Actuality Film - Traveling Actualities

Traveling Actualities

A special kind of actuality film is the traveling actuality, in which a camera is placed on a kind of conveyance—such as a bus, or rail car—so that the scene can change by virtue of the movement of the vehicle which is transporting the camera. These films were the first in which camera movement is involved, and a very early entry is James H. White's' Panoramic View of the Champs Elysees (1900), which appears to have been shot from a horse-drawn carriage. British Biograph's Panorama of Ealing from a Moving Tram (1901) is remarkable for its slow pace, high angle and the widescreen aspect of the 68mm film, whereas Danish film maker Thomas S. Hermanson's Sporvognene i Århus (1904) is remarkable for its speed and odd angles. Some extreme—almost avant-garde—examples come from Biograph; Frederick S. Armitage and A. E. Weed's Down the Hudson (1903), shot largely in single frames, and several films by G.W. Billy Bitzer, Interior N.Y. Subway, 14th St. to 42nd St (1905), which was shot from the front of a New York Subway car, not long after the Subway itself first opened. The most remarkable traveling actuality of all is the Miles Brothers' Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (1906), which was shot on a San Francisco streetcar and literally dropped off for processing on the day before the earthquake and fire destroyed San Francisco. At nearly eight minutes' length, Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire is also one of the longest actuality films.