On this day: Louis Le Prince shot the oldest surviving film

On 14 October 1888, French inventor Louis Le Prince shot a short scene in the garden of Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, near Leeds. Four people walk unhurriedly through the garden. The film lasts 2.11 seconds and is considered the oldest surviving film. This silent short is known as the Roundhay Garden Scene.

Who is in the frame

In the frame were the inventor's son Adolphe, the couple Joseph and Sarah Whitley, who owned the estate, and Annie Hartley. Joseph and Sarah were the parents of Elizabeth, Louis Le Prince's wife, and Hartley is thought to have been a friend of the family.

Sarah walks through the garden backwards, as if dancing, and Joseph's coat tails fly up as he turns. The filming was done on paper-backed Eastman Kodak photographic film, loaded into Le Prince's single-lens camera.

Le Prince's camera was patented in Great Britain on 16 November 1888, and Sarah Whitley died ten days after the filming. Adolphe Le Prince himself said the film had been shot at 12 frames per second, but analysis points to 7 frames per second.

How the film survived

In the 1930s, the Science Museum in London made a copy of the 20 surviving frames of the original negative onto a glass photographic plate, before the negative itself was lost. Those frames were later printed onto 35 mm film.

Oakwood Grange was demolished in 1972, and modern housing was built on the site. All that remains of the estate are the garden walls at the end of Oakwood Grange Lane; the neighbouring Oakwood Hall mansion has survived.

Image: Louis Le Prince Public domain

Translation editor: Ловушкин А.