F. Percy Smith

F. Percy Smith

История

A distinguished pioneer of scientific filmmaking, Percy Smith was born in London in 1880. Working as a clerk at the Board of Education, Percy began to photograph the natural world around him, nursing a lifelong fascination with all manner of plant and animal life.  His close-up photograph of a bluebottle's tongue caught the attention of film entrepreneur Charles Urban, who quickly began to exhibit Percy's work in London theatres. After the considerable success of sequences such as The Balancing Bluebottle, where he recorded flies juggling, Percy finally joined Urban as a full-time filmmaker in 1910.  Before the outbreak of the First World War, Percy completed over fifty nature films for the Urban Sciences series including, in 1910, the famous piece,  The Birth of a Flower. An early example of stop-motion photography, the film was hugely popular. Meticulously researching his subjects, Percy devised ingenious ways to film slow-growing plant life - modifying his equipment with gramophone needles, candle wicks and other assorted objects, allowing him to continue filming plant movement even as he slept.  In 1911 his study,  The Strength and Agility of Insects sparked a huge press debate - detailing a range of insects as they lift tiny dumbbells, twirl matchsticks and juggle objects much heavier than themselves he had to dispel rumours of trickery and cruelty by revealing his innovative filming techniques.  Percy went on to serve as a naval photographer during the War and, upon his return, began work for British Instructional Films (BIF). Contributing to the company's widely acclaimed  Secrets of Nature series he worked on numerous films, including An Aquarium in a Wineglass (1926), The Home Wrecker (1929) and Magic Myxies (1931). He continued to work on the project in the 1930s when it became known as Secrets of Life and in 1939 published Secrets of Nature, a review of the filming techniques used throughout the series.  (via wildfilmhistory.org)

Профиль

F. Percy Smith

Фильмы

Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith
Cinematography
A meditative, immersive tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith. Smith worked in the early years of the 20th century, developing various cinematographic and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action. Working in a number of public roles, including the Royal Navy and British Instructional Films, Smith was prolific and driven, often directing several films simultaneously, apparently on a mission to explore and capture nature's hidden terrains. This film is an interpretative edit that combines Smith's original footage with a new contemporary score by tindersticks to create a hypnotic, alien yet familiar dreamscape that connects us to the sense of wonder Smith must have felt as he peered through his own lenses and seen these micro-worlds for the first time.
The Life Cycle of the Newt
Cinematography
Underwater and microscopic photography by F. Percy Smith tell the story of a newt's life.
Lupins
Cinematography
Short nature documentary by Mary Field and F. Percy Smith.
Brewster's Magic
Director of Photography
A short documentary study of hops, barley and yeast, and how they interact.
Brewster's Magic
Director
A short documentary study of hops, barley and yeast, and how they interact.
Romance in a Pond
Director
Short, anthropomorphically-inclined documentary showing the life-cycle of the common newt.
Romance in a Pond
Director of Photography
Short, anthropomorphically-inclined documentary showing the life-cycle of the common newt.
Nature's Double Lifers - Ferns and Fronds
Cinematography
Mary Field edits the time-lapse photography of F. Percy Smith to show the life cycle of ferns and related plants.
The World in a Wine-Glass
Director
Short documentary showing infusoria in a wine-glass.
The World in a Wine-Glass
Director of Photography
Short documentary showing infusoria in a wine-glass.
Magic Myxies
Director
Short film showing (with limited accuracy) the life-cycle of myxomycetes.
The Strangler
Director
Part of BFI collection "Secrets of Nature."
The Plants of the Pantry
Director
Short documentary film using innovative filming techniques to show how moulds grow and germinate.
The Battle of the Plants
Cinematography
The struggle between plants for existence and methods of seed dispersal. The plant movements are shown at twenty thousand times their normal speed and in extreme close up.
The Battle of the Plants
Director
The struggle between plants for existence and methods of seed dispersal. The plant movements are shown at twenty thousand times their normal speed and in extreme close up.
Nature's Handiwork
Director
Nature’s Handiwork presents the marvelous and critical stages of transformation of caterpillars, moths and butterflies. Through microscopic techniques, this silent film captures hidden nature's secrets in action and composes an alien and strange looking world.
Fight for the Dardanelles
Story
The film uses stop-frame animation to create maps on the screen, and showed the then-current military situation in the Dardanelles, using various maps to assist understanding. Small cardboard cut-outs show the deployment of men and ships. Intertitles explain tactics, and shelling explosions are illustrated by clouds of cotton wool.
Fight for the Dardanelles
Animation
The film uses stop-frame animation to create maps on the screen, and showed the then-current military situation in the Dardanelles, using various maps to assist understanding. Small cardboard cut-outs show the deployment of men and ships. Intertitles explain tactics, and shelling explosions are illustrated by clouds of cotton wool.
Fight for the Dardanelles
Director
The film uses stop-frame animation to create maps on the screen, and showed the then-current military situation in the Dardanelles, using various maps to assist understanding. Small cardboard cut-outs show the deployment of men and ships. Intertitles explain tactics, and shelling explosions are illustrated by clouds of cotton wool.
The Wonders of Harmonic Designing
Cinematography
A documentary look at the harmonagraph, a mechanical device that uses a swinging pendulum to draw patterns.
Varieties of Sweet Peas
Director
An early British Kinemacolor short, in which delicate tones and shades of color are beautifully reproduced in examples of highly cultivated sweet pea flowers.
The Strength and Agility of Insects
Director
A short, early documentary work showing insects exhibiting extreme strength and agility.
The Birth of a Flower
Director of Photography
"Percy Smith (1880-1944) was world famous as a photographer of plant life. Probably the first British example of time-lapse photography as applied to the growth of plants." Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1955.
The Birth of a Flower
Director
"Percy Smith (1880-1944) was world famous as a photographer of plant life. Probably the first British example of time-lapse photography as applied to the growth of plants." Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1955.
The Acrobatic Fly
Director
Propped upon the tail-end of a match, a housefly performs astonishing feats, alternately juggling a series of objects - a blade of grass, a cork, a miniature dumbbell… Most extraordinary of all is the sequence in which the fly spins a ball twice its own size, while a second fly perches on top. In the final sequence, the fly repeats some of its earlier tricks while apparently seated on a tiny chair.
Urban Science: To Demonstrate How Spiders Fly
Director
This charming short film is surprisingly technically advanced for its time, using a mechanical spider to demonstrate how the creatures spin the threads to create their webs. Suddenly the spider lifts up all of its legs, allowing itself to be dragged through the air, an effect that is both amusing and disarming, before gracefully descending through a series of mid-air acrobatics. Percy Smith believed he could cure people of their arachnophobia with his short films showing enlarged replicas of spiders, and certainly most viewers would be more delighted than scared by the mechanical star of this short. The final image of a real spider scrabbling around its web might be less endearing, however.
Story of the Silk Moth
Director