Race for Colour

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:19:21. > :19:24.And that's the end of the story. At least that's what all the

:19:24. > :19:27.historians thought, until now. Once David and Brian had got the newly

:19:27. > :19:32.discovered Turner footage copied onto modern film, the next step was

:19:32. > :19:35.to transfer it to video. Finally they used a computer to add the red

:19:35. > :19:42.green and blue, just like the filters on the projector were

:19:42. > :19:45.supposed to do. And then it was ready to be seen. So it's had to

:19:45. > :19:49.wait till almost 110 years to be able to see these pictures as they

:19:49. > :19:56.would have been hopefully seen in Turner's time. We were terrified

:19:56. > :20:00.when Michael asked us to do it. start to think, well, what if we

:20:00. > :20:10.spend all this time and it's a disaster? So, when all the work was

:20:10. > :20:25.

:20:25. > :20:28.done they sat down, pressed play, What we've actually managed to do

:20:28. > :20:35.is follow the patent process exactly, and it actually does work

:20:35. > :20:40.and it produces a really wonderful colour. What was it like to see it

:20:40. > :20:44.on screen? It was wonderful because the colours were so good.

:20:44. > :20:46.that's not all. There are several other shots on the film A girl on a

:20:46. > :20:56.swingThe marching soldiers Knightsbridge in London. A girl and

:20:56. > :20:59.

:20:59. > :21:09.boy, thought to be at St Anne's Well in Brighton. The marching

:21:09. > :21:20.

:21:20. > :21:22.soldiers. Knightsbridge in London. A colourful macaw. And the goldfish.

:21:22. > :21:31.Well, that's amazing because the gold of the goldfish is absolutely

:21:31. > :21:38.spot on, that's absolutely accurate, that's exactly how they look. How

:21:38. > :21:48.do you feel? I think, well I could say smug but no, what I really mean

:21:48. > :21:54.

:21:54. > :22:04.is I feel very satisfied we've actually managed to pull this off.

:22:04. > :22:17.

:22:17. > :22:27.News of the film has gone round the world. Lad is amazing. -- that is

:22:27. > :22:37.amazing. Colour was always the first. And that has impressed a

:22:37. > :22:37.

:22:37. > :22:42.film producer Lord Puttnam. redefines where cinematographer got

:22:42. > :22:46.to at that point. That is truly amazing. Michael Harvey has dated

:22:46. > :22:51.the film of the three children as 1902. That's 12 years before the

:22:51. > :22:57.First World War. Dating it involved some nifty detective work. We know

:22:57. > :23:00.from receipts that the camera was finished in October 1901. The

:23:00. > :23:05.sunflowers suggest summertime. Michael discovered that the records

:23:05. > :23:08.show that Edward Raymond Turner, the inventor, had three children.

:23:08. > :23:12.Alfred Raymond would have been 3, Agnes May would have been six, and

:23:12. > :23:22.Wilfred Sydney would have been less than a year old in the summer of

:23:22. > :23:23.

:23:23. > :23:26.1902. And there's another clue. We know that Turner and family lived

:23:26. > :23:30.in this terraced house in Hounslow, west of London. If you look at the

:23:30. > :23:34.film there is quite a sturdy- looking fence behind the children.

:23:34. > :23:37.We went to look at what the garden is like now. And sure enough,

:23:37. > :23:42.there's a lot of fencing at the far end because it backs on to a

:23:42. > :23:47.railway line. It was built in 1886, and is now Hounslow Central tube

:23:47. > :23:50.station. Now that looks like a pretty robust fence for a suburban

:23:50. > :23:58.back garden, it must be keeping children away from this railway

:23:58. > :24:08.track here. If this is Wilfred Sydney Turner, then this is him at

:24:08. > :24:13.around five years old. And around 50 years. And about 80. And this is

:24:13. > :24:23.Wilfred's daughter. That makes her the inventor's granddaughter. And

:24:23. > :24:23.

:24:23. > :24:26.she has never seen this film before. When did your father die? 1990, he

:24:26. > :24:36.was 89, he had Parkinson's disease and there was a flu epidemic and he

:24:36. > :24:37.

:24:37. > :24:46.would not have a flu jab and that finished him off, unfortunately. So

:24:46. > :24:50.shall we have a look at this film? Yes I'd love to, yes. And there's

:24:50. > :24:59.you father, a baby, I like the way your dad came in, he looks into the

:24:59. > :25:09.camera, he's looking at his father. I can see my dad there, I know it's

:25:09. > :25:10.

:25:11. > :25:19.him, I know it is. What is it like to see your father in cull of 110

:25:19. > :25:24.years ago? It is amazing. I'm thrilled to bits. So you're

:25:24. > :25:28.absolutely sure that's your father? I am, I can see him definitely yes.

:25:28. > :25:32.What is it in his face that you can? The whole face, the whole

:25:32. > :25:42.expression, it's just him. I just know it is, it's amazing, it really

:25:42. > :25:46.

:25:46. > :25:49.So Michael reckons that Turner tested the world's first colour

:25:49. > :25:52.camera system by taking his kids out into the back garden and

:25:52. > :25:57.filming them in the summer of 1902. Because, of course, that's what

:25:57. > :26:02.happens. If you get a new camera, the first thing you do to test it

:26:02. > :26:06.is to film the kids. Give somebody a camcorder for the first time,

:26:06. > :26:09.watch what they do with it and there is the story of the invention

:26:09. > :26:13.of moving images, the first thing you do is this, that's interesting,

:26:13. > :26:16.then you start to move, then you go right, a little bit bored, then you

:26:16. > :26:19.go 'kids, come over here and stand there' you do that, you photograph

:26:19. > :26:29.the kids and then you say, "Well, do something interesting", and

:26:29. > :26:44.

:26:44. > :26:51.Experts in the field of early cinema are in no doubt about the

:26:51. > :26:53.importance of the discovery of the Turner film. The rediscovery of

:26:53. > :26:55.these films rewrites film history. We've always thought of

:26:55. > :27:05.cinematography starting in 1908, most film histories don't really

:27:05. > :27:13.

:27:13. > :27:19.think about colour much before Technicolor comes in the 1930s.

:27:19. > :27:27.Giving gearing important, or wondering very unique -- I think

:27:27. > :27:29.it's very important, very unique. The Lee and Turner film with the

:27:29. > :27:32.parrot and the goldfish is priceless, because it's the

:27:32. > :27:42.earliest colour film. It's hugely important both as an artefact and

:27:42. > :27:53.

:27:53. > :27:59.isn't anything before it. So who In the end, it wasn't Turner, it

:27:59. > :28:01.wasn't George Albert Smith, it wasn't any of those people. And

:28:01. > :28:03.that's because every feature film, every television, every computer

:28:03. > :28:11.and every smartphone uses exactly the same primary colour principle

:28:11. > :28:14.to bring colour into our lives. By exploiting the way the retina works