The Star: Yorkshire Fillm Archive now on line
Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:59 pm
http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/Yorkshire ... 6433294.jp
Yorkshire Fillm Archive now on line - PHOTOS
Published Date: 22 July 2010
A HUGE procession of decorated horses strides along Sheffield's garland-adorned streets.
The moving image is peppered with black flecks and dots on the screen.
And then, in a flash, we see Queen Victoria, clad in black and nodding as her carriage goes by.
This was Queen Victoria's visit to Sheffield in 1897 - one of the few occasions the ruler of the British Empire was ever captured on film.
Graham Relton, a film archivist at the Yorkshire Film Archive, says: "It's very rare to see footage of Queen Victoria - it's a very short and sweet image because the camera would have been a hand-cranked camera perched on a tripod in one position - it doesn't follow her.
"And they would have used early nitrate film, which was highly flammable."
The footage, along with many other historic films of South Yorkshire, can now be viewed free of charge from a designated hub which is being set up at the Showroom Cinema.
The archive can also be accessed online at www.yfaonline.com
It's all thanks to the Yorkshire Film Archive, which possesses and processes hundreds of hours' worth of film on to digital format in order to preserve the region's moving film heritage.
There are ten hours of historical films on Sheffield alone.
"We're always adding new films. It's nice for people to see the old films - they capture our history," says Graham.
The subject of the films varies, from Sheffield at War to the so-called 'Spartan Swimmers' - a 1934 documentary on weather-hardy swimming nuts who would swim in Millhouses pool come rain, wind, snow or shine.
The film - a humorous take on the trials of these men - was made by Sheffield grocer George Surgey.
The Spartan Swimmers were regularly featured in The Star and Sheffield Telegraph, often for 'breaking the ice' and diving into the wintry pool.
Such foolhardiness was necessary - to become a member of the Spartan Swimmers one had to swim every morning of the year, even at Christmas.
Thomas Surgey made a number of 16mm films about Sheffield, often with a humorous take on the city's quirkier phenomena.
"The men would have gone for fitness but at the same time this would have been their bath," laughs Graham.
And there's also the more serious footage. One film shows wartime Sheffielders preparing for a gas attack.
Crowds of gas mask-clad men and women, all wearing glamorous fitted 1940s outfits, wander aimlessly around the city centre.
"I'm not sure they would be so relaxed if it were a real gas attack," says Graham.
But unlike the staged gas attack film, Sheffield at War shows the horrifying devastation and destruction of the city after its bombing during the war. The crackly, grey-scale film shows onlookers wandering among the rubble of their lost city.
"People will look at this today and recognise places and relate to their own family members who experienced the bombings during the war. The places in this film could be just down the road from here, or somewhere you pass every day," says Graham.
The film also shows the visit of King George IV and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who came to Sheffield in 1941 to raise morale.
"Look at the crowds flocking around them," says Graham. "They don't have any security protecting them from the people - can you imagine that now?"
There's also some light relief in the archive.
An Eccentric Burglary is a 1905 slapstick creation by the Sheffield Photo Company. "They were a really important early professional film company," says Graham.
The Photo Company produced 63 fictional films from 1903 until 1909. Among their repertoire was the incredibly daft An Eccentric Burglary, which shows two robbers breaking into a house and evading capture from the bobbies by driving a carriage-horse which periodically disappears.
"They used a lot of trick photography in this film," says Graham. "You can see the reverse frames where the men jump up to a window."
He's right - at one point one of the two burglars makes an obscenely high pogo-stick-like jump to the first floor window of a Victorian villa.
There's also a selection of unintentionally humorous films, like Hub of the House - a promotion film for Firth-Vickers' Sheffield-made Staybrite steel.
"It's like a dream come true," screams a woman with a cut-glass RP voice as she sets eyes upon her Staybrite-clad kitchen.
Naturally, she's playing the part of a working-class Sheffielder.
Putting these films online, however, is not easy.
"The films need to be kept in the right conditions - our vaults, which are cool and dry," says Graham.
"We had one person donate some old film that had been kept in milk churns in a basement, which is perfect, and they were in really good condition.
"A lot of people have old films but they no longer have the technology to do anything with them. We have to put them through a machine because cinefilm deteriorates."
The Yorkshire Film Archive's collection of South Yorkshire films is a mixture of both professional and amateur footage.
"Sometimes the amateur films capture something a professional film couldn't - like the intimacy of a family gathering. The films are a means of looking at Yorkshire's moving picture heritage through the eyes of the people."
Yorkshire Fillm Archive now on line - PHOTOS
Published Date: 22 July 2010
A HUGE procession of decorated horses strides along Sheffield's garland-adorned streets.
The moving image is peppered with black flecks and dots on the screen.
And then, in a flash, we see Queen Victoria, clad in black and nodding as her carriage goes by.
This was Queen Victoria's visit to Sheffield in 1897 - one of the few occasions the ruler of the British Empire was ever captured on film.
Graham Relton, a film archivist at the Yorkshire Film Archive, says: "It's very rare to see footage of Queen Victoria - it's a very short and sweet image because the camera would have been a hand-cranked camera perched on a tripod in one position - it doesn't follow her.
"And they would have used early nitrate film, which was highly flammable."
The footage, along with many other historic films of South Yorkshire, can now be viewed free of charge from a designated hub which is being set up at the Showroom Cinema.
The archive can also be accessed online at www.yfaonline.com
It's all thanks to the Yorkshire Film Archive, which possesses and processes hundreds of hours' worth of film on to digital format in order to preserve the region's moving film heritage.
There are ten hours of historical films on Sheffield alone.
"We're always adding new films. It's nice for people to see the old films - they capture our history," says Graham.
The subject of the films varies, from Sheffield at War to the so-called 'Spartan Swimmers' - a 1934 documentary on weather-hardy swimming nuts who would swim in Millhouses pool come rain, wind, snow or shine.
The film - a humorous take on the trials of these men - was made by Sheffield grocer George Surgey.
The Spartan Swimmers were regularly featured in The Star and Sheffield Telegraph, often for 'breaking the ice' and diving into the wintry pool.
Such foolhardiness was necessary - to become a member of the Spartan Swimmers one had to swim every morning of the year, even at Christmas.
Thomas Surgey made a number of 16mm films about Sheffield, often with a humorous take on the city's quirkier phenomena.
"The men would have gone for fitness but at the same time this would have been their bath," laughs Graham.
And there's also the more serious footage. One film shows wartime Sheffielders preparing for a gas attack.
Crowds of gas mask-clad men and women, all wearing glamorous fitted 1940s outfits, wander aimlessly around the city centre.
"I'm not sure they would be so relaxed if it were a real gas attack," says Graham.
But unlike the staged gas attack film, Sheffield at War shows the horrifying devastation and destruction of the city after its bombing during the war. The crackly, grey-scale film shows onlookers wandering among the rubble of their lost city.
"People will look at this today and recognise places and relate to their own family members who experienced the bombings during the war. The places in this film could be just down the road from here, or somewhere you pass every day," says Graham.
The film also shows the visit of King George IV and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who came to Sheffield in 1941 to raise morale.
"Look at the crowds flocking around them," says Graham. "They don't have any security protecting them from the people - can you imagine that now?"
There's also some light relief in the archive.
An Eccentric Burglary is a 1905 slapstick creation by the Sheffield Photo Company. "They were a really important early professional film company," says Graham.
The Photo Company produced 63 fictional films from 1903 until 1909. Among their repertoire was the incredibly daft An Eccentric Burglary, which shows two robbers breaking into a house and evading capture from the bobbies by driving a carriage-horse which periodically disappears.
"They used a lot of trick photography in this film," says Graham. "You can see the reverse frames where the men jump up to a window."
He's right - at one point one of the two burglars makes an obscenely high pogo-stick-like jump to the first floor window of a Victorian villa.
There's also a selection of unintentionally humorous films, like Hub of the House - a promotion film for Firth-Vickers' Sheffield-made Staybrite steel.
"It's like a dream come true," screams a woman with a cut-glass RP voice as she sets eyes upon her Staybrite-clad kitchen.
Naturally, she's playing the part of a working-class Sheffielder.
Putting these films online, however, is not easy.
"The films need to be kept in the right conditions - our vaults, which are cool and dry," says Graham.
"We had one person donate some old film that had been kept in milk churns in a basement, which is perfect, and they were in really good condition.
"A lot of people have old films but they no longer have the technology to do anything with them. We have to put them through a machine because cinefilm deteriorates."
The Yorkshire Film Archive's collection of South Yorkshire films is a mixture of both professional and amateur footage.
"Sometimes the amateur films capture something a professional film couldn't - like the intimacy of a family gathering. The films are a means of looking at Yorkshire's moving picture heritage through the eyes of the people."