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

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

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 first ...

. 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. Those films were shown first in Edison Kinetoscope knockoffs. In 1896 he s ...

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

kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an precursors of film, 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 ...

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

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in Hanover Street,

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, 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

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. Following its successful screening in London the film was taken to the

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where it was shown on 23 April 1896 at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in

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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, South East 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 south-east 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 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