The Oldest Footage – London and NY

I love these wonderful films, taking the early films of London and New York and mapping them, and in the London film actually showing what it’s like today. The films date from 1890 – 1920’s, missing is William Friese-Greene whose 4/5 fps film from 1889 is lost. And probably was a con anyway, his systems never worked properly, and he claimed to have invented cinema but with little to show for it.

Of course the first film ever was shot in the UK in Leeds by Louis Le Prince in 1888. His story is like a movie, because he disappeared from a train to Paris from Dijon in 1890, him and his luggage were never to be found again. Suicide? Foul play from jealous rivals? Fratricide? No-one knows, but recently they found a photo of a drowned unidentified man in the Paris police archives that looked like him.