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20/2/1896: Paul in Demand
Having split from Birt Acres, Robert Paul went to work on improving his camera by incorporating a mechanism based on the Maltese Cross which gave intermittent motion to the film. He also produced a projector – the first commercially produced 35mm projector in Britain - which he initially called the Theatrograph, but which was later changed to the Animatograph. He published details of the Theatrograph in a technical magazine called English Mechanic on the 21st February 1896. A day earlier, he had given his first demonstration of the projector at Finsbury Technical College – on the same day, coincidentally, that Felicien Trewey was previewing the Lumiere Cinematographe at the Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street
Paul experienced a number of technical problems during this inaugural screening, but he produced a new improved version which he patented on the 2nd March. A little over two weeks later, he gave the first public demonstration of his projector to wide acclaim at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly on the 19th March. Six days later, on the 25th of March, he began showing films at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, just across the road from the Empire Theatre, where Trewey was presenting his Lumiere films. The films shown by Paul were mostly those made by Edison for the Kinetoscope, and the ones filmed for him by Acres. He needed new material to meet the increasing public demand, however – his original two-week engagement at the Alhambra eventually lasted two years – and so resumed film production in April, using a camera he had constructed based on the design of his second Theatrograph.
Three films made by Paul during this period possibly deserve singling out for special attention. The first is The Soldier’s Courtship which was filmed on the roof of the Alhambra. Directed by Alfred Moul, the theatre’s general manager, it featured Fred Storey, Julie Seale and Paul’s wife Ellen, and was arguably the first British film to tell a story. The film was so popular that Paul produced a second version the following year. Shoeblack at Work in a London Street was an unremarkable film, but is one of the earliest examples of a hand-coloured film, a laborious process in which each individual frame of film was painted by hand. The third significant film made by Paul in 1896 was his recording of the Derby on the 3rd June 1896 in which the Prince of Wales’ (the future Edward VII) horse Persimmon set a course record of 2 minutes 42 seconds to beat St. Frusquin by a neck. It wasn’t Paul’s recording of the film that was of importance, however – Acres had already filmed the previous year’s Derby – it was the speed with which Paul processed the film and played it to an audience. Within 24 hours the recording of the race was screened to rapturous audiences at both the Alhambra and Canterbury Music Hall. The speed with which Paul brought the occasion to the screen set a precedent that would result in the high standards of newsreel reportage that would follow.
1896 was the beginning of the boom years for Robert Paul. The Lumiere Cinematographe was exclusive to the Empire Theatre, and so the other London music halls clamoured for Paul’s alternative projector. Paul spent his evenings dashing from one London music hall to another, rewinding films as he travelled, in order to supervise the projection of each show. In the twelve months to March 1897 he would recognise a profit of more than £12,000 against an outlay of just £1,000.
Despite his success, Paul was still thinking ahead. On the 24th October 1896, he patented a moving picture “experience” based on H. G. Wells’ novel The Time Machine which he described as “A novel form of exhibition or entertainment, means for presenting the same”. Paul envisaged a contraption in which an audience would sit that would mimic the movements on the screen in front of them. His idea eventually came to nothing, but what he had envisaged was the themed amusement park ride – such as the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios theme park – with which we are now familiar.
In the same year, Paul further developed his projector. He had devised a loop in his projector to relieve the strain on the film as it ran through the machine at approximately the same time that the Lathams (or Lauste) had developed theirs. In 1896, Paul focused on how to smooth the transition from continuous and intermittent motion as the film passed the gate. He came up with a device called the Maltese Cross that is still in use on 35mm projectors today. Each time a pin attached to a cam entered a slot between the arms of the rotating cross the film was moved forward one frame.
"His work-room was at the very top of a tall building. I stumbled up the narrow staircase, trying not to tread upon the dozen or more sleeping Polish and Armenian Jews who had been waiting ... days and nights for delivery of "Animatographs." And there at the top was Paul himself, perspiring freely and cranking away at his big clumsy machines in a hopeless endeavour to [break] them in and make them usable by the weaker folk outside."
Cecil Hepworth recalls a visit to Robert Paul's workshop.
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