Actuality Film - Decline of Actuality and Rise of Documentary

Decline of Actuality and Rise of Documentary

In 1904, American born English filmmaker Charles Urban made Everyday London, a 12-minute travelogue designed to provide views of England to Australians. This is a full-fledged documentary; although rather roughly assembled, it consists of a great many short shots and is clearly shaped in the manner of a documentary. In 1905, the Lumières ended their production of actualities, and within the next couple of years, major producers such as Edison and Biograph began to abandon the actuality genre; by 1907, American Biograph was no longer making them, and new start up companies such as Kalem never produced them at all, concentrating instead on fiction films with actors. When Gaston Méliès arrived in the United States to found the American division of Star Film, he started out making actualities, but swiftly moved into making Westerns. This left production of actualities to smaller producers such as Mitchell and Kenyon in the UK, a company that made no other kinds of films, although Pathé soldiered on among the majors.

In mid-1909, Pathé introduced the first newsreel. The newsreel was a format in which actualities could be combined, and it provided a context for the views that was timely. Also that year, Charles Urban founded the Kinora Company, the first company established for the exclusive purpose of distributing documentaries and other kinds of non-fiction films. Although it is not altogether impossible to find actuality films made after 1910, the shift towards documentaries and newsreels rendered the genre irrelevant both commercially and artistically.