Robert Paul is a largely forgotten name today, but he was a major pioneer of British cinema, and was quick to grasp the commercial potential of cinema in ways that better known pioneers such as William Friese-Greene were not. He was more of a mechanic than a filmmaker making, with Birt Acres, his own camera on which to shoot films in 1895, and also Britain's first projector, the Animatograph, with which to screen them in 1896. Early in the 20th century he had a custom-made studio built in Muswell Hill.
This is an actuality which pretty much shows what the title suggests. It was shot by Colonel Beaver, an army doctor who would soon find himself too busy to be making movies when the British army was struck down by dysentery – which was more likely to kill a man than a Boer was
This is an actuality which pretty much shows what the title suggests. It was shot by Colonel Beaver, an army doctor who would soon find himself too busy to be making movies when the British army was struck down by dysentery – which was more likely to kill a man than a Boer was
