While there’s much suspicion about the validity of Avatar’s box office performance due to inflated 3D ticket prices, the UK Film Council’s 2010 Statistical Yearbook paints a different picture. As reported by The Guardian,

last year was the best ever in terms of box office takings and the second best year since 1971 in terms of admissions, fuelled by the continuing growth of 3D and the through-the-roof success of Avatar, as well as the enduring, recession-resistant appeal of the big screen.

…

In terms of box office, it was a record year with takings topping £944m [about $1,457,000,000]. Cinema admissions also shot up from last year’s healthy 164 million to 174 million, not quite beating 2002 (176 million), but still up 6% and the second highest number since 1971.

As to the impact of 3D,

The 3D revolution arrived in earnest, with 14 3D films accounting for 16% of UK and Ireland box office revenues, up from 0.4%. There are still sceptics but [David Steele, the council's head of research and statistics] said: "It does not appear to be a flash in the pan."

The young David Lloyd George’s dream of David and Goliath in Maurice Elvey’s The Life Story of David Lloyd George.

On July 14th, the UK’s National Commission for UNESCO announced the 10 items and collections to be included in its first UK Memory of the World Register, which follows in the footsteps of  UNESCO’s worldwide Memory of the World Programme, which I previously posted about here. Included are two films, both rather obscure — one because of its subject matter and the other because it was a film that was never shown publicly and believed to be lost. The latter is Maurice Elvey’s The Life Story of David Lloyd George (1918),  a biography of the British prime minister, which was repressed and presumed destroyed; the latter is  St Kilda, Britain’s Loneliest Isle (1928), a documentary of  life on a island in the Hebrides that was soon to vanish.

Luke McKernan provides a fascinating rundown of the history of Elvey’s film on The Bioscope, his invaluable blog about silent movies. He notes that the film has

a remarkable history of idealism, political intrigue, slander, subterfuge, disappearance, rediscovery and restoration. The Life Story of David Lloyd George was made in 1918, vanished before any cinema audience had a chance to see it, and re-emerged to astonished acclaim in 1994. Its place must be in virtual history rather than actual film history, because its story is one of if onlys and maybes. But what a story it is.

The 152-minute film is available on DVD from The National Library of Wales here and includes 47 minutes of extras, including an interview with ace film historian Kevin Brownlow.

As to St Kilda, it is

A filmed voyage by steamer from Glasgow to St Kilda, containing scenes of the ports en-route and life of the population on St Kilda. Research supports the conclusion that the scenes on the island of Hirta were taken in May 1923, with footage of the voyage from Glasgow out to St Kilda shot later, c. 1928. The film was made on the eve of the evacuation of St Kilda, August 1930, and with it the end of two millennia of human habitation on the island.

The film can be seen on YouTube in two parts (part 1 is embedded above), though you can also see in one sitting on the Scottish Screen Archive site here, which contains additional information on St Kilda.

Meanwhile …

In preparing for this post, I checked UNESCO’s Memory of the World site and discovered its list of Current Nominations, which include a number of film-related items. These include the EYE Film Instituut Nederland’s Desmet Collection, that includes “films, company documents, posters and film stills from the 1910’s” collected by Jean Desmet and Rossellini 77 Triptych, about Roberto Rossellini’s final project. Others include the Audiovisual Collection of Max Stahl, which includes material relating to the founding of Timor Leste, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives (Heyerdahl, the 20th century explorer, made Kon-Tiki (1950),one of the most popular post-war documentaries), and Collection of note manuscripts and film music of Composer Aram Khachaturian.

Thanks to The Bioscope, from whose site I cribbed the frame grab at the top from The Life Story of David Lloyd George.

I just became aware of the British Film Institute’s YouTube Channel which is featuring the first screen version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which was directed  by  Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow. The BFI, which is touting its restoration in conjunction with the release of the new Tim Burton film, notes that, at around 12 minutes (of which only 8 survive), it “was the longest film yet produced in Britain.” It also features “an early appearance by the [Hepworth] family dog, Blair, who would become famous as the star of Rescued by Rover(1905),” one of the most famous of early British films.

All this and the attempted fidelity to John Tenniel’s original illustrations, is all well and good; but what interested me most was the film’s use of Georges Méliès-style special effects, which I found quite delightful.

Wow! There’s getting to be a delightful glut of films posted online these days. Following the National Film Board of Canada recent launch of their beta site. The Guardian now reports that Britain’s Channel 4, a public-service broadcaster funded by advertising, has launched  4mations, which “it hopes will be an online home for the UK’s animation community, rolling out an advertising-supported, YouTube-style site that will pay animators for their work.”

Channel 4, especially under the guidance of Claire Kitson (who is no longer there), nurtured a Golden Age of British animated short films. (Check out my brief profile of Kitson in this 1999  Animation World Magazine story.) The site is still in the process of posting its films, which seems to be adding almost by the minute. Among those already online include such familiar titles as Alison Snowden and David Fine’s hilarious Oscar-winning short , Bob’s Birthday, which acted as the pilot for their Bob and Margaret TV series, and two wonderfully theatrical efforts by  Barry Purves, his Oscar-nominated Screen Play and Achilles, plus less familiar classics such as Erika Russell’s sensuous Feet of Song (pictured above).

The Guardian notes,

The project is a collaboration with Aardman, the Bristol-based independent producer behind Wallace and Gromit, and the animation specialists Lupus Films.

4mations includes comedy, adult, sci-fi and 3D work along with games and specialist groups. Users can vote on clips, upload their own work and embed their favourite clips on their own websites and social networks.

Channel 4′s new media commissioner for factual, Adam Gee, said the site would provide a new focus for the broadcaster’s animation output.

The broadcaster has a strong tradition in animation going back to its launch in 1982. Channel 4 animations have included Raymond Briggs’ classic The Snowman in 1982, Suzie Templeton’s Peter & the Wolf, and Taking a Line for a Walk, based on the work of artist Paul Klee.

… The full version [of the site] launches on September 15 and will include Thinks, a simple editing tool that will let users create their own animation in less than an hour.

The quality of the films looks better than YouTube, though I encountered technical problems trying to embed films using WordPress, a glitch which I trust they will work out. In the meantime, enjoy.

September 2nd Update: Technical problems solved. Here is Feet of Song.