My great grandma, was born 1899, she saw the Lumiere movie with the train entering the station. She told me that the audience took cover on the cinema floor, the experience felt too real for them. Very cool to know how it was back in the days.
Obviously as it's chemical film, not a tiny CCTV camera sensor. But then you'd need a heck of a lot of chemical tape to be capturing images all day long
I'm old enough to remember when all these old films would appear 'sped up'. Great that modern technology was eventually able to slow them down to the normal speed. Enjoyed this, thank you.
MY mother was born in 1916 and talked about going to a movie and seeing people who had never seen a motion picture and how funny they were. Many shouted at the actors to watch out and things like that.
My grandparents, born in 1890 and 1897, in Belgium, came to America, specifically, Detroit, MI, saw this world. It’s amazing that they each lived to 104, and my grandmother died in 2000, so technically, she was alive in 3 different centuries! They had interesting stories to tell, but at the time, I didn’t appreciate it, since I was growing up and raising children. They did hold my children, and they showed up at my house in dressed up clothing… a suit and tie for my grandfather, and a dress and stockings for my grandmother. At home, under her apron, she wore a dress and nylons rolled down to her knees. I miss them!
Whenever I watch these films, I cannot help but wonder as to what became of the people on the other side of the lens. Their lives, what were they doing when the footage was shot, what were they thinking, and so forth. Strange how short our lives really are and yet the way we make plans one would think we are immortal!
My grandparents were born in 1879, 1886, 1892 and 1894. This was their era. Btw, I was born in 1957. 3 of them were still alive when I was a kid, including the ones from 1879 and 1886.
@@unexplainedstudio There were loads of 18th century born people around when I was a kid. The people from that era didn't like children much and always ran outside to chase the kids away. They had a saying "Children should be seen but not heard". In kindergarten, my kindergarten teacher was in her 80s and was born in the 1870s. They were rough with the kids. When she was a kid, there were 17th century born people still around that remembered the Revolutionary War and George Washington. They undoubtedly disliked noisy kids too 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, me too. I knew tons of people from that era and they would be out of body over things that are happening today....stuff their great grandkids are doing and permitting. I knew some whose fathers and older siblings fought in the Civil War and those old guys were cut from steel. Their 2nd and 3rd generation progeny are cut from nothing....nothing at all of any substance.
As I've gotten older myself and time seems to compress, I realize that these vintage films are from a time that was not so long ago. Given how far we've come since then, I wonder what the next 100 or so years holds.
Did anyone else notice the moving sidewalk starting at 4:58? I think they said it was in Paris France. The forgotten technology in those days are also something to be amazed at as we have lost or forgotten this technology. Look at the people as they are careful to step on the moving sidewalk in motion. Just like the moving flat escalators we see in some airports today. Amazing...
Yes, I noticed! At first I wasn't sure if maybe it was an optical illusion but as you said it was the careful way in which they got on to the sidewalk that convinced me it was indeed moving.
This is one of the many reasons I love silent movies. Filmed on the streets and in the parks of major cities, people walking by often never realized they were cast members in a Hollywood movie. Also, we are some of the first people in history able to see moving images of our grandparents and great grandparents daily lives. Before film, we could only imagine what their world looked like.
Preserving these films for this long, and the institutions that preserved some of them, makes me optimistic that TH-cam will survive for more than a century, and then the people of that future time will access this video and find our comments, with the words “120 years ago” written next to it. How I wish I knew their feelings then. If you read my words, don't judge us for our TikTok archive, it's a long story.
One of the last from the 1880s in Leeds is very special. My grandfather was born in 1880 (youngest of 10 children all of whom survived). His oldest brother (there were 7 brothers in all) ended up working in Leeds not long after that and the family was very proud he qualified as a lawyer and had his LLB. As my father was born when his father was 49 and my grandfather was the last child (his father was born in 1832) 2 generations were the length of what is often 4 generations so that puts us quite more easily in touch with the past than some families. Moving film gives us so much detail. I hope we can preserve it. Last year we fond ap hoto of the other side of the family - my great granny with her 10 children (just widowed for the second time) in about 1916 which we would not have found but for the internet. I wish my mother had still been alive to see the photo.
Wow!! That's too cool. They seemed to have truly large families back then. I try and research my genealogy and I found one distant relative who had 17 children. Another fathered 24 children by two wives, over several years.
That's wild I can relate my father was born in 31 and had me at 53 years old, his dad's father was over 50 when my grandfather was born in 1907. So my great grandfather was a little kid during the civil war, my grandfather was a kid during WW1 and my dad was a kid during WW2 and my great great grandfather fought in the civil war lol on top of all that when my dad was a little kid there were still a handful of very old civil war veterans living in a retirement home.
The poster for the "Famous Switch-back Railroad" is actually from Mauch Chunk, PA (Modern day Jim Thorpe, PA), and was originally built to haul coal from the mines, down to the Lehigh River to be transported on barges. It was later turned into a tourist attraction as depicted on the poster. I have mountain biked the old rail trail there in the past.
something related is the earliest sound recording which wasn't able to be played back until 2008. It was made in 1860 on Melville's phonautograph. The recording was him singing clair de lune.
I'm glad l that such old films are being digitally restored - When as a little girl in the early 1960's I saw pre-1930's silent films on TV, the speed was too fast, and the films were so grainy that I thought it was always dark and rainy in the "old days"! It's wonderful to see scenes and people, and the fashions they wore from over 110-120 years ago in clear sunshine and in good detail.
I'm very happy to finally see 'Round Hay Garden Scene, 1888'. Your video is a very nice presentation of the very beginnings of cinema, and I'm very glad to see that you did not mention Thomas Edison even once. It is purported that he stole the designs for his motion picture camera from Le Prince, and additionally that Edison was the person who called for Le Prince's untimely demise (ie, Edison put out a hit-job on Le Prince.) For a very vivid and detailed account of this, please read the book _"The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and Movies"_ by Paul Fischer, 2022. It is absolutely awesome!
This is absolutely fascinating. All of these people are likely dead now, they had lives, worries, joys. I wish I could go back in time and talk with them. One day people will look back at us and maybe think the same thing wondering how we lived, although they will probably think we were a lot crazier than the people in this film. Great collection. I hope your channel explodes.
I can't be the only one who noticed that the people in what was probably the busiest city of the time (NYC) were walking incredibly slowly. Today people are rushing like crazy in NYC.
It's incredible how far the film industry has come after making waves for so long. I enjoy seeing videos that date back to the early days of the movie business. I enjoy seeing videos that date back to the early days of the movie business. It really takes us back in time and shows us how different the world was back then.
Video is the electronic capture of a moving image. The first video recordings date from 1956 when Ampex introduced the first video recorder. Prior to that moving images were captured on film.
Incredible to think about the origins of video recording and the impact it has had on our lives, fact that the oldest video ever recorded, the "Roundhay Garden Scene," dates back to 1888 is mind-blowing. It's amazing to witness those few seconds of footage capturing people moving around in a garden more than 100 years ago.
Observe the tremendous quality of this footage, and then recall the literally THOUSANDS of lost cinematic classics due to deterioration of unstable film stock, fires, etc. Tragic.
I remember hearing about the train arriving at the station being shown to an audience and members of the audience fleeing in terror because they thought the train was actually going to plow into them. I have actually flinched seeing a video where a baseball flys at the camera unexpectedly as a modern counterpart.
How could you feature the "before" footage of San Francisco prior to the earthquake, and not mention the footage he filmed immediately following it?! The "after" footage is truly something to see, especially in context!
Probably because the after earthquakes pictures are available- but the widely accepted theory is that not much about the city before the earthquake is shown- other than a few photographs and maps.
Mitchell and Kenyon's films are legend. They were both innovative in style and technique arriving on the scene at the very cusp of the 20th Century, and due to a quirk of fate, many have been very well preserved. They would film local scenes and later, even that very day, would show the film in the local cinema. Wigan is but one of several- Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Blackpool etc spring to mind. The only way to get smooth tracking shots was to put the cameraman and his gear on a tram (streetcar). There was simply no other way; bumpy roads, almost no cars: it was horses, carts and bicycles. A bin full of their lost movies was found in a shop being renovated at the end of the 20th Century. The quality of preservation was phenominal. This is mostly how they have become known to us as they're on youtube etc. They got out amongst the people and filmed them with amazing clarity and empathy- we can relate. They're us in funny clothes. They also did scripted movies, and predated Hollywood, converging technique and style a decade or so before. They were prolific and before their time.
The old lady you see in the last video standing at the center was Sarah Whitley, died a few days after the making of the video. The younger guy you see walking in circles mysteriously disappeared off the face of the earth at 42 years age.
Video didn’t come into existence until there was television these are films. They weren’t made for broadcasting or viewing on a video screen. They are fascinating glimpses into early recording of events as documentary footage.
If humanity survives long enough , imagine what it would be like a thousand years from now watching something like…Avengers Infinity War. Isn’t it a bizarre thought to think about having such perfectly preserved footage of ancient history?
I’m always amazed at how well dressed folks were back then. Men in suits, hats, ladies very fashionable. Can you imagine their reaction to modern day fashion?😮
What about Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 consecutive photos, which can be played as a moving image, which proved that, when galloping, a horse momentarily had all four hooves off the ground?
You have to do a little more research next time. And since you are dealing with history, it is recommendable to tell it chronologically, please... I missed pioneer works as "La vague (The Wave)" (1891), Dickson's "Neward Athlete" (1891) and "Experimental Sound Film" (1894); "L'arroseur arrosé (The Waterer Watered" (1895), "La fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy)" (1896, allegedly the first movie made by a woman, Miss Alice Guy), and Edison's controversial "Electrocuting an Elephant" (1903). There are some things you mention that should be reconsidered: the short you mention made in 1874 is actually not a "video" (or film). Up to 1914 (when First World War began), France was one of the leading countries in film production and sales all around the world. And in his last interview Louis Lumière said that brother Auguste had almost nothing to do with the invention of the cinématographe... maybe he put a screw in the right place, so to speak, but little else As a matter of fact, Auguste was not interested in movies, but the invention was registered as their creation because it was the custom to credit the brothers as creators of all the devices developped in their father's company.
I always thought the first video was the man riding on a horse. I had no idea the first one was actually recorded a full four years earlier. It's insane to think video has been around for 150 years!
The movie industry has been making waves for years and years, it's amazing how far it has come along. I love watching videos from the beginning of the movie industry. It was definitely a different world then, and it gives us a great look into the past!
I’ve watched the garden scene before as well as A Trip Down Market Street. I watched all 13 minutes of it… I’m sure some might have found it boring since nothing much happened, it was just normal life, but I loved the fact that I felt as if I was on that trolley, looking at those places, things and people with my own eyes. It was marvelous! Anyone who hasn’t seen it should really watch that one.
A really wonderful restoration of these film clips from over a century ago. I am impressed by the history behind them. The London Olympics is footage I have not seen before as well as the colourised footage of Wigan in Lancashire in England. Many thanks for posting this historic film footage.
During aweek I spent in Lyon (a really enchanting city!) a few years ago I visited the estate of the Lumiere brothers. It's definitely worth having a look. Thanks very much for posting!
I really love the San Francisco shot. Someone colorized it, and you feel like you were right there with them. I would have loved to lived right and things were getting into the 1920s. I bet that was such a liberating time. Also, look up Black People Dancing from 1914. What a time they were having in the jazz club.
Interesting video depicting early film. You might consider providing links to the sources of the films, so that people wanting to learn more can watch the entire films.
seeing paris so elegant, and the eiffel tower without the walls in has today brings tears to my eyes. when i was younger the tower was standing open in a beautiful garden with water ducks and flowers, the fear of terror attacks ruined everything! i hope it will someday be back to its glory!
I have hopes that somewhere in history, a forgotten inventor who created photography hundreds of years ago managed to photograph, hopefully film, one of the Ancient World Wonders. And i hope he or she placed the plates somewhere safe. Imagine the news "Photograph of Colossal of Rhodes surfaces after 2,000 plus years".
My family was living in Paris at the moment when these movie were shot, it's the first time I've got to see what they probably saw everyday. It made me a bit emotional.
Horrible time. I just heard a audio testimony of a woman who lived during those times. Even as a 6 year old child she was forced to wear layers of formal clothing during the summer. She said she was surprised she didn't die of a heat stroke. Me? I like to wear shorts, a tank top and sandals. Something forbidden back then in public.
Thanks for this fascinating video. Guessing I was not first to mention it, but video was not invented until 1951, even though Thomas Edison tried to do some initial work on creating video as early as 1891. Video is purely an electronic product, originally stored on something like magnetic tape. What of course your title is really referring to are the first FILMS, or as they used to be called, Moving Pictures. Film is non-electronic, but actual photos, similar to negatives, where light could be shown through it to been seen on some sort of screen.
Just a little quibble . . . one does not call any motion picture series, a "video". In the late 1950's, videotape was invented, yet it was so expensive, that commonplace usage did not happen, until the late 1960's, so television relied on the Kinescope Process, from the very late '30's onwards, until the switchover to videotape was more or less complete. There was a specialized remote monitor, to which a motion picture camera was affixed to film the monitor's display. Kinescopes were used as recently as the late 1970's. In the very early '60's comedian Ernie Kovacs and his production team achieved some astonishing Analog FX, using the infant videotape technology for his TV Show.
Large amounts of Kenyon + Mitchel films were found in a Cellar in Blackburn , Lancashire where they were based , they were in a stable condition and were restored by the Northwest film archive at Manchester University and to look at them now seems they were filmed only yesterday
Not video, it is film. Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media.[1] Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) systems which, in turn, were replaced by flat panel displays of several types. Film is a series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized celluloid (photographic film stock), usually at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion. The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and was not projected.
These are remarkable videos. I am struck by the impeccable attire of the people shown in the videos. Every citizen appears to exude an air of aristocracy and their posture is nothin short of splendid. Its a sight to behold , witnessing the grace and elegance that adorns every individual captured in those historic moments.
I love the fact that the first authentic motion picture isn't about people standing stiffly, trying to look dignified but of people dancing around in a circle. Was the reversed image of the Roundhay Garden Scene the correct way of viewing it? It looked remastered to be sharper than the one we've seen in recent years.
The garden scene shows the family doing a dance. The first and last scenes show a dance move called a “hey”. The middle scene is another dance move that I don’t know the name of, if there is a name for it. Both dance moves come from a dance style popularized in the Middle Age. I know this style of dance to be called “English Country Dance”. This style of dance continued on through the early 1900s before being largely replaced by other dance styles. If you do any Ballroom Dancing you will find some dances very similar to the one in this film. Otherwise, you will see how these moves migrated into Square Dancing. Note that I am not a dedicated or skilled dancer. Before I gave up on finding a right foot on one of my legs I spent several years trying to dance a variety of historical dances.
Isn't it interesting that this "video" was recorded when hardly nobody had electricity or batteries back in 1874. Also video recorders weren't made until 1951. They didn't have a broadcast quality tape machine until 1956 when CBS started using a 2" quad machine. So I doubt anyone could shoot a video tape back in the late 1800's unless they used a film camera.
Cool! Found your channel which is much like Britsh Pathe and Jerod Boosters. I love history and see that we're people just like them who lived in the past. The only thing that's changed is fashion, technology, and that the world is fully global state, almost.
My grandpa remembers when him and his dad rode in a motor vehicle the first time, he said when the vehicle would speed up my great grandpa would reach up to grab the reigns while saying “woah woah woah” like he was talking to a horse😂
I think if we had motion pictures of the era from 1850 onwards I think we might be surprised by how much has remained unchanged in our cities and way of life (although obviously there have been massive changes too). My guess is that while the Georgian world would genuinely be alien to us that by the mid 19th Century the modern world that we inhabit (railways, transatlantic travel, electronic communication in the form of the telegraph, mass journalism, consumerism, celebrities) was essentially in place. The mid-Victorians thought of themselves as "modern". In a way, they are us. As for what is coming, who knows, but it may be something very different...
My maternal grandfather was 11 when you showed that first film in 1911.His future wife was only 7. She was born two years before the 1906 disaster. My paternal grandfather was 12. I’m assuming my paternal grandma was a kid though don’t know exactly when she was born. All these people in these films could be your grand or great grandparents.
At marker 00:45 the couple at top left , the guy in the blue shirt with a mustache with the young woman in white and long brown hair is my girlfriend and myself probably in 1973.
This misuses the term "video". A video recording is modern, digital technology. What we are watching are old film recordings, known as movies, a shortened version of the original early-1900's term "moving pictures". I guess if these movies were digitized then they are old movies turned into videos. 🙂
This was fascinating, but you should've mentioned "The Great Train Robbery," from 1903. I believe it was the first "scripted" movie ever made for public release.
Super fun and great fography thank you. The first ever color photograph is of a Scottish Tartan bow, part of a sash, which is female Scottish formal and traditional attire.
I've always been fascinated how close even the ancient past is compared with geological history, and how relatively recent ancient Rome is for instance. If you calculate a succession of human beings lined up from one's birth until death, and then another one born at the time of the previous person's death, and so on, and assumed that each person lived 50 years, then that is only 40 people in that chronological chain of lives stretching back to year 1 A.D. Just a tad trippy to contemplate.
How is it that an 1890s film footage can be better quality than some footage I've seen dating back to say, the 1970s,or were these simply the cheapest reels. So interesting, great video. 👍 Groove on
The problem now is that there's more poop on the streets of San Francisco today than there was in the days of horse-drawn carriages filling the streets.
My God is it that bad out there? My Grt.GrandMother told Me how bad it was in NYC with Horse shit everywhere and the horrible stench when she first arrived from Virginia in 1917. Even with all the years of Homelessness I grew up around since the 1970s in NYC seeing bowels from anyone - People/Animals on the streets was occasional like a few times a week in - _Train Stations, Public Housing Project Elevators, Sidewalks, Alleyways._ In San Fran the City Gov't needs to at least place Port.A.Potty's around and pay people to collect the waste for fertilizer. A good resource for Farmers/Gardeners.
Stunning footage... It is like walking into the past ... All of the participants are so very much alive... Inviting us in... To a place where there's no time... Even if it's for a moment... Space and time are suspended... That's the "miracle" of film. Thanks so much for the journey! Peace out 🙋🏽♀️ ✌️ ☮️🥰💖🌬✨️
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My great grandma, was born 1899, she saw the Lumiere movie with the train entering the station. She told me that the audience took cover on the cinema floor, the experience felt too real for them. Very cool to know how it was back in the days.
Wow that's amazing to know! Thanks for sharing
Over 100 years old and still better quality than many security cameras in use today.
agree
and ufo and Bigfoot videos 🤣🤣
Obviously as it's chemical film, not a tiny CCTV camera sensor.
But then you'd need a heck of a lot of chemical tape to be capturing images all day long
@@ritadyer9295lo l# FACTS
WAYTAGO Bro....
Indeed Truth
Quite!
I'm old enough to remember when all these old films would appear 'sped up'. Great that modern technology was eventually able to slow them down to the normal speed. Enjoyed this, thank you.
I know, right?
MY mother was born in 1916 and talked about going to a movie and seeing people who had never seen a motion picture and how funny they were. Many shouted at the actors to watch out and things like that.
My grandparents, born in 1890 and 1897, in Belgium, came to America, specifically, Detroit, MI, saw this world. It’s amazing that they each lived to 104, and my grandmother died in 2000, so technically, she was alive in 3 different centuries! They had interesting stories to tell, but at the time, I didn’t appreciate it, since I was growing up and raising children. They did hold my children, and they showed up at my house in dressed up clothing… a suit and tie for my grandfather, and a dress and stockings for my grandmother. At home, under her apron, she wore a dress and nylons rolled down to her knees.
I miss them!
Wow! Living through 3 different centuries is remarkable. They're lucky to lived through 104.
Whenever I watch these films, I cannot help but wonder as to what became of the people on the other side of the lens. Their lives, what were they doing when the footage was shot, what were they thinking, and so forth. Strange how short our lives really are and yet the way we make plans one would think we are immortal!
Im thinking of the same thing too
Life is precious and short at once
How true
It’s crazy the quality difference between 1888 and 1911 already. Technology was already evolving at that point…
My grandparents were born in 1879, 1886, 1892 and 1894. This was their era. Btw, I was born in 1957. 3 of them were still alive when I was a kid, including the ones from 1879 and 1886.
Wow, that's incredible to hear! I've never even met anyone born before 1920s
@@unexplainedstudio There were loads of 18th century born people around when I was a kid. The people from that era didn't like children much and always ran outside to chase the kids away. They had a saying "Children should be seen but not heard". In kindergarten, my kindergarten teacher was in her 80s and was born in the 1870s. They were rough with the kids. When she was a kid, there were 17th century born people still around that remembered the Revolutionary War and George Washington. They undoubtedly disliked noisy kids too 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, me too. I knew tons of people from that era and they would be out of body over things that are happening today....stuff their great grandkids are doing and permitting. I knew some whose fathers and older siblings fought in the Civil War and those old guys were cut from steel. Their 2nd and 3rd generation progeny are cut from nothing....nothing at all of any substance.
The NYC footage is currently being played on an endless loop at the NYS Museum in Albany.
Interesting to know
What happened to architecture? Buildings are ugly now and all those beautiful ones destroyed. Why?
I am 98% certain that the one-legged gentleman in the bowler hat is my great-grandfather, Nathaniel Weinstein.
Wow! Amazing
As I've gotten older myself and time seems to compress, I realize that these vintage films are from a time that was not so long ago. Given how far we've come since then, I wonder what the next 100 or so years holds.
Did anyone else notice the moving sidewalk starting at 4:58? I think they said it was in Paris France. The forgotten technology in those days are also something to be amazed at as we have lost or forgotten this technology. Look at the people as they are careful to step on the moving sidewalk in motion. Just like the moving flat escalators we see in some airports today. Amazing...
Here you have some additional information en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_l%27Avenir
Totally awesome.
Yes, I noticed! At first I wasn't sure if maybe it was an optical illusion but as you said it was the careful way in which they got on to the sidewalk that convinced me it was indeed moving.
Yes, I did see that. I was thinking how cool it was.
Thanks for this. Must admit didn’t notice they were moving!
This is one of the many reasons I love silent movies. Filmed on the streets and in the parks of major cities, people walking by often never realized they were cast members in a Hollywood movie. Also, we are some of the first people in history able to see moving images of our grandparents and great grandparents daily lives. Before film, we could only imagine what their world looked like.
Not gonna lie seeing the people wave at the cameras even on the beginning of the 1910s made me smile,we really aren't that different in some places.
Preserving these films for this long, and the institutions that preserved some of them, makes me optimistic that TH-cam will survive for more than a century, and then the people of that future time will access this video and find our comments, with the words “120 years ago” written next to it. How I wish I knew their feelings then.
If you read my words, don't judge us for our TikTok archive, it's a long story.
Film must've been a really unique method of recording history, it captures a moment in history in a way that was never done before.
To me it's fascinating looking at still pictures or films as these people actually lived , whereas art is just the artists impression of what he saw
One of the last from the 1880s in Leeds is very special. My grandfather was born in 1880 (youngest of 10 children all of whom survived). His oldest brother (there were 7 brothers in all) ended up working in Leeds not long after that and the family was very proud he qualified as a lawyer and had his LLB. As my father was born when his father was 49 and my grandfather was the last child (his father was born in 1832) 2 generations were the length of what is often 4 generations so that puts us quite more easily in touch with the past than some families. Moving film gives us so much detail. I hope we can preserve it. Last year we fond ap hoto of the other side of the family - my great granny with her 10 children (just widowed for the second time) in about 1916 which we would not have found but for the internet. I wish my mother had still been alive to see the photo.
Thank you for your sharing
Wow. Interesting!!!
how do you find photos like the one mentioned online?
Wow!! That's too cool. They seemed to have truly large families back then.
I try and research my genealogy and I found one distant relative who had 17 children. Another fathered 24 children by two wives, over several years.
That's wild I can relate my father was born in 31 and had me at 53 years old, his dad's father was over 50 when my grandfather was born in 1907. So my great grandfather was a little kid during the civil war, my grandfather was a kid during WW1 and my dad was a kid during WW2 and my great great grandfather fought in the civil war lol on top of all that when my dad was a little kid there were still a handful of very old civil war veterans living in a retirement home.
It's amazing how the cameras of those times are better than the ones that film UFOs nowadays.
The poster for the "Famous Switch-back Railroad" is actually from Mauch Chunk, PA (Modern day Jim Thorpe, PA), and was originally built to haul coal from the mines, down to the Lehigh River to be transported on barges. It was later turned into a tourist attraction as depicted on the poster. I have mountain biked the old rail trail there in the past.
Wow! Thanks for the info!
something related is the earliest sound recording which wasn't able to be played back until 2008. It was made in 1860 on Melville's phonautograph. The recording was him singing clair de lune.
I'm glad l that such old films are being digitally restored - When as a little girl in the early 1960's I saw pre-1930's silent films on TV, the speed was too fast, and the films were so grainy that I thought it was always dark and rainy in the "old days"! It's wonderful to see scenes and people, and the fashions they wore from over 110-120 years ago in clear sunshine and in good detail.
I'm very happy to finally see 'Round Hay Garden Scene, 1888'. Your video is a very nice presentation of the very beginnings of cinema, and I'm very glad to see that you did not mention Thomas Edison even once. It is purported that he stole the designs for his motion picture camera from Le Prince, and additionally that Edison was the person who called for Le Prince's untimely demise (ie, Edison put out a hit-job on Le Prince.) For a very vivid and detailed account of this, please read the book _"The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and Movies"_ by Paul Fischer, 2022. It is absolutely awesome!
This is absolutely fascinating. All of these people are likely dead now, they had lives, worries, joys. I wish I could go back in time and talk with them. One day people will look back at us and maybe think the same thing wondering how we lived, although they will probably think we were a lot crazier than the people in this film.
Great collection. I hope your channel explodes.
I hope so too! Thanks for comments
It's nice to see these old pictures with buildings and people dressed in good style. They were truly beautiful styled in those days. I miss it.
Glad you enjoyed it
I can't be the only one who noticed that the people in what was probably the busiest city of the time (NYC) were walking incredibly slowly. Today people are rushing like crazy in NYC.
It's incredible how far the film industry has come after making waves for so long. I enjoy seeing videos that date back to the early days of the movie business. I enjoy seeing videos that date back to the early days of the movie business. It really takes us back in time and shows us how different the world was back then.
Video is the electronic capture of a moving image. The first video recordings date from 1956 when Ampex introduced the first video recorder. Prior to that moving images were captured on film.
Incredible to think about the origins of video recording and the impact it has had on our lives, fact that the oldest video ever recorded, the "Roundhay Garden Scene," dates back to 1888 is mind-blowing. It's amazing to witness those few seconds of footage capturing people moving around in a garden more than 100 years ago.
It's not video! It's film! Video didn't exist then!🤬
Observe the tremendous quality of this footage, and then recall the literally THOUSANDS of lost cinematic classics due to deterioration of unstable film stock, fires, etc. Tragic.
I remember hearing about the train arriving at the station being shown to an audience and members of the audience fleeing in terror because they thought the train was actually going to plow into them. I have actually flinched seeing a video where a baseball flys at the camera unexpectedly as a modern counterpart.
That seems absurd to us, of course, but then it happens with us too, when we see a movie filmed in 3-D and an image is headed right toward us.
How could you feature the "before" footage of San Francisco prior to the earthquake, and not mention the footage he filmed immediately following it?! The "after" footage is truly something to see, especially in context!
Probably because the after earthquakes pictures are available- but the widely accepted theory is that not much about the city before the earthquake is shown- other than a few photographs and maps.
Mitchell and Kenyon's films are legend. They were both innovative in style and technique arriving on the scene at the very cusp of the 20th Century, and due to a quirk of fate, many have been very well preserved.
They would film local scenes and later, even that very day, would show the film in the local cinema. Wigan is but one of several- Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Blackpool etc spring to mind.
The only way to get smooth tracking shots was to put the cameraman and his gear on a tram (streetcar). There was simply no other way; bumpy roads, almost no cars: it was horses, carts and bicycles.
A bin full of their lost movies was found in a shop being renovated at the end of the 20th Century. The quality of preservation was phenominal. This is mostly how they have become known to us as they're on youtube etc.
They got out amongst the people and filmed them with amazing clarity and empathy- we can relate. They're us in funny clothes.
They also did scripted movies, and predated Hollywood, converging technique and style a decade or so before.
They were prolific and before their time.
The old lady you see in the last video standing at the center was Sarah Whitley, died a few days after the making of the video. The younger guy you see walking in circles mysteriously disappeared off the face of the earth at 42 years age.
Wow that's interesting to know
Video didn’t come into existence until there was television these are films. They weren’t made for broadcasting or viewing on a video screen. They are fascinating glimpses into early recording of events as documentary footage.
I have always been fascinated with film and photography since I was a child. I love silent movies, being able to travel back to a by-gone era.
If humanity survives long enough , imagine what it would be like a thousand years from now watching something like…Avengers Infinity War. Isn’t it a bizarre thought to think about having such perfectly preserved footage of ancient history?
Fascinating. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it
I’m always amazed at how well dressed folks were back then. Men in suits, hats, ladies very fashionable. Can you imagine their reaction to modern day fashion?😮
What about Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 consecutive photos, which can be played as a moving image, which proved that, when galloping, a horse momentarily had all four hooves off the ground?
You have to do a little more research next time. And since you are dealing with history, it is recommendable to tell it chronologically, please... I missed pioneer works as "La vague (The Wave)" (1891), Dickson's "Neward Athlete" (1891) and "Experimental Sound Film" (1894); "L'arroseur arrosé (The Waterer Watered" (1895), "La fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy)" (1896, allegedly the first movie made by a woman, Miss Alice Guy), and Edison's controversial "Electrocuting an Elephant" (1903). There are some things you mention that should be reconsidered: the short you mention made in 1874 is actually not a "video" (or film). Up to 1914 (when First World War began), France was one of the leading countries in film production and sales all around the world. And in his last interview Louis Lumière said that brother Auguste had almost nothing to do with the invention of the cinématographe... maybe he put a screw in the right place, so to speak, but little else As a matter of fact, Auguste was not interested in movies, but the invention was registered as their creation because it was the custom to credit the brothers as creators of all the devices developped in their father's company.
I always thought the first video was the man riding on a horse. I had no idea the first one was actually recorded a full four years earlier. It's insane to think video has been around for 150 years!
The movie industry has been making waves for years and years, it's amazing how far it has come along. I love watching videos from the beginning of the movie industry. It was definitely a different world then, and it gives us a great look into the past!
I’ve watched the garden scene before as well as A Trip Down Market Street. I watched all 13 minutes of it… I’m sure some might have found it boring since nothing much happened, it was just normal life, but I loved the fact that I felt as if I was on that trolley, looking at those places, things and people with my own eyes. It was marvelous! Anyone who hasn’t seen it should really watch that one.
Thanks for sharing video about Oldest video ever recorded - 1874 - History
That big dog waiting for his owner to come out of the Luminare factory ...so touching
those are time capsules that take us back in Film History and continue to captivate audiences til this day
A really wonderful restoration of these film clips from over a century ago. I am impressed by the history behind them. The London Olympics is footage I have not seen before as well as the colourised footage of Wigan in Lancashire in England. Many thanks for posting this historic film footage.
Thank you. I was wondering where in the world was Wigan.
During aweek I spent in Lyon (a really enchanting city!) a few years ago I visited the estate of the Lumiere brothers. It's definitely worth having a look. Thanks very much for posting!
I love the lumiere brothers cinema
look how much slower and simpler life used to be,
today we are just rushing to nowhere,
the faster we run - quicker we fall
Movies have come such a long way over the decades.
Cool! My two grandfathers were born in 1899 and 1900. My father was born in 1927 when the first talkie was invented. Film history right there.
Wow! Amazing facts
Thanks for sharing
I really love the San Francisco shot. Someone colorized it, and you feel like you were right there with them. I would have loved to lived right and things were getting into the 1920s. I bet that was such a liberating time. Also, look up Black People Dancing from 1914. What a time they were having in the jazz club.
Interesting video depicting early film. You might consider providing links to the sources of the films, so that people wanting to learn more can watch the entire films.
Sure! I'll make some more videos like this as part of a series
seeing paris so elegant, and the eiffel tower without the walls in has today brings tears to my eyes. when i was younger the tower was standing open in a beautiful garden with water ducks and flowers, the fear of terror attacks ruined everything! i hope it will someday be back to its glory!
Paris will be Islamic within 2 generations easy. A mosque will take the place of the Eiffel Tower.
That’s just part and parcel with today’s demographic.
pretty nice to see the world over 100 years ago wish i could visit these places to see the difference first hand
You want to go visit a world in the tail-end of a pandemic?
Amazing content!! I’m wondering why the famous Horse In Motion movie by Eadweard Muybridge from 1878 wasn’t shown?
Kudos to the cameraman for staying alive so long to show us all this.
I have hopes that somewhere in history, a forgotten inventor who created photography hundreds of years ago managed to photograph, hopefully film, one of the Ancient World Wonders. And i hope he or she placed the plates somewhere safe. Imagine the news
"Photograph of Colossal of Rhodes surfaces after 2,000 plus years".
My family was living in Paris at the moment when these movie were shot, it's the first time I've got to see what they probably saw everyday. It made me a bit emotional.
Horrible time.
I just heard a audio testimony of a woman who lived during those times.
Even as a 6 year old child she was forced to wear layers of formal clothing during the summer.
She said she was surprised she didn't die of a heat stroke.
Me? I like to wear shorts, a tank top and sandals. Something forbidden back then in public.
Thanks for this fascinating video. Guessing I was not first to mention it, but video was not invented until 1951, even though Thomas Edison tried to do some initial work on creating video as early as 1891. Video is purely an electronic product, originally stored on something like magnetic tape. What of course your title is really referring to are the first FILMS, or as they used to be called, Moving Pictures. Film is non-electronic, but actual photos, similar to negatives, where light could be shown through it to been seen on some sort of screen.
Guess they have to say video for the younger ones who don't know the term movie or film like us who grew up with it did.
All of these clips are FILMS. Video is electronic recording of images, which didn't exist until the 1950s.
These films have been accessible for decades. It's just that a younger generation is starting to discover them now.
1874 is absolutely crazy . Just a decade after the civil war . It’s weird how long ago it feels , it really wasn’t that long ago tho
Just a little quibble . . . one does not call any motion picture series, a "video". In the late 1950's, videotape was invented, yet it was so expensive, that commonplace usage did not happen, until the late 1960's, so television relied on the Kinescope Process, from the very late '30's onwards, until the switchover to videotape was more or less complete. There was a specialized remote monitor, to which a motion picture camera was affixed to film the monitor's display. Kinescopes were used as recently as the late 1970's. In the very early '60's comedian Ernie Kovacs and his production team achieved some astonishing Analog FX, using the infant videotape technology for his TV Show.
You are correct, the term "video" is a bit anachronistic when discussing recordings from the 19th century.
Loved this, thank you.
So glad!
This wasn't 'recorded', it was filmed. It's not video, it's film!
Yes the first video recorded was in the 1940's of 1950's when video tape was invented.
Large amounts of Kenyon + Mitchel films were found in a Cellar in Blackburn , Lancashire where they were based , they were in a stable condition and were restored by the Northwest film archive at Manchester University and to look at them now seems they were filmed only yesterday
Thanks for the info
Not video, it is film. Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media.[1] Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) systems which, in turn, were replaced by flat panel displays of several types. Film is a series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized celluloid (photographic film stock), usually at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion. The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and was not projected.
Wow this is pretty incredible! Sure is wild how far technology has come over the years.
These are remarkable videos. I am struck by the impeccable attire of the people shown in the videos. Every citizen appears to exude an air of aristocracy and their posture is nothin short of splendid. Its a sight to behold , witnessing the grace and elegance that adorns every individual captured in those historic moments.
Then came the fashion week..
I love the fact that the first authentic motion picture isn't about people standing stiffly, trying to look dignified but of people dancing around in a circle. Was the reversed image of the Roundhay Garden Scene the correct way of viewing it? It looked remastered to be sharper than the one we've seen in recent years.
The garden scene shows the family doing a dance. The first and last scenes show a dance move called a “hey”. The middle scene is another dance move that I don’t know the name of, if there is a name for it.
Both dance moves come from a dance style popularized in the Middle Age. I know this style of dance to be called “English Country Dance”. This style of dance continued on through the early 1900s before being largely replaced by other dance styles. If you do any Ballroom Dancing you will find some dances very similar to the one in this film. Otherwise, you will see how these moves migrated into Square Dancing.
Note that I am not a dedicated or skilled dancer. Before I gave up on finding a right foot on one of my legs I spent several years trying to dance a variety of historical dances.
Hard to believe that both the high jump and the pole vault were done without any padding to land on.
Isn't it interesting that this "video" was recorded when hardly nobody had electricity or batteries back in 1874. Also video recorders weren't made until 1951. They didn't have a broadcast quality tape machine until 1956 when CBS started using a 2" quad machine. So I doubt anyone could shoot a video tape back in the late 1800's unless they used a film camera.
I wouldn't use "Avengers" and "Avatar" as examples of cinematic excellence for the modern day. Those are cartoons.
Am I the only one who gets emotional and almost cried seeing these century ago footages?
My grandfather was living in Paris, he was born in 1880, I often wonder if he saw these movies. He died when I was young. In 1974.
Cool! Found your channel which is much like Britsh Pathe and Jerod Boosters. I love history and see that we're people just like them who lived in the past. The only thing that's changed is fashion, technology, and that the world is fully global state, almost.
Thanks!!
1:20 that person there with one leg is actually a Civil War veteran
My grandpa remembers when him and his dad rode in a motor vehicle the first time, he said when the vehicle would speed up my great grandpa would reach up to grab the reigns while saying “woah woah woah” like he was talking to a horse😂
Hahaha that was funny! Thanks for the info
I think if we had motion pictures of the era from 1850 onwards I think we might be surprised by how much has remained unchanged in our cities and way of life (although obviously there have been massive changes too). My guess is that while the Georgian world would genuinely be alien to us that by the mid 19th Century the modern world that we inhabit (railways, transatlantic travel, electronic communication in the form of the telegraph, mass journalism, consumerism, celebrities) was essentially in place. The mid-Victorians thought of themselves as "modern". In a way, they are us. As for what is coming, who knows, but it may be something very different...
3:05 this film was captured before the San Francisco earthquake, so 90% of the buildings you can see in this film clip were destroyed
My maternal grandfather was 11 when you showed that first film in 1911.His future wife was only 7. She was born two years before the 1906 disaster. My paternal grandfather was 12. I’m assuming my paternal grandma was a kid though don’t know exactly when she was born. All these people in these films could be your grand or great grandparents.
There were no video recordings back then. It was film. The person commentating should do their research properly and should know this is film.
Very cool! A little surprised, though, that 1902's "A Trip to the Moon" by Georges Méliès wasn't included -- a great and imaginative achievement.
Thanks for the info!
Very good program, thank you! I have seen some of these films at various times, but not all together before.
Thank you!
At marker 00:45 the couple at top left , the guy in the blue shirt with a mustache with the young woman in white and long brown hair is my girlfriend and myself probably in 1973.
Video was only invented in the 50’s so it would have to be film of some description
Georges Melies excluded? His films are absolutely amazing and everyone knows the rocket in the eye of the moon.
This misuses the term "video". A video recording is modern, digital technology. What we are watching are old film recordings, known as movies, a shortened version of the original early-1900's term "moving pictures". I guess if these movies were digitized then they are old movies turned into videos. 🙂
This was fascinating, but you should've mentioned "The Great Train Robbery," from 1903. I believe it was the first "scripted" movie ever made for public release.
Super fun and great fography thank you. The first ever color photograph is of a Scottish Tartan bow, part of a sash, which is female Scottish formal and traditional attire.
Thanks for the info!
The restoration of NYC footage looks pretty good. Definitely A.I. because there is a little warping here and there. But the clarity is amazing.
I've always been fascinated how close even the ancient past is compared with geological history, and how relatively recent ancient Rome is for instance. If you calculate a succession of human beings lined up from one's birth until death, and then another one born at the time of the previous person's death, and so on, and assumed that each person lived 50 years, then that is only 40 people in that chronological chain of lives stretching back to year 1 A.D.
Just a tad trippy to contemplate.
How is it that an 1890s film footage can be better quality than some footage I've seen dating back to say, the 1970s,or were these simply the cheapest reels.
So interesting, great video. 👍
Groove on
The problem now is that there's more poop on the streets of San Francisco today than there was in the days of horse-drawn carriages filling the streets.
My God is it that bad out there?
My Grt.GrandMother told Me how bad it was in NYC with Horse shit everywhere and the horrible stench when she first arrived from Virginia in 1917.
Even with all the years of Homelessness I grew up around since the 1970s in NYC seeing bowels from anyone - People/Animals on the streets was occasional like a few times a week in - _Train Stations, Public Housing Project Elevators, Sidewalks, Alleyways._
In San Fran the City Gov't needs to at least place Port.A.Potty's around and pay people to collect the waste for fertilizer. A good resource for Farmers/Gardeners.
Stunning footage...
It is like walking into the past ...
All of the participants are so very much alive...
Inviting us in...
To a place where there's no time...
Even if it's for a moment...
Space and time are suspended...
That's the "miracle" of film.
Thanks so much for the journey!
Peace out 🙋🏽♀️
✌️ ☮️🥰💖🌬✨️