Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)

In the garden, a man asks his friends to do something silly for him to record on film.

Director:

Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince

Stars:

Annie Hartley, Adolphe Le Prince, Joseph Whitley

Cast

Credited cast:
Annie Hartley	...	Herself (as Harriet Hartley) (unconfirmed)
Adolphe Le Prince	...	Himself
Joseph Whitley	...	Himself
Sarah Whitley	...	Herself

Storyline

The earliest celluloid film was shot by Louise Le Prince using the Le Prince single-lens camera made in 1888. It was taken in the garden of the Whitley family house in Oakwood Grange Road, Roundhay, a suburb of Leeds, Yorkshire, Great Britain, possibly on October 14, 1888. It shows Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince's son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley, (Le Prince's mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley and Miss Harriet Hartley. The 'actors' are shown walking around in circles, laughing to themselves and keeping within the area framed by the camera. It lasts for less than 2 seconds and includes 24 frames.

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Plot Keywords:

place name in title | first of its kind | garden | 1880s | partially lost film | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Short

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

UK France

Release Date:

14 October 1888 (UK)

Also Known As:

Roundhay Garden Scene

Filming Locations:

Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Whitley Partners

Technical Specs

Runtime:

1 min (Original length 4.33 seconds, 52 frames at 12fps)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was taken. She was the earliest known born person ever to appear in a film, and also the first known person who had appeared in a film to die. There is reasonable probability that some other people showing in films for the next 20 years were earlier born than her (person born in 1815 would be 80 in 1895, when films were more common). As the jockey in Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878) seems to have died in 1912, the only person that could possibly died before her was the "Man Walking Around the Corner", who was filmed a year earlier.

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Connections

Featured in The First Film (2015)

User Reviews

The very dawn of a new form of art and entertainment

It is impossible to judge this film, seeing as it was made in 1888 and involves two seconds of people walking around in a yard. Louis Le Prince never would have known, that by filming a family in their yard, that he was creating a new form of art and entertainment, the most important form of entertainment of our time. This is indeed the most important movie ever made, as it is the first movie ever made. This should be shown in all history classes and to anyone interested in film or history, it is an extremely under-recognized landmark in the progress of art. The only way this film exists now is on an Internet web site (featured here on the Video Clips page). By all means, watch this, as it is the most important two seconds in all of cinema. Lastly, this is proof that from small things, comes great things (or something around those lines).