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Charles Urban (14 April 1867, Cincinnati - 29 August 1942, Brighton) was an Anglo-American film producer and distributor, and one of the most significant figures in British cinema before the First World War. He was a pioneer of the documentary, educational, propaganda and scientific film, as well as being the producer of the world's first successful motion picture colour system.
History
Urban first entered the film industry in 1895 when he exhibited the Kinetoscope in Detroit in 1895. He moved to Britain in 1897, and became managing director of the Warwick Trading Company, where he specialised in actuality film, including newsfilm of the Anglo-Boer War. In 1903 he formed his own company, the Charles Urban Trading Company, moving to London's Wardour Street in 1908, the first film business to be located in what became the home of the British film industry.
In 1903, he created a short, one minute long, science film named The Cheese Mites1 which features cheese mites crawling around on a piece of Stilton2. It was an early science film, possibly the first3, and as such amazed viewers. It also affected the price and sales of cheap microscopes4, increasing the sales3 and causing the producers to include packets of mites as samples4.
In 1904, Charles Urban recorded a 12 minute silent documentary called "Living London". This piece of film was discovered in the Australian National Film Archive in October, 2008. It shows Londoners going about their business on a typical day.5
In 1906, his associate George Albert Smith (1864-1959) developed a two-colour (red-green) additive motion picture system, which Urban launched in 1908. From 1909 it was known as Kinemacolor. This enjoyed great success worldwide until 1914. Urban's most celebrated Kinemacolor film was a two and a half hour epic With Our King and Queen Through India (1912), also known as The Durbar in Delhi, depicting the December 1911 Delhi Durbar which celebrated the coronation of George V.
During the First World War, Urban worked for British propaganda outfits, producing the documentary features Britain Prepared and Fight for the Dardanelles (both in 1915) and editing the classic documentary The Battle of the Somme (1916). He then promoted British war films in America.
Urban relocated to America in 1921 and tried to re-establish himself as a producer of educational films, such as The Four Seasons (1921). He built a large studio at Irvington, New York, and planned to introduced a new color film system called Kinekrom, based on the earlier Kinemacolor. However, his business interests collapsed in 1924 and he returned to the UK in the late 1920's. He died in Brighton in 1942 in relative obscurity.
Notes and references
- ^ "The Cheese Mites - Internet Movie Database". Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ Stephanie Pain (28 May 2008). "New Scientist - Microscopic stars of the silver screen". New Scientist Print Edition. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ a b "The Cheese Mites Trivia - Internet Movie Database". Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ a b "Cheese mites and other wonders". Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ "Sky News - Rare 104 year old film footage discovered in Australian National Archives". Retrieved on 2008-08-23.
External links
- Charles Urban at the Internet Movie Database
- Charles Urban at Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
- Charles Urban at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- Charles Urban web site
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