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The Visit of Santa Claus (1898) a.k.a. Santa Claus
A Historic Christmas Film by G.A. Smith. (George Albert Smith)
The first appearance of Santa Claus depicted on film.
A silent film, however, I added the "Ballet De Suburbia (Suite)" from the movie, "Edward Scissorhands"" composed by Danny Elfman: http://amzn.to/EdScissor
George Albert Smith's "Santa Claus" is a film of considerable technical ambition and accomplishment for the period. A former magic lanternist and hypnotist, Smith was one of the first British film-makers - indeed, one of the first film-makers anywhere - to make extensive use of special effects to create fantastical scenes.
The opening of the film is a straightforward single-shot drama in which expectant children are hurried off to bed by the maid. She then turns out the light, which leads to an imaginative transition whereby the background is replaced by a black space (via a jump cut) while the foreground remains as before. Onto this space is superimposed a circular image of Santa landing on the roof and descending the chimney.
What makes this treatment considerably more interesting than a conventional piece of editing is the way that Smith links the shots in terms of both space and time, by placing the new image over the space previously occupied by the fireplace, and continuing to show the children sleeping throughout (their bed occupies the left-hand side of the screen throughout the entire film). Santa then emerges from where the fireplace used to be, distributes the presents, and disappears via another jump cut.
This is believed to be the cinema's earliest known example of parallel action and, when coupled with double-exposure techniques that Smith had already demonstrated in the same year's The Mesmerist and Photographing a Ghost, the result is one of the most visually and conceptually sophisticated British films made up to then. It comes as little surprise that Smith corresponded with the French pioneer Georges Méliès at about this time, as the two men shared a common goal in terms of creating an authentic cinema of illusion.
George Albert Smith (4 January 1864, London - 17 May 1959) was an inventor, a stage hypnotist, psychic, astronomer and magic lantern lecturer and one of the pioneers of British cinema. His work in psychical matters was as an assistant to Edmund Gurney in a series of investigations into hypnotism and telepathy, which in their day made Gurney an impressive figure to the British public as a leader of the Society of Psychical Research. Since then it has been heavily studied and critiqued by Trevor Hall in his study The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney. Hall concluded that Smith (using his stage abilities) faked the results that Gurney trusted in in his research papers, and this may have led to Gurney's mysterious death from a narcotic overdose in June 1888 at Brighton.
In 1896, Smith, of Hove, England patented a camera and projector system. He was also the proprietor of St. Anne's Well Pleasure Gardens in Hove at the time. He purchased a prototype cine camera from local engineer Alfred Darling, who subsequently made many contributions to the cinema technology.
Smith's neighbor James Williamson (1855-1933) also bought a movie camera. Williamson ran a chemist's shop which supplied photographic services and equipment. The neighbors created numerous historic minute-long films. Smith is credited with the invention of the 'close-up' and the use the first to use double-exposure to achieve special effects in moving pictures.
Smith went on to develop the first successful colour film process, Kinemacolor, but was virtually put out of business due to a patent suit filed by William Friese-Greene.
A silent film, however, I added the "Ballet De Suburbia (Suite)" from the movie, "Edward Scissorhands"" composed by Danny Elfman: http://amzn.to/EdScissor
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thank you!
sandramcminnis 3 months ago
1898? Shit! I didn't think they made movies in that time period. Great upload, by the way.
:)
Surrealatorium 5 months ago
1:02 XD but verry nice
MegaAkatsukiGirl 9 months ago
it's weird to think that these people are all dead... strange thought
Bayview05 11 months ago 2
That was beautiful thank you for posting this!
mandydancerful 11 months ago
Thanks for posting this........
RobNLynchburgVA 1 year ago
THAT IS AWESOME,HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2010.
MrMegaFredzeppelin 1 year ago
Santa back then looked pretty creepy.
Anders898Avey 1 year ago
Absolutely wonderful! As jaemel1 said,"thank you so much for posting"
Sandie
sneem10 1 year ago
i love it
tracker415 1 year ago