Upside Down; or, the Human Flies
Encyclopedia
Upside Down; or, the Human Flies is an 1899
British short
silent
drama film
, directed by Walter R. Booth
, featuring a conjuror sending his audience to the ceiling. The film, "exploits a very simple illusion: that of filming with the camera turned upside-down so that the actors appear to be performing on the ceiling," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "the effectiveness of the final result is such that nearly seventy years later Stanley Kubrick
used the same technique in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)." The conjuror was reputedly played by Booth himself.
1899 in film
The year 1899 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*T.C. Hepworth invents Biokam, a 17.5 mm format which also is the first format to have a center perforation.*John Alfred Prestwich invents a 13 mm amateur format....
British short
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
, directed by Walter R. Booth
Walter R. Booth
Walter Robert Booth was a British magician and early pioneer of British film working first for Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, where he pioneered the use of hand-drawing techniques that lead to the first British animated film, The Hand of the Artist...
, featuring a conjuror sending his audience to the ceiling. The film, "exploits a very simple illusion: that of filming with the camera turned upside-down so that the actors appear to be performing on the ceiling," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "the effectiveness of the final result is such that nearly seventy years later Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
used the same technique in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)." The conjuror was reputedly played by Booth himself.