Mitchell and Kenyon - "We Take Them and Make Them."

"We Take Them and Make Them."

Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon founded the firm of Mitchell & Kenyon in 1897. Under the trade name of Norden, the company was one of the largest film producers in the United Kingdom in the 1900s, with the slogans of "Local Films For Local People" and "We take them and make them", they operated initially from their respective business premises at 40 Northgate and 21 King Street, Blackburn.

The first reported showing of a Mitchell & Kenyon film was a film of Blackburn Market, shown at 40 Northgate, in Blackburn, on 27 November 1897. The company produced films either on their own initiative or as commissioned by local businesses. In April 1899 the travelling showman George Green commissioned them to film workers leaving factories, to be shown at the Easter fair, thus beginning the showing of their films by a network of showmen.

Three Norden fiction films released in September 1899 — The Tramp's Surprise, The Tramps and the Artist, and Kidnapping by Indians — brought them to national attention. The success of their early films encouraged Mitchell to give up his shop and in September 1901 Mitchell & Kenyon moved into premises in Clayton Street, Blackburn, to concentrate on film production. Fiction production was not as extensive as their production of "topicals", but by 1903 the company had an outdoor studio at its premises at 22 Clayton Street, Blackburn, which was used in addition to outside locations. The Cinema Museum in London currently preserves 65 Norden fiction films.

The showmen became self-publicising travelling cinematograph operators. Films taken during the day were shown on the same evening in fairground tents or local meeting halls and music halls with slogans like "see yourselves as others see you". Dramas took a while to catch on and the non-fiction actuality films were more popular. A typical two-hour programme would show drama, comedy, live actors and then the main attraction, local "topicals", with a brass band and the showman's commentary during the silent films, plus occasional sound effects from guns and members of the audience paid to scream and faint to add to the excitement.