Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) on Netflix
NR18881mDocumentary
Four people walk in circles in a Leeds garden in October 1888, in what survives as the earliest motion picture ever shot.
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- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/107,757 votes
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Plot summary
Shot in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley family house in Roundhay, Leeds, on 14 October 1888, this is the earliest surviving motion picture film and is believed to be among the very first moving images ever created. Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince recorded it on paper based photographic film with his LPCCP Type-1 MkII single lens camera.
The picture shows Adolphe Le Prince, Sarah Whitley, Joseph Whitley and Harriet Hartley walking around in circles, laughing to themselves and keeping inside the area framed by the camera. It is usually associated with a speed of about twelve frames a second and lasts only a couple of seconds.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In the 1930s the Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative before it was lost. Adolphe Le Prince stated the film was shot at 12 frames per second, but analysis suggests it was shot at 7 fps.
- Oakwood Grange was demolished in 1972 and replaced with modern housing; the only remnants of it are the garden walls at the end of Oakwood Grange Lane, while the adjacent stately home, Oakwood Hall, still stands and is now a nursing home.
- One of the people filmed, the mother of Louis Le Prince's wife, is seen walking - or dancing - backward as she turns around, while her husband's coattails fly as he turns also. She died ten days after the scene was filmed.
