Roundhay Garden Scene


Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 short silent actuality film recorded by French inventor Louis Le Prince. Filmed at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds in the north of England on 14 October 1888, it is believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence.
Listed in Guinness World Records, the camera used for the earliest surviving film was later patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888.

Overview

According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, the film was made at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England on 14 October 1888.
The footage features Louis's son Adolphe Le Prince, his mother-in-law Sarah Whitley, his father-in-law Joseph Whitley and Annie Hartley in the garden of Oakwood Grange, leisurely walking around the garden of the premises. Sarah is seen walking – or dancing – backwards as she turns around, and Joseph's coat tails are seen flying as he also is turning. Joseph and Sarah Whitley were the parents of Le Prince's wife, Elizabeth. Annie Hartley is believed to be a friend of Le Prince and his wife. Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was filmed.

Mysterious aftermath

Louis Le Prince mysteriously vanished just before unveiling his new technology to the public. Louis's son, Adolphe Le Prince, was discovered shot dead around two years after he testified about his father's inventions in court against Thomas Edison.

Remastered footage

The original sequence was recorded on Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film using Louis Le Prince's single-lens camera. In the 1930s, the National Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative, before it was lost. The copied frames were later mastered to 35mm film. Adolphe Le Prince stated that the Roundhay Garden sequence was shot at 12 fps and a second film, Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge, at 20 fps; however, this is not borne out by analysis of the sequences, which suggests a frame rate of 7 fps for both, which was the speed of reproduction used in the 2015 documentary about Le Prince, The First Film.
Denis Shiryaev has remastered the footage to 60 fps using neural networks to produce a life-like effect.