F. Percy Smith


Frank Percy Smith was a British naturalist and early nature documentary pioneer, who explored time-lapse photography, microphotography, microcinematography, underwater cinematography and animation.

Biography

Percy Smith was the son of Francis David Smith and Ada Blaker. An only child, Smith was working as a clerk for the British Board of Education by age 14. The job was uninteresting but sustained his interests in photography and microscopy. In 1899, at age 19, he joined the Quekett Microscopical Club, within five years becoming editor of their journal. He made many research contributions of his own, primarily on spiders, his speciality. To supplement his income, Smith sold slides and gave natural history talks, accompanied by magic lantern displays of his own painted graphics. In 1907 he married Kate Louise Ustonson who, along with Phyllis Bolté, would assist in his film-making.
His close-up photography of a bluebottle caught the attention of film producer Charles Urban, who established the firm Kineto in 1907 to create scientific and non-fiction films. Urban provided Smith with his first film camera, the result being the short The Balancing Bluebottle. Smith's first public screening was in September or October 1908, at Palace Theatre, London. Smith subsequently made To Demonstrate How Spiders Fly and The Acrobatic Fly before joining the Charles Urban Trading Company full-time in that same year. The couple converted the conservatory of their house at 2 Kings Villas, Chase Road, Southgate, then in Middlesex, into a studio optimised for stop motion for time-lapse, which he called 'speed magnification'. By the arrival of the First World War, Smith had directed over fifty nature films for the Urban Sciences series, including the pioneering time-lapse film The Birth of a Flower, filmed in the Kinemacolor process for Urban's Natural Color Kinematograph Company.
With the outbreak of hostilities, Smith realised that he could use the same techniques to help viewers understand massed troop movements and engagements. He applied his stop-motion techniques to aerial depictions of battles, creating a series of fifteen Kineto War Maps. The first of these was released 22 October 1914. A typical example is Kineto War Map No. 5: Fight for the Dardanelles. A contemporary reviewer wrote:
The achievement of the Kineto War Maps is to place before one in concentrated form the true significance of various intricate and extensive operations. In a few minutes, they make absolutely clear and comprehensible important facts which the average reader finds it difficult to grasp fully from the muddle of official communiques and unofficial comments. Better than any verbal explanations these animated diagrams assist one to gauge the exact value and meaning of involved military evolutions which are often so perplexing to the lay mind when dealt with in the ordinary manner. It may almost be said, indeed, that these Kineto maps are essential to a proper understanding of the War.

From 1916 to 1918 Smith served in the Royal Navy as photographer, subsequently transferring to the Royal Air Force Reserve until his discharge in 1920. He began a series of animated films for children under the title Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant, of which three episodes were abandoned in an unfinished state in 1925. These films used 2D cut-outs to tell whimsical stories.
In 1922 producer Harry Bruce Woolfe recruited Smith for his British Instructional Films series Secrets of Nature. His first Secrets of Nature films came out in 1925. In this capacity he worked as photographer with directors such as Mary Field and H. R. Hewer. In 1933 Woolfe transferred the team to a new company, briefly known as British Independent Productions before it changed its name to Gaumont-British Instructional. At this point Secrets of Nature became Secrets of Life, but it retained its focus as a natural history series targeted to education.
Percy Smith died at his home on 24 March 1945. His death was recorded as suicide by coal gas poisoning and was front-page news in the British tabloids. He left a will and an estate valued at £3203 2s 6d.
A BBC documentary charting the work of Smith and attempting to recreate his The Acrobatic Fly was screened in 2013.

Availability

In 2010 the British Film Institute compiled 19 short films on DVD and Blu-ray as Secrets of Nature: Pioneering Natural History Films. This includes ten of Smith's films: The Plants of the Pantry, Floral Co-operative Societies, Peas and Cues, Scarlet Runner & Co, The Strangler, Gathering Moss, Magic Myxies, The World in a Wine-glass, Romance in a Pond, and Brewster's Magic. Also included is a 3-minute cinemagazine item, Percy Smith with Herons.
In 2016 Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith was released by the BFI in a combination DVD and Blu-ray set. Directed by Stuart A. Staples, this "meditative, immersive film" combines portions of several films. It is presented with an original soundtrack by Tindersticks with Thomas Belhom and Christine Ott. Also on the disk are eight Smith originals: The Birth of a Flower, The Strength and Agility of Insects, The Wonders of Harmonic Designing, Plants of the Underworld,'' Nature's Double Lifers - Ferns and Fronds, He Would A-Wooing Go, Lupins, and The Life Cycle of the Newt''.

Filmography

Though the exact number is difficult to determine, Smith directed or photographed over one hundred films. On many titles he was not directly credited. The following titles have been compiled from trusted sources such as BFI websites, liner notes for the DVD releases, and the other references listed below. Additional films are listed on sites such as IMDb, but will not be included until they can be corroborated. All films were directed by Smith himself, unless otherwise noted.
Organisation is by type of film and production company, which retains chronology for the most part.
Kineto trick films
  • Chemical Portraiture
  • Dissolving the Government
  • Bewildering Transformations
  • Bewildering Transformations
cut-out animation
  • The Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant: Bertie's Cave
  • The Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant: The Pit and the Plum
  • The Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant: The Tale of a Tendril
Charles Urban Trading Company
Kineto War Maps
  • Kineto War Map No. 1
  • Kineto War Map No. 2
  • Kineto War Map No. 3 How the Canadians Saved the Day at Ypres
  • Kineto War Map No. 4
  • Kineto War Map No. 5 The Fight for the Dardanelles
  • Kineto War Map No. 6
  • Kineto War Map No. 7
  • Kineto War Map No. 8
  • Kineto War Map No. 9
  • Kineto War Map No. 10
  • Kineto War Map No. 11
  • Kineto War Map No. 12
  • Kineto War Map No. 13
  • Kineto War Map No. 14
  • Kineto War Map No. 15 The Russia-Rumanian Advance
British Instructional Films: Secrets of Nature
  • Spiders and Their Victims dir. Percy Smith, Charles Head
  • Insect Artisans dir. Percy Smith, Mary Field
  • The Battle of the Plants
  • An Aquarium in a Wineglass
  • Seed Time
  • The Phantom
  • The Life of a Plant
  • The Gnat
  • The Battle of the Pantry
  • Floral Co-operative Societies dir. Mary Field
  • The Story of a Leaf dir. Mary Field
  • The Story of a Glass of Water dir. Mary Field
  • The Story of the Grasses dir. Mary Field
  • The Romance of the Flowers dir. Mary Field
  • Plant Magic dir. Mary Field
  • The Iris Family
  • The Home Wrecker
  • The Frog
  • Life in the Balance
  • Sirex Wood Wasps and Their Insect Enemies dir. R. Neil Chrystal
  • Down Under
  • Mitey Atoms
  • The Strangler
  • Scarlet Runner & Co
  • Peas and Cues
  • Plants of the Underworld
  • dir. Mary Field
  • Waterfolk dir. Mary Field
  • In all His Glory dir. Mary Field
  • dir. Mary Field
  • Nature's Double Lifers - Ferns and Fronds dir. Mary Field
  • Romance in a Pond dir. Mary Field
  • Gathering Moss dir. Mary Field
  • Brewster's Magic dir. Mary Field
Gaumont-British Instructional: Secrets of Life
  • The Amoeba
  • The Life Cycle of a Plant
  • White Flies and Tomatoes
  • Roots dir. Mary Field
  • The Cabbage
  • How Plants Feed dir. Mary Field
  • The Filter dir. Mary Field
  • The Thistle
  • Life in the Balance dir. Mary Field
  • Lupins dir. Mary Field
  • Seed Production
  • The Frog Life History dir. H.R. Hewer
  • Hydra dir. H.R. Hewer
  • Thistledown
  • Queer Diet
  • The Interdependence of Pond Life
  • Self-defence by Plants
  • He Would A-Wooing Go
  • The Catch of the Season dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • The Development of the Tadpole dir. J.V. Durden
  • The Life of a One-Celled Animal dir. J.V. Durden
  • Pollination prod. E.J. Salisbury
  • The Development of the Chick dir. J.V. Durden
  • Hydra dir. J.V. Durden
  • Seed Dispersal by Exploding Fruits dir. J.V. Durden
  • Safety First dir. Mary Field
  • Seed Dispersal by Burial
  • Crustacea dir. J.V. Durden
  • Onychophora and Myriapoda dir. J.V. Durden, commentator Carleton Hobbs
  • Wisdom of the Wild dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • Overlooked dir. Mary Field
  • Water dir. Mary Field
  • U-boat in the Pond dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • Singing while They Work dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • There's Nothing New dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • Memories dir. Mary Field, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • The Pest dir. Mary Field??, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • Fresh As a Daisy dir. Irene Wilson, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
  • The Country Comes to Town dir. Thora James, commentator E.V.H. Emmett
Gaumont-British Instructional / British Council
  • dir. Mary Field
  • dir. Mary Field
  • dir. Mary Field
  • dir. Mary Field
  • The Life History of a Moss
Shell Film Unit
  • Malaria dir. Grahame Tharp