Robert Paul was an electrician and scientific instrument maker, with offices at Hatton Garden in London. He was approached by two Greek businessmen who had obtained an Edison kinetoscope (a slot machine that ran film in a continuous loop, that the customer viewed through an eyepiece). It should be noted that all the early Thomas A. Edison films were made for these machines--they were not projected. The pair wanted him to build a number of replicas. At first he refused, but when he discovered that Edison had not patented the kinetoscope in Britain, he turned out a number of copies. Some were supplied to Georges Méliès in Paris. Of course, the problem was replenishing the supply of bootleg Edison films. Consequently, with the assistance of Birt Acres , he developed a camera (one of his earliest films depicted the conclusion of the Derby, won by the Prince of Wales' horse). The success of his machines at Earls Court Exhibition Hall resulted in his decision to project them. He went on to invent a projector, which was used at the Alhambra Music Hall, amongst other places. The projection of films in London by Paul, Acres (who had split up with him) and the Lumieres happened around the same time. Paul was not only an inventor but a filmmaker and distributor. He pioneered a number of cinema techniques and constructed the first purpose built studio in Britain. Curiously enough, he moved out of films altogether by 1910, though he is credited with virtually inventing the British film industry--he was known to everyone as "Daddy Paul".
Was an electrical engineer by trade.Was the first Englishman to give a motion picture exhibition before a fee-paying audience.In 1896, he designed a working film projector, which used a Maltese Cross, or Geneva, type of intermittent movement. Months laster he produced a new type of film camera using the same principle. It was a success.Was originally a scientific instrument maker in London.Creator of the camera dolly.Co-founder (w/ Birt Acres ) of British production company Robert W. Paul Productions, formed in 1895.
A stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera's view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out.
Are you sure, you want to order Buy Your Own Cherries ?
A barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? Will the family ever know the taste of cherries?
Outside an art exhibit, an elderly couple are sitting on a bench, enjoying some refreshments. As two well-dressed women pass by and enter the exhibit, the man takes an extra drink from a bottle. The woman seems eager for him to finish, so that they also can go inside.
Are you sure, you want to order An Extraordinary Cab Accident ?
A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead?
Are you sure, you want to order The Twins' Tea Party ?
One of the prettiest pictures of child life we have yet offered. Two pretty children are seated in their high chairs playing "Tea Party" with their dishes arranged about them. They become engaged in a dispute over the possession of a piece of cake and one of them cries, giving the most perfect and child-like facial expressions we have yet had the pleasure of seeing.
Are you sure, you want to order The Countryman and the Cinematograph ?
A satire on the way that audiences unaccustomed to the cinema didn't know how to react to the moving images on a screen - in this film, an unsophisticated (and stereotypical) country yokel is alternately baffled and terrified, in the latter case by the apparent approach of a steam train