Yarmouth Fishing Boats Leaving Harbour (1896)
Posted on Mar 10, 2011 under Fishing Boats | 16 Comments
A decaying print of this long-lost film was discovered and duplicated just in time for 1996′s celebration of 100 years of projected film in Britain. Among those who saw it in 1896 were members of the Royal Family, at a special screening of films put on by Birt Acres, pioneering maker of this and other very early “actuality” films. His precise motives may be impossible to reconstruct, and his shots of fishing smacks taken from Great Yarmouth’s harbour are painfully brief. But they do suggest an early interest in film as a documentary record. Of similar length to the earliest web films of a century later, this is an example of how products of new media in their infancy have their own fragmentary fascination and beauty. (Patrick Russell) For more information about Birt Acres see www.screenonline.org.uk You can watch almost 1000 other complete films and TV programmes from the BFI National Archive free of charge at the new BFI Mediatheque – www.bfi.org.uk
March 10th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
@greenisland75 its great yarmouth in norfolk mate you can tell by the YH723 on the side of the ship The YH is basically like an area code for great yarmouth like on a post code. and my grandad was a trawler captain and all hios ships had YH on the side
March 10th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Is this Yarmouth, Isle of Wight ot Great Yarmouth in Norfolk? Does anybody know?
March 10th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Nice thanks!!
March 10th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
DAMN COMPUTERS!!!!! I should of been born 100 years ago.
March 10th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
How things have changed. With the advent of the computer, you could take down this Sloop’s ID# YH723 and find out who owned it, where they lived, died and where their ancestors are now. Wonderful and scary at the same time.
)o:
March 10th, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Amen! If the makers of films like this knew Adam Sandler and Pauly Shore were gonna abuse their invention, they would have burned all evidence of these old films!
March 10th, 2011 at 11:50 pm
Brittish are really foolish to accept these terms that they have to be enrolled in a U
or go to certain libraries to see these clips. As you say: they pay the BFI. They have a right to watch these clips in their homes. Collectors preserve films. They give them to BFI so the films can go public. Why did they release so many Mitchell And Kenyon dvds? The founders surely insisted they were for the public. Previous collectors were fooled.
March 10th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
What a complete idiot you are. People like you are so wrong, thinking about frontiers when it comes to world culture. I would willingly buy them on dvd if it existed. Most important Edison films are available online. We have some of canadian cinema available online. The 10 films from the first Lumière institute can be seen online (though thy should show a lot more). Only at BFI would you hear such stupid argument .
March 11th, 2011 at 12:03 am
so as a canadian your taxes have been paying to save these films have they? ppl in Briain can see the films at screen online so whats your problem? im sure the bfi will make them available in canada when you start paying for them
March 11th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Actually. We CAN’T see the films at Screen Online because they have that ridiculous “for english school only” blocking. How am I suppose to see Birt Acres’s Henley Regata?? The wrong people are working in archives centres. It’s always “protect, protect, noshow, noshow”.
March 11th, 2011 at 12:58 am
Most droll. I couldn’t agree more!
March 11th, 2011 at 1:30 am
very helpful for my drama a level thankyou.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:44 am
It’s silent, it’s blurry, it’s poorly lit, it has no plot, it’s only half a minute long, and for all that, it’s STILL more entertaining than any Adam Sandler movie that I know of.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:54 am
the film has great guallity considering that its from 1896 amazing:)
March 11th, 2011 at 2:37 am
What a wonderful piece of film, thanks BFI.
Any chance of uploading Rescued By Rover (1905) It’s a classic, cheers
March 11th, 2011 at 3:07 am
Amazing footage! Where did you get it?