Upside Down; or, The Human Flies
About Upside Down; or, The Human Flies
A conjuror works a few tricks, then sends his audience to the ceiling. The people appear to walk and gesture overhead while he stays on the floor and finishes the turn. Walter R. Booth is reputed to play the conjuror.
Cast & crew
More about Upside Down; or, The Human Flies
Walter R. Booth directed the trick film for producer Robert W. Paul. The illusion is a camera turned upside down, so the actors seem to perform on the ceiling. The short runs about one minute.
Themes
Making
Paul's studio turned out the short in 1899 as a single-illusion picture. Booth staged the conjuring business in front of the inverted camera.
Look
The camera is turned upside down so the company appears to stand on the ceiling. Booth is credited as director; no separate cameraman is named.
Technique
The ceiling walk is an in-camera inversion, not a double exposure.
Preservation
The one-minute trick film survives in circulation, including a copy on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline notes that Stanley Kubrick used the same upside-down-camera trick nearly seventy years later in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
- Booth, a magician before he made films for Paul, is the man usually identified as the conjuror.
- The gag is one setup: the room is filmed inverted, not a series of substitution splices.
Scenes
- The conjuror gestures and the whole audience is suddenly walking on the ceiling.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Upside Down ot The Human Flies (1899) - yt.webm)
