National Museum of Photography, Film& Television

Day two of the easter holiday and another free museum on the agenda, the above mentioned National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford.

Took Jodie to this one this morning, I'd been told that we've been before but I don't remember it, anyway this is one of those museums that changes its clothes every year so still worth a visit and repeat visits - and its free.

It was a strange visit all in all, a little bit disappointing in some of the areas but incredibly rewarding in others. There are six floors in total, each having their own exhibition areas, one of them was totally closed due to a big refurbish for the summer season, two were devoted totally to photographic exhibitions which to be honest were not very entertaining, I know its a photography museum as well, but if you're not an arty-farty photography dude then there's only so many pictures of houses and abandoned cars that you can look at without a yawn coming on.

Actually one of the photography exhibitions was pretty good, an American photographer who's name has completely by-passed my brain, lots of his photos of the USA and world politics in general from the 1940's through to the 1960's, the guy was obviously a news photographer and some of his stuff was very good, very evocative, like the picture of Jackie Kennedy at JFK's funeral where he has managed to capture complete grief in her face just after she was handed the stars and stripes from his coffin, very good stuff actually, I'll take that back, one of the photography exhibitions was very good, the other was still shite though.

Another floor is given over to interactive toys for kids to play on teaching them all about light and refraction and how cameras take photos, all that sort of stuff, aimed at schoolkids, loads to do in there, if you got some schoolkids with you, Jodie is 14 so it was a tad juvenile for her, I enjoyed it though, especially the mirror that made me look thin.

The best floor, and the one that I could have spent all day on is the TV Heaven gallery, its a collection of hundreds of the best British TV comedy and childrens programmes with several private booths where you can walk up to the counter and ask for a showing of the programme of your choice from their extensive catalogue. The rest of the floor is given over to the history of animation with loads of tableau from films such as Wallace & Grommitts "The wrong trousers" or a scene from The Wombles and lots of older european animations which I've never seen but looked fascinating, very black and very gothic. In this section is also housed walk-in booths where constant loops of old animated films are shown and all around the gallery are some fantastic cells from well-known and not-so-well-known films.

The top floor has a small exhibition dedicated to David Puttnam, obviously because he has loaned some of his awards to the museum, so here, behind heavy glass security screens you can see his Oscar for Chariots of Fire and a half dozen other film and TV awards, including a Golden Globe.

The museum also has two cinemas of its own showing a constantly changing programme of lesser known gems (see their web site from the link above) and its "piece de resistance", the IMAX cinema.

You don't have to pay for anything else in the museum including the TV Heaven screenings, but you do have to pay for the IMAX, and its worth every penny of the £10.80 that I paid for me and Jodie.

The IMAX screen is like nothing I've ever seen, which isn't completely true as I saw a touring exhibition screening of "How the West was Won" in the 1960's on a proper 180 degree Cinerama screen, but the IMAX is probably the most awe inspiring cinema screen that you'll see in this day and age, its huge, and you're up close to it.

Only a few exhibition films are available in IMAX and these tend to be short (under 60 mins) documentaries that utilise the format superbly, but even better, the IMAX is superb at 3D.

We went into the cinema to see "Sharks" - hence the picture above - and were handed our pair of very nifty 3D glasses, not the cardboard disposable sort, but proper wrap-around glasses. The documentary is filmed underwater on a reef and documents several types of shark in their natural habitat together with loads of fish, millions of fish in fact, but the best bit about the film is that due to the immense size of the screen and the wrap-around glasses, the film takes up all of your peripheral vision and being a true 3D film you are actually sitting in the action rather than watching it.

We had a row of young (4 to 10 years old) kids in front of us, the 4 year old told his brother to put his 3D glasses on at the start "for safety" and as the opening sequence started with thousands of jellyfish floating towards, and around, and in your face the kids were jumping up and down, screaming and trying to grab the jellyfish that appeared to be right in front of your face and above your head, it was hilarious and it continued on for the whole film, they never got tired of trying to grab at the fish and only sat down in silence when the sharks drifted by, its great to see kids get involved like that even though their parents were mortally embarrassed and kept trying to sit them down and keep them quiet.

There are two other 3D films on the agenda there, one on an african safari and another on the moon landings - we will return to see both of them.

And then finally on the way out I bought a dvd of the Mitchell & Kenyon films in the museum shop. Mitchell & Kenyon were cinematographers who worked the streets of northern England around 1900, filming everyday street scenes which were then quickly processed and shown to a paying audience the same evening in church halls and libraries, working people leaving their factory gates would be filmed, dash home and then dress in their sunday best to go watch themselves on a portable cinema screen in what must have seemed to them to be the miracle of the age.

28 hours worth of the Mitchell & Kenyon footage were found in the cellar of an old shop several years ago, they had been sealed in an old milk churn and the nitrate film had not deteriated at all, the films are all now in the national archive and have been featured on TV as well as a couple of hours worth being released on the dvd that I've bought today, lovely stuff.

So, £10 for the IMAX and £20 for the dvd, not a totally free day, but well worth it.


PS - Just been looking at the web link to the museum and realised that they've got loads of archived photography on the web, and realised that we missed the Lower Ground floor exhibition hall too, if your a photographic geek due then have a look at their archive material.