World's earliest colour movies shown for first time an incredible 120 years after they were shot

  • Obscure film segments are believed to date from around 1901 or 1902
  • Painstakingly restored by National Media Museum in Bradford
  • They feature a London street, children watching a goldfish bowl and a parrot 

By Daily Mail Reporter

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Some of the world's earliest colour movies have finally been shown to the public 120 years after they were shot having been painstakingly restored by film archivists.

The obscure film segments, which give a never seen before glimpse of the Edwardian age, were long considered to be failed prototypes and had been consigned to an archive.

But after recording the footage digitally, workers at the National Media Museum in Bradford were able to unlock remarkably modern-looking images created more than a century ago.

Scroll down to see some of the colour footage

The way we were: One of the earliest known colour films in existence shows horse-drawn carriages near Hyde Park Corner, in London in 1902. The footage was painstakingly resorted by archivists at National Media Museum in the Bradford

The way we were: One of the earliest known colour films in existence shows horse-drawn carriages near Hyde Park Corner, in London in 1902. The footage was painstakingly restored by archivists at National Media Museum in the Bradford

The scenes, screened at the Science Museum, ranged from roughly 5 to 40 seconds and showed a parrot, a London street scene, and three smiling children sitting around a table covered with a burgundy cloth batting at a goldfish bowl with large sunflowers.

 

'No one really has seen it until more or less today,' said Michael Harvey, the Media Museum's curator of cinematography.

'Look at the age of it. Here you've actually got color film from the early Edwardian period.'

He said he hoped the movies would change people's perceptions of 'what was possible back then.'

Playtime: Three Edwardian children gather round a table entranced by two goldfish in this astounding colour shot from the turn of the century

Playtime: Three Edwardian children gather round a table entranced by two goldfish in this astounding colour shot from the turn of the century

A scarlet Macaw on a perch. After transferring the footage to digital workers at the National Media Museum in Bradford were able to unlock remarkably modern-looking images created more than a century ago

A scarlet Macaw on a perch. After transferring the footage to digital workers at the National Media Museum in Bradford were able to unlock remarkably modern-looking images created more than a century ago

The film is slightly jerky but of decent quality. With the exception of the kids' frilly turn-of-the-century clothes and some mild discoloration, the sun-drenched clip of children playing might have been something shot by a baby boomer in his or her back yard with a 1970s Minolta camera.

Experts have dated the movie segments back to 1901 or 1902, when cinema was still in its infancy and inventors on both sides of the Atlantic were racing to produce ever-more realistic films.

American inventor Thomas Edison led the way with peep-show-like Kinetoscope; the Lumiere brothers had wowed French audiences with moving images projected onto screens in 1895. The next challenge was to shoot a film in color.

That was no mean feat.

Working in London, inventor-photographer Edward Turner devised a complex, three-color process which would shoot black-and-white negatives through red, green and blue filters alternating in rapid succession.

Rare colour footage from the turn of the century has been painstakingly restored
Rare colour footage from the turn of the century has been painstakingly restored

Showtime: Negative scans from two reels of the early film. Archivists were able to restore the footage after transferring it to digital storage

The idea was to project three differently filtered frames at a time on to a screen to create the illusion of a single, colorful movie.
In theory, anyway.

In practice the timing of the filters and distance from the screen had to be perfectly calibrated or the movie became 'a horrible mess,' according to Bryony Dixon, the curator of silent film at the British Film Institute's National Archive.

Turner never quite got the hang of the process, and when he died of a heart attack in 1903 his footage was passed on to American film entrepreneur, Charles Urban, who partnered with film pioneer George Albert Smith to develop a modified (and much more successful) system, dubbed Kinemacolor, in 1906.

Harvey said that Urban donated Turner's footage to the London Science Museum in 1937, where it stayed until about four years ago, when it was sent to the National Media Museum. Experts digitized the footage, finally allowing it to be shown.

Labour of love: Michael Harvey, curator of cinematography at the National Media Museum, Bradford, with the old projector and some of the earliest colour film

Labour of love: Michael Harvey, curator of cinematography at the National Media Museum, Bradford, with the old projector and some of the earliest colour film

Light fantastic: A blueprint for the Lee & Turner projector dating from 1899

Light fantastic: A blueprint for the Lee & Turner projector dating from 1899

Dixon noted that earlier films had been colored artificially - sometimes by painting right onto the black-and-white film - but said that the movies displayed Wednesday were 'the first natural working color film in the world.'

Film historian Mark Cousins said in an email that he was excited not by the technology or what he described as the 'firstism issue,' but by what he said might be called 'the drive to beauty in the early inventors of cinema.'

'They saw from the start that cinema could make you gasp at the beauty of a fish or a sunflower,' he said.

VIDEO: Alfred Raymond Turner, Agnes May Turner and Wilfred Sidney Turner, 1902

VIDEO: The exhibition's curator explains how the images were restored... 

 

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

Absolutely fascinating.

Click to rate     Rating   31

How strange it is to see something that old in colour. It's almost as if they made it today, and not 120 years ago. I love it.

Click to rate     Rating   31

1902 to 2012 is 110 years not 120

Click to rate     Rating   35

Fascinating but your reporter really needs to learn some arithmetic. If these films were made between 1901 and 1904, then that make them 111 years old at best and not 120 years old.

Click to rate     Rating   34

poor little girl, hat is almost as big as her, its still amazing though.

Click to rate     Rating   35

Absolutely fascinating! The history major in me is curling her toes! Thanks!

Click to rate     Rating   80

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