Miscellaneous Mitchell and Kenyon Offcuts

Intriguing fragments of Victorian and Edwardian footage left behind by Mitchell and Kenyon

This discarded footage shot by Edwardian filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon makes for an interesting curio. It's evidence for the duo's quality control (the shots were obviously rejected because they were photographically poor). It's also, quite by accident, a rapid-fire tour of the filmmakers' world: waving kids and daring fire rescues, parades, football and fairs.

Why did Mitchell and Kenyon bother to keep hold of this 'scrap' material? It was almost certainly not for its contents, but simply for the economic benefit of being able to reuse unwanted physical film stock for technical purposes. A few spare feet of celluloid was always helpful to the thrifty film producer: 'leader' for other rolls of film, spliced to the start or end to allow them to be printed smoothly with no danger of any frames being accidentally missed. This is the reason why several M&K pieces start or end mysteriously, with snatches of random footage that have clearly wandered in from another film entirely. No doubt the producers kept several rolls of such trims and offcuts to hand.