Christmas VideoVintage Christmas

Victorian Era Snowball Fight

A Victorian Era snowball fight is going viral and we just have to pile on. The two videos below show the early technology of film-making met with 21st century technology — and the results are stunning. Take a look, in color, at this everyday snowball fight from 124 years ago:

This film has been known about for a long time. The 1896 French short silent film was directed and produced by Louis Lumière. Filmed in Lyons, France, it depicts a number of individuals engaged in a snowball fight on a city street. Here is that original film:

The original film is stunning enough to watch in its own right. Shot with an “all-in-one” camera/developer the actual film itself was close in size to 35mm film, a fairly large film that produced the base for what was more recently colorized and digitized.

In 1895, the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, among the world’s first filmmakers, invented a cinematograph, which allowed an audience of more than one person to see a film in motion for the very first time.

The cinematograph was an immediate success – and the brothers eventually went on tour with a series of ten French short films, each lasting around 50 seconds.

The device was used by the brothers to film the original Snowballing short on 35mm film which has become standard.

Despite their success, the brothers did not believe that the film industry was an industry that would last long and were once quoted as saying, “Cinema is an invention with no future.”

The brothers then decided to focus their attention on developing color photography – and before long they had patented their own process – Autochrome Lumière.

The process involved building a glass disc studded with tiny dots of potato starch dyed red-orange, green, and blue-violet, appearing like a mosaic.

Over a long period of exposure, the light reflected through the colored starch would be imprinted on the printed photo and relay what appeared in real life.

What do you think they would feel now about what has happened to their short film?

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the colorized video above was not produced in a lab or by way of a laborious process. It was produced by Joaquim Campa, 42, of Barcelona, ​​using an online service called DeOldify.

Mr Campa, who works as a human resources manager for a mobile games company in Barcelona, ​​said he used DeOldify to complete the process in just 15 minutes.

He told MailOnline: “I used the AI ​​software called DeOldify, created by Jason Antic, an American developer, to color the images.

“It only took 15 minutes because the software is automatic. It’s one of my hobbies.

“When my wife and kids are sleeping, I research photos and videos and color them. Most of my job is to color the photos of my city.

He added, “I decided to do it because I love history and technology.”

Is this Christmas? Yes, today it is.

Father of 7, Grandfather of 7, husband of 1. Freelance writer, Major League baseball geek, aspiring Family Historian.

ChristmasTimeintheCity

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I watched this clip this morning. What an amazing slice of life from a different time! I loved how the gentleman on the bicycle eventually gave up and rode back the way he came. So glad it was shared here so more people can watch!
 
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MerryCarey

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I’m sure it was staged, but it’s still fascinating to see people from over a hundred years ago just having fun.
 

DixieBelle

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Wow! That was fascinating. I bet the brothers would be absolutely astounded that people were watching their little film in the year 2020. I think what actually surprised me the most was the 180 change in music LOL!

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