Biography… A Friese-Greene Christmas Carol 23 Dec 201923 Dec 2019 If, for personal or political reasons, the imminent festivities are not exactly setting your heart aglow with joy, might I suggest that there is some perspective to be gained by…
Birt Acres… WAS THIS THE FIRST COMMERCIAL EVER MADE?! 25 Nov 201924 Dec 2019 The exponential growth of online document archives has been a massive boon to historical researchers such as myself, but it also has its hazards. It's like a long, mysterious tunnel…
Moving Pictures That Eureka Moment – 1 13 Dec 201724 Dec 2019 Every story of an inventor needs its “Eureka!” Moment where the forces of the universe combine with sleepless slog to generate the breakthrough that he/she has been striving for. In…
Biography… That Friese-Greene feeling 12 Dec 201723 Dec 2019 Hi. Before we get too deep into all this, how about a beer first? In fact, how about a FRIESE-GREENE ALE? I mean, anyone who has had a beer named…
Colour The Lost, Found, Amnesiac Social Media World of Friese-Greene 21 Aug 201823 Aug 2018 It’s always heartwarming to see any new article in the press about Friese-Greene(s), even if it’s in The Mail and the cause is baffling and the person at the centre…
Introducing Mr. F-G… William Friese-Greene & The Art of Collaboration 26 Apr 2018 Last Friday I got back to doing something I used to do 20 years ago: talking about William Friese-Greene in public. The occasion was the British Silent Film Symposium 2018…
Introducing Mr. F-G Friese-Greene Talks! 13 Apr 201813 Apr 2018 The last time I spoke about William-Friese Greene in public was 20 years ago, but next week that silence will be broken. Me and Willie have had our on and…
Moving Pictures That Eureka Moment – 5 21 Feb 201821 Feb 2018 “When are you going to get to the point?” is an entirely justifiable cry to escape from you, my dear, (im)patient reader. Well, I have been working on something rather…
Introducing Mr. F-G Old School vs New School 11 Jan 201811 Jan 2018 These two contrasting books about William Friese-Greene came through my letterbox this week. In the Blue Corner we have "Close-up of an Inventor" from 1948, written (under a pseudonym) by…
Moving Pictures That Eureka Moment – 4 3 Jan 20183 Jan 2018 To some it would have been the most boring place in the world, but to me it was Aladdin’s Cave. It was March 1996 and I was in the deepest,…
Moving Pictures That Eureka Moment – 3 20 Dec 201720 Dec 2017 There are some photographs of Friese-Greene’s early film experiments that seem to have been wilfully ignored by historians writing about the beginnings of cinema. My guess is that this is…
Moving Pictures That Eureka Moment – 2 15 Dec 201720 Dec 2017 You can’t keep a good man down – and when you’re talking about a compulsive inventor, that goes to the power of ten. At the end of the first part…
