Early Cinema Research Group

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The Early Cinema Research Group was established in 2024 in the Leeds School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University to encourage and facilitate research into all form of visual media focusing on the early and pre-history of cinema.

Frame : Four – Lost and Imagined Films, is the latest exhibition by the Early Cinema Research Group at Leeds Beckett University. Showing now until the 24th October.

Frame Four

Image of film poster with sepia background

The group brings together scholars at Beckett such as Professor Robert Shail and Dr Steven Gerrard, external scholars like local historian Irfan Shah and early cinema expert Dr Keith Dando, and a network of external partners including Leeds Industrial Museum, the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, Fleischer Studios, Leeds City Museums and Galleries, and the historic Leeds Library.

At the heart of the Group's work is the Stephen Herbert Archive, a collection of more than 500 items including books, research papers, and original artefacts connected to the early history of motion pictures. Among its treasures are an original Talbotype and an original Eadweard Muybridge stereoscopic photograph. We have a number of items relating to early animator Emile Reynaud, as well as to Leeds’ own pioneer of cinema, Louis Le Prince.

Our first exhibition took place at the White Column Gallery and the Platform Gallery at Leeds Beckett in January 2025 and featured many exhibits from our collections in addition to a replica of the Louis Le Prince single lens camera from the Leeds Industrial Museum. We will continue to organise events in the coming months, with our next one covering Emile Reynaud and the beginnings of animation due for May 2025.

Image of two photos on a card showing a waterfall

Image of film frames showing a man running

It's particularly appropriate that the Group should be established in Leeds as the city is, of course, the birthplace of cinema where the first moving images were created by Louis le Prince. The Stephen Herbert Archive is currently held at Broadcasting Place on the very site of Le Prince's studio.

'The Early Cinema Research Group are delighted to announce their second exhibition. Frame : Two is about Animation and Early Cinema and features on display Edweard Muybridge's classic book of animal movement photographs on load from the Leeds Library. It runs in the Platform Gallery from 6 May till 21 May.

Frame: Two

We are currently in the process of examining and cataloguing the archive, and so the Frame: One exhibition - and this booklet - are both small journeys into the unknown.

Frame: One

Image of small photo frame with two pictures

Dr Steven Gerrard

Reader / Leeds School of Arts

Steve is Reader in Film who loves science fiction, horror, Doctor Who, Status Quo, Tintin, Jason Statham, James Bond, The Carry On Films. He lectures, supervises and writes. about James Bond, Jason Statham, Horror, Sci-Fi, Tintin, Comedy and many more!

Email Dr Steven Gerrard

01138122611

Irfan Shah

Irfan is an Associate of Leeds Beckett University where he co-founded the Early Cinema Research Group, and helped to establish the Stephen Herbert Archive. He is particularly interested in the life, work (and mysterious disappearance) of Leeds-based film pioneer Louis Le Prince.

Email Irfan Shah