Film making in North London - an illustrated talk

A Double Bill of Presentations

Film making in North London (1895-1915) - an illustrated talk by Gerry Turvey

The talk will be an account of the major contribution film-makers in the North London area made to early British cinema. It begins with the inventors and pioneers, Birt Acres and Robert Paul at Barnet and Muswell Hill, moves on to the successful commercial producers of the early teens, like British and Colonial at East Finchley and Big Ben at Alexandra Palace and concludes with Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey, who was beginning to think of film as an art form.

Gerry will examine the film genres these and other local producers worked in and the shift from short actualities to longer and increasingly sophisticated fiction productions.
PLUS

West End Theatres that sometimes showed films - an illustrated talk by David Smith

The growth of the new sensation of animated pictures (‘cinema’ had not been coined!) caused a revolution to the established theatre world. Some theatres were forced to diversify and include film shows, initially as a novelty turn on a variety bill and later some embraced film exhibition on a part-time or semi-permanent basis. Gradually theatre buildings evolved to suit the popular form of entertainment. By the mid-1920s this lead to a new style of building designed and constructed as ‘cinema-theatres’ where stage shows could augment films, known as ‘ciné-variety’! CTA member David Smith has researched the subject using his substantial collection of theatre programmes and postcards, supplemented with images from other collections.

The talk will show a selection of London’s West End theatres with examples of their use as a cinema and what films were shown.