The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Holidaying in the South West
A whistlestop tour of Devon and Cornwall is filmed in this holiday home movie.
From the collection of:
Overview
By the late 1950s joy has returned to the hearts of people and ordinary families are holidaying and making films. This enthusiast prefaces each location with titles (and a misspelt Devonport and Caerhays) and captures the essence of the whole holiday and the many locations visited including two boat trips, one to the Eddystone Lighthouse and the other off the coast of Mevagissey. This film also shows swimmers and surf riders at Perranporth with Crest surfboards.
This is before the days of steadycam technology or the realism of the Dogme 95 collective whose directors took an in among the action view of filmmaking using no tripods, props or effects. Interminable pans and wobbly shots are normal for the amateur on a handheld camera and acceptable to the private viewers reliving holiday moments months later in their living rooms. The colourful 16mm film stock is distinctly Kodachrome, popular from its launch in the 1930s until 1961 when Eastman Kodak introduced Kodachrome II film. Kodachrome, discontinued in 2010, was also the preferred film of National Geographic stills photographer Steve McCurry.
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