In 1924, Harry B. Parkinson and Frank Miller documented London in a fantastic series of short films, known as "Wonderful London". Over the last few months, I have stood in their foot-steps, recapturing their shots exactly, and have blended the two together creating a window through time.
Parkinson and Miller filmed 20 shorts, each of around 10 minutes, and 12 of these are collected together by the BFI under "Wonderful London". Their titles included ... "Barging Through London", "Cosmopolitan London", "London's Sundays", "Flowers of London", "London's Free Shows", "London Off The Track", "Dicken's London", "London's Outer Ring", "London Old and New", "London's Contrasts", "Known London", and "Along Father Thames to Shepperton".
To make my film, I had to separate theirs into a set of stills, load them onto my phone, and go hunting around London. If you're interested, I've included some of these stills below, but it really is worth getting the DVD from the BFI to watch the original shorts ...
The music used is Symphony No. 4 by Gustav Mahler
The recording is credited to Steve Jones
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0
The composition is now in the public domain, and more information can be found on this great website … http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.4_(Mahler,_Gustav)
Wonderful London is available on DVD from the BFI here … http://www.bfi.org.uk/blu-rays-dvds/wonderful-london
Making this short follows my previous film “London in 1927 and 2013” tracing the footsteps of Claude Friese-Greene. It can be seen here ...