George Garnett Dunning (1920–1979) was a Canadian filmmaker and animator. He is best known for producing and directing the 1968 film Yellow Submarine.
Ronald Stevens was an English revue artist, character actor and voice artist credited professionally as Ronnie Stevens.
John Smethurst was an English television and film comic actor. He was best known for his role as Eddie Booth in the British television sitcom Love Thy Neighbour.
Roland Frederick Godfrey MBE, known as Bob Godfrey, was an English animator whose career spanned more than fifty years. He is probably best known for the children's cartoon series Roobarb (1974), Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1976–77) and Henry's Cat (1983–93) and for the Trio chocolate biscuit advertisements shown in the UK during the early 1980s. However, he also produced a BAFTA and Academy award-winning short film Great (1975), a humorous biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Further Academy Awards nominations received were for Kama Sutra Rides Again (1971), Dream Doll (1979), with Zlatko Grgic, and Small Talk (1994) with animator Kevin Baldwin.
Eric "Bibo" Bergeron is a French animator and film director. His work includes The Road to El Dorado (2000), Shark Tale (2004) and A Monster in Paris (2011).
Walter Robert Booth was a British magician and early pioneer of British film. Collaborating with Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, he pioneered techniques that led to what has been described as the first British animated film, The Hand of the Artist (1906). Booth is also notable for making the earliest film adaptation of A Christmas Carol with the silent film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901).
Upside Down; or, the Human Flies is an 1899 British short silent drama film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a conjuror sending his audience to the ceiling. The film, "exploits a very simple illusion: that of filming with the camera turned upside-down so that the actors appear to be performing on the ceiling," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "the effectiveness of the final result is such that nearly seventy years later Stanley Kubrick used the same technique in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)." The conjuror was reputedly played by Booth himself.
Undressing Extraordinary is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a tired traveller struggling to undress for bed. The film, "provides one of the earliest filmed examples of something that would become a staple of both visual comedy and Surrealist art: that of inanimate objects refusing to obey natural physical laws, usually to the detriment of the person encountering them," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "has also been cited as a pioneering horror film," as, "the inability to complete an apparently simple task for reasons beyond one's control is one of the basic ingredients of a nightmare."
The Waif and the Wizard, also entitled The Home Made Happy, is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a magician using his magic to aid an ailing girl at the request of her brother. The film, "is rather less elaborate in terms of special effects than the other films that W.R. Booth and R.W. Paul made the same year," but according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "provides an excellent illustration of how effects used sparingly can often have more impact, especially when set in a suitable emotional context."
An Over-Incubated Baby is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a woman who gets an unpleasant surprise after placing her baby in Professor Bakem's baby incubator for 12 months growth in one hour. The film is, "one of the most original of the trick films made by W.R. Booth and R.W. Paul in 1901," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "one of the less elaborate films made by Booth and Paul that year," "though the concept itself is so imaginative that it arguably didn't need any more than basic jump-cut transformations."
Cheese Mites, or Lilliputians in a London Restaurant is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a gentleman being entertained by the little people who emerge from the cheese at his table. The film, "contains a reference to Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels (1726)," and is, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "sophisticated in that he combined the jump-cut with superimposition."
The Countryman and the Cinematograph is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Robert W. Paul, featuring a stereotypical yokel reacting to films projected onto a screen. The film, "is one of the earliest known examples of a film within a film," where, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "the audience reaction to that film is as important a part of the drama as the content of the film itself."
Artistic Creation is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a lightning sketch artist drawing a picture of a woman which comes to life piece by piece. The film, "is one of the earliest examples of a film about an artist's creations coming to life," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "a metaphorical cautionary tale about the responsibilities that should be borne by both creative artists and indeed the male sex in general."
The Haunted Curiosity Shop is a 1901 British short silent horror film directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring an elderly curio dealer alarmed by various apparitions that appear in his shop.
The Extraordinary Waiter is a 1902 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a brutish colonialist failing to destroy a blackfaced waiter. The film, "makes for somewhat uncomfortable viewing," but according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "it's just about possible to read this as a metaphor for the rather more widespread frustrations arising from British colonial rule, though it seems unlikely that this was intentional on Booth's part."
An Extraordinary Cab Accident is a 1903 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a gentleman making a miraculous recovery after being trampled underfoot by a horse and cab. The film, "seems something of a step back," "compared with the elaborate special effects fantasies that director W.R. Booth and producer R.W. Paul had already concocted," but according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "more complex special effects might well have worked against the impression Booth and Paul were clearly seeking to create, which is that of a man being genuinely run over by a horse-drawn cab, his body being knocked down and trampled by the horse's hooves."
Is Spiritualism a Fraud? is a 1906 British short silent drama film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a medium exposed as a fake during a séance. The trick film is, "one of the last films made by R.W. Paul in collaboration with the trick-film specialist W.R. Booth," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "combines elements of the previous year's The Unfortunate Policeman with a special effects sequence. However, unlike Booth and Paul's other work, here the mechanisms are deliberately revealed," "the crucial difference between his illusions and those of a medium is that Booth's audience knew that they were being deceived, but were happy to go along with the charade for the sake of both entertainment and the pleasure of working out how it was done."
To Demonstrate How Spiders Fly is a 1909 British short silent animated documentary film, directed by F. Percy Smith, featuring a close-up of an animated model spider throwing its silken thread to take to the air. The film features "the first of several animated creatures to appear in Smith's films", and according to Jenny Hammerton of BFI Screenonline was made in the belief, "that he could cure people of their fear of spiders by showing them blown up images of their eight legged foes on the cinema screen."
The Automatic Motorist is a 1911 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a robot chauffeur taking an inventor and a young honeymooning couple on a wild ride around the planets and under the sea. The trick film is a, "virtual remake of The '?' Motorist (1906)," according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "but on a bigger scale."
Willie's Magic Wand is a 1907 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a young boy terrorising the household with his father's magic wand. Similar to "earlier trick films The Haunted Curiosity Shop and Undressing Extraordinary ," this is, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "essentially a series of [loosely linked] special-effects set pieces," however, "the print in the National Film and Television Archive is incomplete, omitting amongst other things a come-uppance where Willie is punished for his misdemeanours by being turned into a girl, thus depriving him of more than one magic wand." A clip from the film is featured in Paul Merton's interactive guide to early British silent comedy How They Laughed on the BFI website.
