George Albert Smith

George Albert Smith

From the early beginnings of the cinema in Victorian times to just after the First World War, there was a thriving film industry on the south coast of England, between Shoreham and Brighton.  One of the major pioneers of the film techniques was George Albert Smith who devised many ways of expressing actions through simple effects.  So simple in fact that we have lost how significant they were and have been to the continuing development of the cinema.  For anyone who lives close to Hove, there is an excellent museum there with examples of Smith's films and the equipment he used.  There are examples of far-sighted cinema pioneers in other countries and when we watch the complex actions made possible with CGI these days, we should not forget these masters of the then new art.  Their enthusiasm, self-fianancing and use of family actors is a wonder to behold for any cinema buff who can see creativity in the grainy and somewhat dated moving visions that these films are now.  Everything has a beginning but we often forget this and assume that what we see now has always been.  When we watch these early films, we are not only watching history in the making, but the creativity that all human beings aspire to and some who succeed.