00:00:15.130 - 00:00:24.340

So to understand what Mitchell and Kenyon did is understand entertainment patterns. So when they went to Ireland, for example, they had a different process to when

00:00:24.340 - 00:00:33.880

they were working in England. So what they would basically do is they would go to a town, usually at the request of the showmen. They would then film the event.

00:00:33.880 - 00:00:47.150

Then the actual film would be D&Ped, sometimes in a carriage, sometimes locally, or they'd go back to Blackburn, and then they'd do the developing and printing, i.e., make the camera positive from the print.

00:00:47.150 - 00:00:55.030

And then it would be shown. And then it would be shown, and they kept the negatives. So if the showman wanted to come back, they could have another copy.

00:00:55.030 - 00:01:02.740

So maybe if he was coming back the year after and didn't want to make a new film, he'd just want to show the film from the last year. So they would sell that.

00:01:02.740 - 00:01:08.630

That Was a straightforward sale. So I think, in a way, the reason why the negatives were kept because people would ask multiple prints.

00:01:08.630 - 00:01:18.190

And we know that some of the negatives had two or three prints taken off them, and everyone's had only one. And some maybe not at all because they might not

00:01:18.190 - 00:01:25.870

have been paid. So then the showmen would then advertise it. So there was those are the ones that for the fairground showmen.

00:01:25.870 - 00:01:37.960

But then you had the film companies, the burgeoning film exhibition companies, who have exotic names like the North American Animated Cinema Company or New Century Pictures or Edison Thomas.

00:01:37.960 - 00:01:48.160

And Edison Thomas is the one who is the most remarkable character in early film exhibition that you could come across. So his relationship with Mitchell and Kenyon is really

00:01:48.160 - 00:01:59.560

interesting because in many cases, it looks like Edison Thomas or Edi Thomas is actually making the films, and what Mitchell and Kenyon are doing are developing and printing.

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So you've got a complexity. Some films Mitchell and Kenyon made are sold, some films Mitchell and Kenyon made on commission, and some films were made by other companies who

00:02:10.840 - 00:02:20.890

were then developed and printed by Mitchell and Kenyon. So within the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, you could have five or six different filmmakers who are connected to Mitchell and Kenyon,

00:02:20.890 - 00:02:32.650

but we will never know because there's no business records. We will never know which is which, but we can guess from the style. And maybe the next generation of historians and researchers

00:02:32.650 - 00:02:45.610

wants to pick up on all the work that we all did and start to say, this film is not Mitchell and Kenyon. But when we brought the films out in 2003, it seemed a bit too complex to say, well, actually,

00:02:45.610 - 00:02:54.790

it's made by so-and-so. No, it's just so the Mitchell and Kenyon collection is the company collection, and it's a collection of material that relates to the filming,

00:02:54.790 - 00:03:04.180

the making of films, the developing of films, the commission of films, and the editing of films, and the showing of films. So it shows all process with one collection.

00:03:04.180 - 00:03:13.990

We can actually trace it. And that's really unusual. Most film collections, there's no link between making the film, having it in the archive,

00:03:13.990 - 00:03:24.730

and when it was shown with Mitchell and Kenyon, you have all the steps. So that's the significance of it. But probably I've only untapped 5% or 10% of the significance,

00:03:24.730 - 00:03:42.040

but it took seven years of my life. So in many ways, the potential for future researchers, for anyone, is there's so much more material to get at, but there's also understanding the collection itself

00:03:42.040 - 00:03:57.970

is the record, not just one film company. It's of a very complicated film exhibition, production, exhibiting business in the 1900s as cinema was emerging as a business form and an art form.

00:04:05.900 - 00:04:17.750

Mitchell and Kenyon were competing with a very rapidly expanding film business. So there is a number of companies from the time. And obviously, the most famous ones

00:04:17.750 - 00:04:33.610

are going to be Robert Paul Birt Acres were early, Hepworth, the Brighton School. But they didn't seem to compete directly with them because they were in the South of England.

00:04:33.610 - 00:04:42.460

It's almost like they cornered the market in the North of England. There was another exhibitor in Sheffield called Jasper Redfern, who obviously made films,

00:04:42.460 - 00:04:48.850

but none of his films have survived. But we have his business records in the Fairground Archive, and it's extraordinary. So he did.

00:04:48.850 - 00:05:02.500

And in one of the films of hall, Jasper Redfern is there. And Mitchell and Kenyon are filming their competitors. If you look at that film of hall, and you'll actually see a Jasper Redfern film camera.

00:05:02.500 - 00:05:12.580

There's only a few, but the ones of hall, Jasper Redfern is definitely, definitely filming at the same time as Mitchell and Kenyon, and obviously competing in the same market.

00:05:12.580 - 00:05:23.350

And the business records show this incredibly complex relationship. So it's quite frustrating, because you've got one company with all of the material, all of the archive,

00:05:23.350 - 00:05:32.770

i.e., the printed archive, and where they went, and where they exhibited, and what they did. And you've got another company with all the films, but you don't have both.

00:05:32.770 - 00:05:43.300

So understanding Mitchell and Kenyon is learning from-- so when I discovered the Jasper Redfern collection many years later, part of me was like, this is amazing because this demonstrates

00:05:43.300 - 00:06:00.490

what I've always said, this incredibly complex material, which is now in the National Fairground and Circus Archive, and even the film books from the time that they used, and we don't even have a catalogue

00:06:00.490 - 00:06:11.320

of Mitchell and Kenyon's films. We have catalogues of all, many of the other filmmakers on the time, which are all available now, and we have lists of films, and we have distributors.

00:06:11.320 - 00:06:19.330

And obviously we know, Mitchell and Kenyon gave films to other distributors. And obviously, some Mitchell and Kenyon films were in American distribution catalogues.

00:06:19.330 - 00:06:37.940

But what we don't have is our own catalogue, but we do have the films. So I think they've top trumped everyone now. One of the interesting things about Mitchell and Kenyon

00:06:37.940 - 00:06:50.630

is the intimacy of the films. And I think this is what they do really well. And the accompanying research that we did for many years-- I think Tom Gunning calls it "the power of the gaze,"

00:06:50.630 - 00:06:58.670

that you see you're looking into the eyes, they capture the people. There's an emotional-- One of my colleagues, I shan't name and shame them,

00:06:58.670 - 00:07:14.520

called them rather amateurish. Now if you compare Mitchell and Kenya's local films to biograph, biograph films are majestic, 68mm fame, beautiful. They're like some majestic ocean liner.

00:07:14.520 - 00:07:24.420

Mitchell and Kenyon, they're like a little paddleboat with loads of people having a great party, behind shouting at the camera, throwing champagne. They're completely different, but they're human.

00:07:24.420 - 00:07:34.580

Do you relate to them. And then you realise the skill in capturing that, as a filmmaker, is actually kind of very more complex. And then one of my colleagues who

00:07:34.580 - 00:07:47.630

did work on the actual camera operated in the lens that they would have used said that the material, the films of the sporting events, are incredibly complex. There's like six or seven shots, three

00:07:47.630 - 00:07:59.180

or four cameras edited into, and the editing in the camera. So they got really, really good at this. And so, I think, with local actualities, they were heads above everyone else with their fiction films,

00:07:59.180 - 00:08:10.940

even I, as much as the more devoted Mitchell and Kenyon, will say some of them are a bit-- compared to Frank Mottoshaw compared to other people, compared to Robert Paul, I would never

00:08:10.940 - 00:08:21.320

claim Mitchell and Kenyon had that filmic, artistic narrative quality. But I would say with nonfiction actualities, they were better than anyone internationally, even

00:08:21.320 - 00:08:33.680

Lumiere and Biograph for human interest and what they captured. Because they captured the everyday. And I can see, you can take a film of Paris,

00:08:33.680 - 00:08:42.740

every filmmaker can take a film of Paris, and it's all pretty identical. Mitchell and Kenyon would have loads of people coming out of a bar, and they wouldn't show Paris.

00:08:42.740 - 00:08:54.350

Sometimes that's the frustrating thing about some of the films, because it's just the people. I mean, one shot, the films of the factories, it took me a while to realise until I talked to social

00:08:54.350 - 00:09:04.420

historians that, this is just one factory gate. Some of those factories employed 15,000 people. In fact, one film actually says 20,000 people leaving Newcastle.

00:09:04.420 - 00:09:16.550

And what you've got on that, it looks like 20,000 people. But it's actually one factory gate. So these big industrial powerhouses of factory and industrial revolution of the northern cities,

00:09:16.550 - 00:09:24.580

and when you look at who's leaving, you suddenly realise they're all women. So these ones are a little kind of look like they're doing heavy industry.

00:09:24.580 - 00:09:34.780

So the films themselves show the demarcation of the working class structure of factories, once you start to understand what they're showing you. So that's the complexity of Mitchell

00:09:34.780 - 00:09:45.190

and Kenyon's actuality. Rather than a few people walking past the Lumiere, famous film in 1895, they take the factory gate and turn it into a complete and utter discipline

00:09:45.190 - 00:09:55.600

in its own right. So with the sporting films, you see this incredibly interesting pattern emerges of the films. So you get the film of the players walking out,

00:09:55.600 - 00:10:07.090

and then you get a shot of the crowd, all the crowd, and then you get a shot of the action. It's like match of the day but 1901. All the components are there-- the players, the goal--

00:10:07.090 - 00:10:15.330

or not the goal, because they don't often get the goal, when you do get a goal it's fantastic-- and the crowd. So they did that.

00:10:15.330 - 00:10:24.870

So the sporting films are very clear. They had a very set formula. The significance of the sporting films is that, the Northern Union Films

00:10:24.870 - 00:10:42.240

was between when rugby split between the two codes, between 1890 and 1895 in Huddersfield, and those films show the transition from Rugby Northern Union to Rugby League. So when I first showed those films to people, oh, no, no,

00:10:42.240 - 00:10:49.500

they're not rugby league. They're union. And it wasn't until I got a rugby league historian, I said, Oh, my, you're seeing the transition,

00:10:49.500 - 00:11:00.120

you're seeing the development of the sport on film. So Mitchell and Kenyon football films show the production of the narrative of the football filmic experience.

00:11:00.120 - 00:11:09.780

Mitchell and Kenyon rugby films show the evolution of the sport. So significance, no other collection shows that. No other collection shows that.

00:11:09.780 - 00:11:20.130

The parade films and the films of the everyday life in Blackpool and Morecambe, and the holiday films. So you have then a distinct set of films, which is the holiday crowd, which my colleague, Professor

00:11:20.130 - 00:11:32.680

John Walton who wrote about the Blackpool films says that you're seeing working class leisure, the holiday crowd, dressed up to the nines. So you see different class stratas in the films, as well.

00:11:32.680 - 00:11:42.990

And then you realise, the class stratas relates to who they're showing them to. So you've got some films that were made for penny audience, and some films that were made for two-shilling audience,

00:11:42.990 - 00:11:52.610

and it all depends on who's in the films. So a two-shilling audience is not going to watch factory gate films. When you look at the Irish films, they don't do factories,

00:11:52.610 - 00:11:59.390

they do churches. So the church films are the equivalent of the factory gate films. So that's what I'm saying, you kind of

00:11:59.390 - 00:12:09.050

create a language of non-fiction, which then develops into newsreel language, and then develops into the incredible newsreel collections of the teens and the 20s.

00:12:09.050 - 00:12:19.340

All goes from what Mitchell and Kenyon did. Did they know Mitchell and Kenyon? But we know that some of the cameramen went on to become early newsreel people.

00:12:19.340 - 00:12:34.490

And we definitely know in George Green, and Glasgow went on to have Green's newsreels and Green's Playhouses, and the most important film exhibitor and cinema owner in Glasgow with the largest

00:12:34.490 - 00:12:47.510

cinema in the country, Green's Playhouse, started his relationship. He was the first showman we know where there's a letter where he says, George Green exhibit got the films

00:12:47.510 - 00:12:59.830

for Mitchell and Kenyon. So we do know that relationship between-- and Green's films, of Blackburn, quite clearly show. And there's a wonderful film of Blackburn Rovers coming out

00:12:59.830 - 00:13:11.590

with George Green, or the Green family coming out holding the gag card the wrong way around. So you can say that's product placement, that's George the Green company, the Green family of showmen--

00:13:11.590 - 00:13:22.470

they were travelling showmen, making clear nobody else could steal this film and use it. But it also shows that level of relationship between production, and technology, and exhibition.

00:13:22.470 - 00:13:34.780

And so that's why I think Mitchell and Kenyon are significantly different from the rest of the other companies because we can show that they were very connected, almost embedded in the entertainment industry, which

00:13:34.780 - 00:13:49.160

I don't think any of the other exhibitors were to the extent they were. The films were not just shown, they were displayed. They were performed.

00:13:49.160 - 00:13:58.910

So there would be a lecturer. And the lecturer would be there, and there would be a band. So there was a film of a band on the screen. They would also have the band in the audience playing along.

00:13:58.910 - 00:14:07.010

So the early film itself was never silent. It was always accompanied by music, by a narration, and the showman, and we call it telling the tale.

00:14:07.010 - 00:14:14.020

And they would tell the tale, and they would lecture, and explain to the audience what they were saying. So that's understanding that we don't

00:14:14.020 - 00:14:23.840

have the soundtrack of that time, but we have the soundtrack of what we imagine they would say. The audience of Mitchell and Kenyon are what you see on the screen.

00:14:23.840 - 00:14:32.710

So when you watch the film of Mitchell and Kenyon, you would have seen the audience. In exhibition culture, you had the town hall showman, you had the Fairground showman, and then

00:14:32.710 - 00:14:42.030

you had the kind of lecturer, people who would do the lectures. And then you had the musical variety. So you had the film--

00:14:42.030 - 00:14:50.320

the film that was made as a kind of to show within a variety show. So you would have acts, and then the film would be part as a filler.

00:14:50.320 - 00:14:59.350

It wasn't the main attraction. Like with some of the posters I've got here, and you can see where film is just an act on a bill. Then you have the films which were

00:14:59.350 - 00:15:08.830

made for the fairground audience, which the bioscope and the fairground showmen. There's probably about 40 or 50 of those kind of exhibitors in the Mitchell and Kenyon collection.

00:15:08.830 - 00:15:20.230

So that would be a huge fairground cinematograph tent, which would be capable of holding a thousand people. It would have a music accompaniment, or it would also have a fairground organ music.

00:15:20.230 - 00:15:29.330

And then you go in and watch a 15-minute show. And it would in-out, in-out. And the film of Sedgwick's Bioscope shows that, goes the crowd going in and out.

00:15:29.330 - 00:15:43.900

So that's a very clear film that shows the audience, the kids, the audience, working class, people who get holidays, maybe, bank holidays, or Easter, or an old custom, so May Day or Whit Walks.

00:15:43.900 - 00:15:55.150

So the old customs of England and the UK are very important to Mitchell and Kenyon because it's not the modern holiday system. We know it's the 19th century system, which

00:15:55.150 - 00:16:05.560

is what we're based on today. And then you get the audience which is distinctly middle class. So when you see the wonderful top hats and tails

00:16:05.560 - 00:16:15.520

on Blackpool, you think, oh, my, that's not Blackpool, but it's North Pier, the second oldest pier in the country designed by Eugenius Birch, bit like a Brighton Pier.

00:16:15.520 - 00:16:25.300

So a pier that you had to pay to go on. And it's a very elite sect, and it's an audience and they just come from church. So they're doing their Sunday walk up and down the promenade

00:16:25.300 - 00:16:37.660

on the pier to be seen. And Mitchell and Keynyon is capturing them. And that film would be shown in the Winter Gardens, which again, is a middle-class recreational place.

00:16:37.660 - 00:16:46.810

The films that were shown in the town halls tend to be more kind of travelogues, tend to be more kind of educational, tend to be more films of your local scene.

00:16:46.810 - 00:16:58.660

So it's like a panoramic shot, or it's a travelogue, or sometimes, there was an obsession around 1901, mostly because of early film, the Williamson film, for fire engine.

00:16:58.660 - 00:17:08.200

So you get lots of films of fire engines suddenly appearing. So you can guess all the latest trend, there's a film. But the audience remains the same. It's the holiday audience.

00:17:08.200 - 00:17:19.050

It's the audience that are going for leisure and pleasure. And whether that audience is middle class, working class, children, young people, there's no distinction. It's the audience.

00:17:19.050 - 00:17:29.580

Sometimes, they pay a penny, six pence. If it was a two-hour show, they'd pay two shillings. And those are the interesting films because that was the group of films we didn't know about.

00:17:29.580 - 00:17:39.180

That was the group of film shows we didn't know about. We knew about the variety musical showman. We knew about the fairground showman. I'd spent five years writing about it.

00:17:39.180 - 00:17:50.370

But we didn't know about the town hall showman, and they're the ones who became the bedrock of exhibition culture and cinema in this country. Now the fairground showmen, some of them did.

00:17:50.370 - 00:18:03.420

And the musical showman just went to being variety acts. It was those town hall showmen like George Green who went from the fair to become in a chain of cinemas, like New Century Pictures and Sydney Carter,

00:18:03.420 - 00:18:09.600

like Waller Jeffs. All of these names were first associated with Mitchell and Kenyon. They were the first people to build

00:18:09.600 - 00:18:23.850

little syndicates of cinemas in northern industrial towns. So the audience was also children. And often, you see the audience coming from work. Actually, when they leave the factory, that's

00:18:23.850 - 00:18:34.410

at the lunch break, and sometimes on the football matches, you see the miners covered in coal dust in the crowd. And then you get the audience like the great Yorkshire show.

00:18:34.410 - 00:18:44.330

Oh, my. The ladies' hats. They're not mill girls. They're the people who want to be seen.

00:18:44.330 - 00:18:57.060

The it girls of Yorkshire on film. And then you see the factory girls who are coming out wearing their clogs and their shawls. And it's like it could be from the 1950s, that picture.

00:18:57.060 - 00:19:05.600

But then you see them in Blackpool with the big hats and dancing up and down, or in Morecambe. You see them at play. And that's what I love about them.

00:19:05.600 - 00:19:14.180

And you can, sometimes, get over-sentimental about them. And I think everybody kept saying to me, oh, it's like-- is this is the "lost generation?" This is what JB Priestley called them.

00:19:14.180 - 00:19:25.590

People call-- this generation died in the First World War. And this generation died with the great flu epidemic, the Spanish flu. But also that generation survived.

00:19:25.590 - 00:19:37.860

So it's the golden age of Edwardian society. And then we know by the end of that period, a lot of those children would have gone to war. So the children parading with the boys brigade

00:19:37.860 - 00:19:45.810

would have been fighting in the First World War. The girls who would have been coming out of the factory would have been working in the munitions in the First World War.

00:19:45.810 - 00:20:00.030

But there would also have been people. So it shaped society when you see what's in that material. But also, it's really just Edwardian people at play, at work, not doing work, leaving to work, going from work,

00:20:00.030 - 00:20:08.580

coming from work, and watching sports. It's very modern society, isn't it? It's what we do today. And we see it on film.

00:20:08.580 - 00:20:18.400

And we see it emerging from the development of the Victorian period. They call it the long Victorian period, but it's Edwardian. The Edwardian period in British terms,

00:20:18.400 - 00:20:33.750

which is the reign of Edward from 1901 to 1909, 1910. That is the classic period of Mitchell and Kenyon. It is the golden age of Edwardian culture in northern working class Britain that we see on film,

00:20:33.750 - 00:20:50.270

and that's the audience. With Mitchell and Kenyon, it took a while for historians to realise the potential. But what does it tell you?

00:20:50.270 - 00:20:58.700

It shows you-- I would argue that it just tell you, in some cases, what we already knew. It gives filmic evidence to what we already knew.

00:20:58.700 - 00:21:10.310

We know it was a period of great change. We know it was a period of great acceleration. We know it was when the long Victorian that basically, in the tram films, for example, that at the start

00:21:10.310 - 00:21:23.920

of the Victorian period, you would-- at the start of the Edwardian period, or in 1901, the average person travelled more than four miles a day. By the end of it, 1911, they were travelling 11 miles a day

00:21:23.920 - 00:21:34.840

because the acceleration of the electric tram made your locality a lot bigger. We know that in the films, we show the children leaving the classroom.

00:21:34.840 - 00:21:47.310

Lots of films of children parading. And we know that this is part of we're seeing the consequences of the 1982 Education Act. We also seen less child workers because that reduced

00:21:47.310 - 00:21:57.340

the hours-- didn't stop it, people think it stopped-- reduced it to 15 hours, or 25 hours in some cases. And you had the practise of half-time workers where

00:21:57.340 - 00:22:06.280

children would work half time, and they also go to school. So it raised the age of working for children up to a higher limit. So all of these changes are in the films,

00:22:06.280 - 00:22:16.410

but you've got to know them. So part of the role of the modern historian is to interpret the films and show people what it means. So when you see kids at the factory gates,

00:22:16.410 - 00:22:26.440

they're not coming to see the dad. They're actually working. And then when you see people on holiday, this is because they've worked double time the week

00:22:26.440 - 00:22:36.830

before, because it was bull week, and so the holiday films are actually-- they don't get holiday pay. So people save up all year round to go on holiday.

00:22:36.830 - 00:22:45.820

Because they don't get holiday pay. They don't get sick pay. But what the film is showing is birth of the modern welfare state as well it's showing the support system.

00:22:45.820 - 00:22:56.920

So we know, as historians, what that period is like but what Mitchell and Kenyon is literally adds a greater insight. And I think the most important films are the street films

00:22:56.920 - 00:23:05.920

because it shows you the movement of people, it shows the movement of traffic, and it's what you see in the camera. And what's really fascinating to me is the costumes.

00:23:05.920 - 00:23:15.460

And we call them costumes so it's a dress. And I could never nail what the dress told me. What were the social skills and score? Was that the best dress?

00:23:15.460 - 00:23:25.400

Are we seeing everyday clothes, or are we seeing the latest fashions, or are we seeing what was their Sunday best? With the films of Great Yorkshire

00:23:25.400 - 00:23:34.530

and the Blackpool films, we definitely know it's the Sunday best. But the other films of the street scenes is like, is that the everyday clothes that people wore?

00:23:34.530 - 00:23:53.630

And I think the fascination for me is that real interest of social history. I think what Mitchell and Kenyon collection added to the world of film history was the professionalisation

00:23:53.630 - 00:24:05.480

and industrialization of early film. It showed that it was tied into a very clear advertising, professional amusement, entertainment business. It showed that it was really incredible, professionally

00:24:05.480 - 00:24:15.200

done, and there was a business. And I think it brought film history back into the business of film. So my late colleague and great film historian,

00:24:15.200 - 00:24:26.040

the late Dr. Richard Brown, was always about film as a business. In fact, how, you'd say to him, you never watched the films. But I think he would argue that, how were these companies built?

00:24:26.040 - 00:24:33.710

How they were created? What was the limited company? Were those records were there? So tying the film business history into the film history,

00:24:33.710 - 00:24:44.540

into the history of the image, is what Mitchell and Kenyon gave us that potential to do. So what they really reveal, what the Mitchell and Kenyons films reveal is the professionalisation

00:24:44.540 - 00:24:58.610

of the early local film, that it wasn't just a kind of one-off thing that Lumiere did in 1895, the way that paves the way towards documentary and newsreel, the absolute appetite

00:24:58.610 - 00:25:09.830

and creating an audience for cinema. And without Mitchell and Kenyon and all these other filmmakers, cinema, as an industry, i.e., building cinemas would not have been built. You can talk about Hollywood,

00:25:09.830 - 00:25:17.870

you can talk about film companies, but if there was no way for people to see the films and there wasn't an audience-- and it taught the language of film to an early film audience.

00:25:17.870 - 00:25:27.920

It taught the language of film. They took that language from other film means, but cinema became the vehicle by which audiences became a film audience.

00:25:27.920 - 00:25:41.270

But Mitchell and Kenyon and other filmmakers introduced them to the concept of viewing film, and enjoying, and becoming. As I said, by 1911, by 1914, cinema

00:25:41.270 - 00:25:54.800

was the dominant form of popular entertainment in the United Kingdom. So by the 1920s, cities which would have had four or five music halls now had 40 or 50 cinemas.

00:25:54.800 - 00:26:06.050

And you would have a cinema on every corner. So it completely transformed the whole form of entertainment culture, the introduction of cinema into that.

00:26:06.050 - 00:26:17.300

And Mitchell and Kenyon, as one of the pioneers, created an appetite and audience for watching film in the North of England, Scotland, and Ireland and other places alongside the other pioneers.

00:26:17.300 - 00:26:30.950

And I think it's quite humbling to think that a few early pioneers in the early 1900s created this mass market audience for cinema. I wouldn't say they created the film industry,

00:26:30.950 - 00:26:35.440

but I would say that they were very involved in creating an audience for film.