''Rough Sea at Dover'' (also known as ''Gale at Dover and Sea Waves at Dover'') is an 1895 British short

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

silent film, shot by

Birt Acres Birt Acres (23 July 1854 – 27 December 1918) was an American and British photographer and film pioneer. Among his contributions to the early film industry are the first working 35 mm camera in Britain (Wales), and ''Birtac'', the firs ...

. Acres shot the film in mid-1895, with a camera designed with and built by

Robert W. Paul Robert William Paul (3 October 1869 – 28 March 1943) was an English pioneer of film and scientific instrument maker. He made narrative films as early as April 1895, which were shown first in Edison Kinetoscope knockoffs. In 1896 he showe ...

, their original intention being to supply films for viewing in the Edison

kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

. Projected, the film premiered on 14 January 1896 when Acres showed it to the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...

in Hanover Street, London, using his "Kinetic Lantern", along with various other films made during the period Acres was working with Paul. Acres had screened some of these films (but not this film) to the Lyonsdown Photographic Society a few days before, on 10 January 1896, just two weeks after the first public screening by the

Lumière Brothers Lumière is French for 'light'. Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to: Buildings * Lumière, a building used by the Bibliothèque publique d'information in Paris, France * Lumiere (skyscraper), a cancelled skyscraper development in Leeds, ...

in Paris. Following its successful screening in London the film was taken to the United States where it was shown on 23 April 1896 at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City with a series of American movies made by the Edison's company. Despite its simple nature, ''Rough Sea at Dover'' became one of the most popular and widely screened early British films.

Content

The film consists of two distinct shots of different locations which have been edited together. It is not possible to tell with certainty whether these were edited together in the original release version. The first shot is of the rough sea as heavy waves crash against Admiralty Pier in

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

. The second shot is from a different location along a riverbank showing a view of fast-flowing water. It has been speculated that this second half of the footage has been taken from '' Niagara Falls No. 1: The Upper River Just Above The Falls'', a film made by Acres late in 1895.

Current status

Given its age, this short film is available to view or download. It has also featured in a number of film collections, such as Primitives and Pioneers.

References

External links

* * {{YouTube, -RW1CJVAPCI, ''Rough Sea at Dover'' 1895 films 1895 short films 1890s British films Films shot in Kent British silent short films British short documentary films Documentary films about nature Black-and-white documentary films Dover, Kent 1890s short documentary films Films directed by Birt Acres Documentary films about England Articles containing video clips British black-and-white films