Arthur Melbourne-Cooper

Arthur Melbourne-Cooper (born April 15, 1874 in St Albans , England , † November 28, 1961 in Barnet , London ) was an English film producer who saw the beginnings of film as an assistant to Birt Acres and who followed in the years 1895 to 1915 Pioneering achievements:

• Animated films from 1899
• Close-up as an intercut, 1900
• Parallel plot, 1904
• Driving recordings, 1904
• Building sloping floor cinemas, more expensive rear seats, uniformed workers, and insulated booths, 1908 and 1909

These contributions are controversial among film historians, so many of the films supposedly produced by Melbourne-Cooper are now attributed to other British film pioneers.

Life

Arthur was born in St Albans to the local photographer Thomas M. Cooper, who taught him his profession from an early age. Arthur was a trained photographer when he was 18 . He applied for a job at Birt Acres . Acres had specialized in photo emulsions. In 1892 he became head of Elliott & Sons, photo plate manufacturer in Barnet . Acres experimented with the movement of clouds and waves in the projection, using several plates in a row. In this way he could use the help of young Cooper. On January 1, 1894, Cooper assisted Acres on a trip to record the Manchester Ship Canal on 70mm film. This film width was introduced by Eastman-Kodak in their snapshot cameras. Acres glued three or four such rolls of film together and exposed the strip in his first camera. Later that year they filmed the Henley Regatta with the same camera. A portion of this film is kept in the archives of the Museum of Modern Art in New York .

Kinetoscope

In the same year the first kinetoscopes appeared. The German chocolate manufacturer Ludwig Stollwerck , who owned a large number of coin machines in several countries, asked Acres to regularly supply him with films for his kinetoscopes, which he had acquired from Edison's representatives. Acres patented a camera for 35 mm film, the Kineopticon, in 1895 . A young mechanical engineer, Robert William Paul, helped him build this apparatus . In March 1895, Acres filmed waves on Dover Pier , also Rough Sea at Dover , later the Epsom Derby and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race .

In June 1895, Acres traveled to Germany to sign a contract with Stollwerck and to start the opening of the Kiel Canal and by Kaiser Wilhelm to visit his troops. Acres was the first foreign film reporter. His pictures were soon listed, not only in England and Germany, but also in Denmark and the United States, where he also sold his cameras and projectors. Over the next two years, Cooper was the cameraman for many short films made for use in the Kinetoscopes, such as Arrest of a Pickpocket and Spilt Milk , in which a farm laborer has a fruitless lovemaking with a milking maid.

First British show

On January 14, 1896, Cooper Acres assisted at the first public film screening in England in the Queen's Hall in London in front of members, wives and friends of the Royal Photographic Society . Five weeks later, on February 20th, Lumière's Cinématographe was shown at the London Polytechnic , and two weeks later at the Empire Theater in Leicester Square . From March 25th for the next two years Paul showed films at the Alhambra Theater in London.

animation

In 1897 Melbourne-Cooper made an animated film entitled Bird's Custard Powder , in which the current Bird's poster came to life. An old man carries a box of eggs down the stairs, trips and smashes them. Don't worry! He takes Bird's vanilla powder. Cooper also made a commercial for Keen's Mustard with the Blackpool Setting Sun Rising Again.

In 1899, Cooper made the oldest surviving single-frame commercial, for Bryant and May, Matches Appeal or Matches: An Appeal . With this animation strip, Britain was six to seven years ahead of the animation pioneers in France and the USA

When there was a need, Cooper helped Acres, who founded the Northern Photographic Works for the production of normal film . In his spare time, Cooper filmed many short comedies, news stories, sporting events, and travelogues. He sold them to Paul, Charles Urban Warwick Trading Company , James Williamson , William Jury , The Walturdaw Company, and many others.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stephen Bottomore: Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper: An End to the Dispute . Film History 14, No. 1, 2002, pp. 57-73.

Web links

• Arthur Melbourne-Cooper in the Internet Movie Database (English)