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Images: Royal Pavilion & Museums © James Pike.in the Brighton collection – as “the fi rst modern fi lm”. Barnes cited its bringing together of multiple techniques over 14 scenes, including long shots, close-ups, stop-motion and super-imposition. Darling’s iconic cameras are in the exhibition, like devotional cinematic objects with lenses set into dark burnished wood. There’s one from 1896, in which Darling experimented with 42mm gauge fi lm, before 35mm became the industry standard. The 1899 Biokam, meanwhile, was Darling’s realisation of Smith’s idea for the world’s fi rst amateur fi lm camera. Among the other exhibits is also the world’s fi rst special effects camera, built by Darling in 1900 to perform tricks like reverse motion. After George Albert Smith invented the fi rst practical colour fi lm for cinema around 1908, there’s a pioneering 1910 Kinemacolor camera. The exhibition also draws intriguing parallels with later pioneering Brighton directors, such as Dada-infl uenced fi lm-maker Jeff Keen (1923–2012) and Ben Wheatley, whose acclaimed features include A Field In England (2013) and High-Rise (2015). Wheatley is revealed as a spiritual successor of the Brighton School in his willingness to team up with cinematographer Laurie Rose to invent hardware for a specifi c effect. In the exhibition there is a cabinet full of unusual contraptions, including ‘The Mesmeriser’. Fashioned from an old lens cap plus a lens from a Pound Shop toy telescope, it was used in A Field In England for magical depth of fi eld effects. Brighton’s early cinema pioneers would approve. • Experimental Motion: the art of fi lm innovation is at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery until June 4. For details see www.brightonmuseums.org.uk. ■ www.nadfas.org.uk NADFAS REVIEW / SPRING 2017 27