Did you know that the first colour movie was made 110 years ago, in 1902, by an inventor named Edward Raymond Turner? Did you also know that until recently no one in the world knew about this movie?
Michael Harvey of the National Media Museum in Britain found the treasured film, which is a test reel of various scenes in London and of Turner’s family. It is important not only for it’s age, but also because it was long believed that the first colour films weren’t made until almost 1910! Turner had patented this three-colour filming process in 1899, but it was considered too complicated. After Turner died, Charles Urban, another inventor, fiddled with his original idea and came up with “Kinemacolor”, which was thought to be the earliest method for making colour movies.
The National Media Museum ran into some trouble restoring Turner’s film because it was in a larger format than the usual 35mm films. Therefore, the film had to be painstakingly copied onto 35mm film with specially made equipment and then was digitized.
You can watch a few scenes of footage here! We think it looks pretty amazing considering it’s more than a hundred years old!