Sunday 23 January 2011

Cecil Hepworth


A Day in the Hayfields (1904)

Hepworth invented a type of arc lamp for Robert Paul in 1895, assisted Birt Acres in the following year, and in 1897 wrote the first book on the cinema, "Animated Photography, The ABC of the Cinematograph" in 1897. In the early days of cinema, he worked on the periphery of the industry, assisting Birt Acres in a royal command cinematograph performance. Hepwix Logo (pre-1908)After being sacked by Charles Urban from Maguire and Baucus, Hepworth and his cousin Monty Wicks set up their own company, Hepworth and Co, with their trade logo Hepwix, which lasted until about 1908.

His film-making career began when he set up a laboratory in Hurst Grove, Walton on Thames in 1896 (or 1899, according to some accounts), and converted the small house into a studio. Twenty-five years later it would be the over-ambitious expansion of the studio that would drive him out of business. What happened during the intervening years was an immense achievement.

By 1900 he was releasing a hundred films a year. In 1899 he made a film of aspects of the Boer War, which survives. Their first popular success came with the filming of the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901, which bankrolled the company and permitted further development.

He was primarily a producer more than an actual film-maker but did on occasion, write, direct, edit, photograph and star in many films. Hepworth was instrumental in developing the British film industry through his use of cutting to produce a coherent film narrative.

It was always in the back of my mind from teh very beginning that I was to make English pictures, with all the English countryside for background and with the English atmosphere and the English idioms throughout.


The picorialist movement

The pictorialist movement in photography is one that contributed great success at the beginning of the 20th century. It gave birth to present and modern day photography. It led the path to great symbolic art in both photography and literary art.
The year is after 1855 until 1910. The camera is everywhere. George Kodak made the camera available even to the middle class.

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