Home Movies in the BFI National Archive

Home movies are as old as cinema itself. Is it any coincidence that among the first subjects for the Lumière brothers' camera were members of their own family? A feature of their first film programme was Repas de bébé (1895), featuring Auguste Lumière, his wife and baby daughter having breakfast in the French countryside.

While the BFI National Archive works to acquire and preserve British film and television, it is also actively engaged in collecting home movies which are of historical interest. These include the home movies of those who have worked in the industry, be it in front of or behind the camera.

Peter Sellers as a tourist in Rome's Colosseum; Jessie Matthews on holiday in the Alps; on location with John Mills in the Libyan desert with Ice Cold in Alex; Leslie Henson playing golf with Cary Grant. The home movies of personalities like these can act as a valuable resource for film historians, biographers or those who simply have a general interest in British film history. Recent acquisitions include the films of Stuart Robertson (brother of Anna Neagle), who filmed his sister at work in both Britain and Hollywood, and of John Mills, whose collection provides a wonderful film record of the Mills family over a 20-year period.

The BFI's preservation of these films, whether brief (a couple of minutes of British film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper seen at home) or extensive (the somehow inevitably epic nine and a half hours of film that comprise David Lean's global travels), offers not only a window on to the lives of the famous, but a fascinating, behind the scenes insight into the world of British film production.

Far from the world of commercial cinema, some of the earliest home movies of the BFI National Archive collection were filmed by the Passmore family between 1902 and 1908. These soon-to-be-typical portraits of summer holidays at the beach and hi-jinks at home on the lawn prove that even bulky, hand-cranked cameras, high costs, and the extreme flammability of 35mm nitrate film stocks weren't enough to put of the most determined (and wealthy) amateur cinematographer.

However, such films are rare, with the vast majority of home movies in the collection dating from the late 1920s and 1930s onwards, coinciding with the arrival of non-flammable 'safety' films in the small-gauge formats of 16mm, 9.5mm and then 8mm. These more user-friendly, lower-cost developments brought the movie camera within reach of the general consumer, albeit one more than averagely well-off. Many of the films of this period document travel or work abroad, with little hint of the economic depression and mass unemployment at home.

There were various developments in colour film in the 1930s, even for the amateur market, with stocks such as Dufaycolor, Kodacolor and Kodachrome. This last format only stopped production in 2009, and is sadly missed for the vibrancy of its colours and the saturation of its blacks - rivalled in its heyday only by Technicolor. Fortunately for archivists, the unique qualities of its complex chemistry mean that its colours are surprisingly resilient, with reds and yellows still singing off the frame after as much as 70 years.

WWII, rationing, and austerity all failed to deter the enthusiastic amateurs, with home movies from throughout the postwar period well represented in the Archive. However, the growth of disposable income in the 1950s led to a second boom in home movie-making, reflected in the number of films in the collection from this period. Also captured is a change in social class of those in front and behind the camera, with tours of India and Africa giving way to family holidays in Devon and Cornwall.

The arrival of Super 8mm film in 1965 bridged the gap between the higher image quality of 16mm and the cheaper costs of what now became known as 'Standard 8'. The format is still popular with enthusiasts, but home movie production has been overwhelmed by the growth of consumer video formats. Home movies on video are very different in content and style to those on film. Small gauge film cartridges often last as little as three minutes, and the decision to press the trigger is expensive and irreversible. Seeing results means posting the film away for processing and waiting for its return. Longer-running video tapes such as Video-8, VHS and Mini-DV mean that the home movie has become an epic, often unedited experience, which can be shared with the family as soon as the tape is rewound.

Examples of all of these films are held in the BFI National Archive and help form a multi-faceted self-portrait of the nation in vivid moving images.