Impact case study database

In a Guardian piece lamenting Britain’s lack of concern with its film history, Peter Domankiewicz highlights the efforts of Christie to uncover and remember Robert Paul’s role in this, on the 150th anniversary of his birth. [1a]]

Early silent film (typically classified as being from ~1895-1929) is rare. Of the >10,000 films that were released by major studios in this period, the US Library of Congress estimates only 14% survive. These films offer historians a unique opportunity to see real-life, real-time historical figures, settings and details as well as providing insights into attitudes about (at the time) current events and at times can provide crucial evidence to correct the historical record. [1c]

(Re)Discovery of Robert Paul films: Paul created hundreds of films but most have been lost. In the census period for impact, by piecing together clues from Paul’s remaining source material and early film catalogues Christie has successfully located and identified two full films by Paul, The Pocket Boxers (1903) in the British Pathé collection, and Bloodhounds Tracking a Convict (1903) in the Norwegian National Film Archive. He has also identified a fragment of Paul’s The Burning House (1909) in the Huntley Archive.

He also directly supported the positive identification of Paul films located by others. Christie’s help was ‘vital’ for the identification of Paul films at the Swedish Film Institute, The Fatal Hand (1907), A Collier’s Life (1904) Short-Sighted Sammy or the Stolen Spectacles (1905). [2a] A Collier’s Life is particularly significant and has been heralded as ‘the birth of British documentary film’. [2b]

Christie’s research on Paul has also added greatly to the BFI’s data and knowledge on this important figure in our film history. Films have been identified, correctly catalogued and restored. The BFI has benefitted from Christie’s research in collections in Italy, Norway, Australia and the USA, where Christie has identified many new titles. Thanks to Christie, the BFI are gradually adding to the national collection by acquiring copies of these films through the inter-archival exchange process. As well as the films outlined above, these include The Soldier’s Courtship, Fun on the Clothesline, and The Dreamer’s Dance. All of these are being made available for all through a recent project to digitise the whole of the BFI’s collection of Victorian film on BFI Player. These films are a vital part of British, and world, cultural history, and this work includes a rich section dedicated to Paul, enabled by Christie’s research. The legacy of Ian’s work in the context of the newly accessible films, and particularly his book, will be profound both for film history and for the BFI’s remit to preserve, make accessible and understandable the film heritage of this nation. This work will return Robert Paul to the pantheon of pioneer filmmakers and turn of the century London to the history books as a crucible of film invention. [1b]

At the National Science and Media Museum, Christie also identified 18 Paul titles which had been thought lost. [3]

Popularising Robert Paul: Christie’s work has had an enormous impact popularising the memory of Paul to audiences in Britain and abroad, with considerable knock-on effects on artists, museums, community organisations and business.

Christie designed Animatograph! an exhibition about the life of Paul, featuring many of his original instruments. This was displayed at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, near Paul’s film studio in Muswell Hill, between 04/19 and 07/19, and subsequently at the London Metropolitan Archives between 10/19 and 11/19. A major redesigned and expanded version called Forgotten Showman was held at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford between 12/19 and 03/20 (viewed by over 30,000 people) and again between 08/20 and 11/20 and between 12/20 and 02/21 (the extensions being due to Covid as well as popularity). [3] Forgotten Showman was described by the reviewer in the Museums Journal as ‘one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen in a while, being both daring in its execution and true to its subject matter’. [4]

Visitor comments across all 3 exhibitions express the common sentiment that Paul, despite being such an important figure, was unknown to them prior to the exhibition:

The exhibition had significant impacts on all three venues. For the London Metropolitan Archives it attracted increased attention’ to its archival collections related to Paul and silent film generally, and also expanded its audience for the films available to watch on site in the LMA Mediatheque. [6a] Bruce Castle also gained new audiences as a result, and the exhibition raised their profile significantly. Visitor feedback was overwhelmingly positive and visitors actively participated in associated events to learn more. Its success was such that as a result the museum are currently planning new, more permanent displays to better mark the significance of the local area to British and world cinema history, including the acquisition of new items for our collections. [6b]

The exhibition at the National Science and Media Museum enabled staff to make innovative and better use of the range of their collections and develop new skills and techniques for showing film, including original, combustible, film fragments. The exhibition enabled them to showcase items donated by Paul himself which had not been on general display for some time. Paul’s eclectic career not just as a filmmaker but as an inventor meant it was one of the few exhibitions where they had been able to draw directly from multiple Science Museum Group collections to support the narrative including their ‘Electricity and Magnetism’, ‘Mathematics’, and ‘Therapeutics’ Collections. The popularity of the social history aspects was also important for a science museum keen to attract new audiences. [3]

A central innovation for the exhibitions and supporting activities was the creation of 12,000 copies of a comic, Time Traveller: Robert Paul and the invention of cinema (2019). Christie wrote the story in collaboration with renowned artist ILYA, who developed the panels. Expanded versions of the panels formed a major feature in all three exhibitions. [7] At Bruce Castle, the interactive design and content of the graphic panels alongside original films and equipment had great community impact and the layering of different learning styles encouraged engagement in the exhibition. The comic was especially important in this regard, proving ‘n invaluable and accessible heritage resource which was relevant and appealing, especially to the 12-16 years’ age group, a particularly hard-to-reach audience in the heritage sector’ [6b]

ILYA’s artworks formed the entire basis of the design of Bradford’s show, which also involved a further commission of bespoke artworks, a Top Trumps style game, wall displays and more. [7] These were not simply replicated from the comic but featured new graphics with new text to work with the new objects and interactive elements of the exhibition. The National Science and Media Museum had not previously worked with a graphic artist for an exhibition so this was an entirely original experience, but hugely beneficial. Using a visual method to present a story of the development of a visual medium was a perfect marriage and was more visually engaging, with the transfer of the tone and style of the comic providing a very different feel to the usual exhibition text. The audience evaluation told us that our target audiences wanted the combination of both illustration and text and of our general visitors, at least three quarters referred to the illustrations, compared to less than half who read the text next to it. [3]

For the Museum, Mirroring the more playful text, we also displayed objects in ways we have not tried before, for example to demonstrate the rivalry between Robert Paul and the Lumiere Brothers and their respective projection equipment, we staged the two in a fake boxing ring ‘facing off’ against each other with illustrations provided by the artist ILYA. This enabled visitors to become more engaged with the drama and competitiveness of the time and challenge the traditional view of objects in glass cases to be found in Museums. [3] For ILYA, despite having worked with major companies such as DC Comics, this process had a significant impact and he has since developed similar work on the poet Chatterton for the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership. Having Time Traveller as a successful publication helps him make such things happen. [7]

The comic was widely distributed, including 2,000 copies sent to subscribers of the November 2019 issue of Sight & Sound, who described the comic as an example of inventive, lively thinking on how to present study of early cinema. Their reader feedback demonstrated that their coverage of early cinema is a key appeal for many readers, and material on relatively underexplored areas within early cinema is of crucial importance. Christie’s comic, along with an article by him in the magazine itself, offered that sense of new discovery in an authoritative and clear way. Their readers look to us for coverage of cinema they don’t get elsewhere, and here was a key example of a crucial figure in the development of cinema – and British cinema in particular – being presented in an engaging way. [8a] Another key audience for the comic were attendees at the Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone Silent Film Festival, the world’s oldest and largest archival silent film festival, now entering its 39^th edition), with 250 copies presented to donors at the 2019 festival. Each year, over 1,000 people attend the festival, including archivists from the world’s major archives, film conservators and restorers, academics and the public.

The comic was produced by the Nerve Centre, a small company employing 54 staff across Derry and Belfast, with three people working directly on the comic itself. It has published ten educational graphic novels since 2012, all related to twentieth-century Ireland. Time Traveller was a new direction for the company. The comic presented them with a new source of funding for their graphic novels, with a grant of £7,500 (or GBP7500) from Northern Ireland Screen.

A key attraction for the Nerve Centre was the opportunity to work closely with ILYA, an internationally celebrated artist, and to publish his work. The project has opened up new distribution outlets, especially the subscribers of Sight and Sight Magazine. [9]

North London: Christie’s series of talks on Paul in North London significantly benefitted a range of local community and civic organisations, attracting new audiences, boosting their revenue, and enhancing a sense of local pride. [10a] Christie was further influential in the creation of what will be a permanent marker to Paul in Muswell Hill. Lipton Plant Architects were granted planning approval in 2019 for a new mixed-use building near Paul’s former film studio which they called ‘The Light House’. They wanted a specific creative brief that would be a bespoke, site-specific result that is recognisably original, intelligently resolved, aesthetic, enduring and valuable. The final design emulates a film projector, and takes inspiration from Paul’s studio, which they learned about during their background research on the area. [10b]