BARKER MOTION PHOTOGRAPHY LTD

(1909-1918)

KINE KARTOONS

(1914-1915)

William George Barker was one of the pioneers of British filmmaking, forming his first company, Autoscope, in 1901. Autoscope merged with the Warwick Trading Company in 1906 with Barker becoming Managing Director of the larger company.

Resigning from Warwick Trading, he set up Barker Motion Photography Ltd in December 1909. He retained ownership of the premises in Ealing that Autoscope had originally purchased for use as a film studio (and which would eventually become the famous Ealing Studios), and in March 1910 opened an office and a processing laboratory, with editing and printing facilities, at 1 Soho Square.

Will Barker was passionate about "topicals" (documentary films), so much so that he renamed his Soho Square premises Topical House. At Warwick Trading he had attempted a daily newsreel, called London Day by Day, in which one new item would be added each day, replacing an older one: however, foggy conditions in the winter months prevented daily filming, so the idea had to be dropped. Barker Motion Photography Ltd's greatest publicity stunt was the annual filming of the Grand National, with the footage being rushed by rail from Liverpool to London, processed, titled, edited and printed at Soho Square in time to be shown at the Empire Leicester Square before the end of the last performance the same day.

But Barker was also well aware of the potential for feature length dramas, and produced many spectacular films at the Ealing studios. He himself directed a version of H Rider Haggard's She (London Trade Show 29 February 1916) employing artist and illustrator Lancelot Speed as scene designer. It is commonly given that Speed had previously illustrated an edition of the novel, although I have not found any evidence to verify this. He was, however, a talented illustrator of fantasy adventures. He had also been making war cartoons for Neptune Films.

Not that Barker had ignored the animated cartoon film. Artist F Gandolphi had a small room at 1 Soho Square where he had been making cartoons under the series title Kine Kartoons since the spring of 1914. Using the jointed cutout technique widely adopted in Britain for speed and economy, he and his cameraman Leslie Everleigh (who had to crouch beside the camera just below the ceiling, cranking one or two frames as required) turned out two 300ft cartoons each week at the height of their production. The only record we have is of a set of four reviewed by Bioscope 21 May 1914:

The first few numbers deal in a humerous manner with such subjects as 'How a Budget is Made' (showing Lloyd George drawing his inspiration from an animated mangel wurzel), 'The Dress Germ' (offering an ingenious bacteriological explanation of the various phenomena in modern dress), 'How I Killed My First Jaguar by Colonel Teddy' (depicting the manner in which the ex-President of the United States makes a successful kill), and 'Broncho Billy Loops the Loop' (illustrating some surprisingly aeronautical feats by a cowboy). The cartoons are very well drawn, and they are set in motion by means of exceedingly clever trick effects. The extent of their animation is, in fact, one of their most notable and unique features.

A photograph reported to have been taken 26 March 1915 shows Gandolphi at work under the camera at Soho Square. However, the series seems to have ended by 1916.

If the employment of Lancelot Speed as set designer had the ulterior motive of persuading him to join Barker's as an animator, then it was unsuccessful. By the end of 1916 Speed had set up his own production unit to make cartoons for Jury's Imperial Pictures. (William Jury had been put in charge of film propaganda by the War Office Cinema Committee, and after the War was knighted for his efforts.)

Barker's Kine Kartoons series (1914-15) should not be confused with Producer Frank Zeitlin's Kine Komedy Kartoons (1916-20)

Filmography (Kine Kartoons)

Links to Other Sites

Barker, Will (1867-1951): BFI Screenonline biography

Internet Archive - The Cine-Technician March 1938: P Dennis recalls working at "Barker Motion Photography", with photos from 1915

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