It is not night for night footage and it is actually shot by daylight as the protagonist is the sun, or rather an eclipse. Nevertheless I added this film to the findings, as I was fascinated by the artist's ambition to find ways to capture the phenomenon and to point the camera towards the sky.
It was not an easy feat to shoot a real solar eclipse. It is the 28th of May 1900 and the famous magician turned pioneering filmmaker, Nevil Maskelyne, dared to do it while on an expedition to North Carolina with The British Astronomical Association. Maskelyne had to make a special telescopic adapter for his camera to capture the event. He called it kinematograph telescope. Maskelyne wanted to convince astronomers to embrace cinematography. At the time, few people knew about filmmaking — the entire genre had emerged only two decades before — and fewer still turned their cameras to the night sky. Colleagues at the British Astronomical Association who joined Maskelyne in Wadesboro would have known that the year 1900 marked a particularly calm phase in the sun’s 11-year cycle.
On the day of the eclipse, however, Maskelyne was only focused on making a technically sound film. He knew that, as the moon slid across the solar disk, the bright and clear summer day would turn into a minute and a half of silvery darkness. He compensated for this change in brightness by adjusting the exposure of each image.
After the eclipse, Maskelyne brought his film back to England. But it disappeared into the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives until Sian Prosser, the Royal Astronomical Society’s Librarian and Archivist, and her colleagues discovered it 2018. 2019, Bryony Dixon, the curator of silent film at the British Film Institute (BFI), and her colleagues painstakingly scanned and restored the film, they digitized it in 4K, after having reassembled and retimed the film frame by frame.
Advancement in technology and magic intermingled seamlessly in the Victorian world, where a passion for science and innovations, including Marconi’s wireless telegraphy, co-existed alongside a deeply held belief in the paranormal and the spiritual photography of the Society for Psychical Research. It was no coincidence that many early filmmakers and showmen worked in magic theatres or were performing illusionists before they turned their hand to film. Nevil Maskelyne and David Devant who ran the famous Egyptian Hall, the oldest magic theatre in London’s Piccadilly, were early adopters of the new medium, introducing trick films into the overall magic show.
Bryony Dixon (BFI) says: Film, like magic combines both art and science. This is a story about magic; magic and art and science and film and the blurred lines between them. Early film historians have been looking for this film for many years. Like one of his elaborate illusions, it’s exciting to think that this only known surviving film by Maskelyne, has reappeared now. Harnessing 21st century technical magic, this 19th century attraction has been reanimated. Maskelyne wanted a novelty to show at his magic theatre, what better than the most impressive natural phenomenon of them all.
Mike Cruise, President of the Royal Astronomical Society said: It's wonderful to see events from our scientific past brought back to life. Astronomers are always keen to embrace new technology, and our forerunners a century ago were no exception. These scenes of a total solar eclipse - one of the most spectacular sights in astronomy - are a captivating glimpse of Victorian science in action.
An enthusiast for film, Nevil Maskelyne styled himself as a scientific investigator of illusions, spiritualism and various phenomena. He was fascinated by astronomy and became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He wanted to show that the developing cinematograph could be used for the advancement of science.
Maskelyne's aim and purpose correspond very much with how I see also myself as an artist.
The film forms part of the astrophotography collection of the Royal Astronomical Society, which recognised the increasing importance of astrophotography, appointing a permanent photographic committee in 1887, and acting as a centre for receiving and distributing astronomical photographs for research and teaching from the 1880s to the 1970s.
Dr Joshua Nall, Chair, RAS Astronomical Heritage Committee adds: This is a wonderful archival discovery: perhaps the oldest surviving astronomical film, it is a really striking record of both early cinema and late Victorian eclipse observing. The BFI are ideal partners, they’ve done a fantastic job digitally restoring the film and it’s great that it will be available for anyone to view free of charge as part of their trove of Victorian cinema.
(text source: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/first-ever-solar-eclipse-film-brought-back-life)
A first attempt to shoot night for night, instead of using day for night methods, was possibly done by Edwin S. Porter and James H. White for Thomas Edison in 1901. It's a panoramic view of the Esplanade by night. The first objects visible in this film taken at night, are the glowing light globes that outline the buildings closest to the camera position. The camera slowly pans, encompassing the complete area of the exhibit buildings, and the outlines of all the buildings are clearly discernible. Edwin S. Porter maintained that this was the first motion picture taken at night by incandescent light in America.
For a documentary film-maker this is a stunning document: it is commissioned, it is a form of advertising, it is guided by the will to experiment with new technologies and as van Gogh's and Balla's paintings it shows the influence of artificial light and light pollution. It is an assumption, my own speculation: but I believe Edison had the same attitude as Balla towards illumination.
