not worth watching and that nobody wanted. This opened the door to the American industry, and American companies soon started buying bankrupt British Production companies so they would qualify under the home market quota. Then with the start of World War II, the industry took another turn. Many studio employees were engaged in the war, reducing available manpower. Half the studio space was requisitioned for military purposes, and an average of just 60 films were produced annually.

The fickle British public then demanded more realistic films, so British studios were forced to turn to documentaries and war related movies. This proved a great success.
After the war, the Rank Organization became the dominant force in the industry. The shift was to make British films more acceptable to the audiences outside of the UK. In addition, television caused such a tremendous decline in attendance that British film theatres were closing in record numbers.

Studios quickly switched to producing TV shows and TV movies to stay afloat. Even though there were a few bright spots over the next few decades like the Hammer Horror Films, British production faced some bleak times.

In the late 50's, 60's and 70s, restrictions on the US studios soon had US studios looking at the UK as a production ground, almost like US studio outposts. There was such an influx of US production in the UK that American finances virtually took over the British industry.

The late 70's and 80's saw British production turning to more television production and branching into more special effects studios for major US studios like Superman, Star Wars and the James Bond series. But by the late 80's, there seemed to be a major decline in US production in the UK.

The British film industry is nothing if not resilient. It didn't take long before the vaccum was filled by a host of independently made British movies. Through the 90's, British production increased with such hits as Trainspotting, Brassed Off, Elizabeth, The Full Monty and many more.

The British film is now a solid force in the industry and we can look forward to many more hours of home-grown cinematography but it it well to remember where it all came from. You might like to take a walk in lovely St Ann's Well Gardens next time you are in Brighton and see if you can spot the shadows left behind by those early film makers.

Sources:

1. Woolf L., «Growing». 1967, - р. 135.

2. Byng G., «Reap the Whirlwind». 1968, - р. 55.

3. Foster D., «Landscape with Arabs». Brighton, 1969, - р. 166.