The Short Film
Screened at The Cannes Film Festival 2008
Babbage is a short film that introduces us to the inventor and prolific thinker Charles Babbage, a man both famous for inventing the first computer and failing to build it. The film takes place at a dinner somewhere in the early Victorian period. Babbage introduces the guests to us one by one, each playing a significant role in the colourful life of our host. The conversation ranges from topical debate to pleasant reminiscences until we are plunged into Babbage's isolation and despair as he reveals to the audience that the guests are fragmented memories of those he loved and lost, many of them never met, never spoke.
Babbage's final chapter is one of solitude and perceived failure, an uncelebrated genius who deserves a place in history.
www.frameonframe.co.uk
Babbage is a short film that introduces us to the inventor and prolific thinker Charles Babbage, a man both famous for inventing the first computer and failing to build it. The film takes place at a dinner somewhere in the early Victorian period. Babbage introduces the guests to us one by one, each playing a significant role in the colourful life of our host. The conversation ranges from topical debate to pleasant reminiscences until we are plunged into Babbage's isolation and despair as he reveals to the audience that the guests are fragmented memories of those he loved and lost, many of them never met, never spoke.
Babbage's final chapter is one of solitude and perceived failure, an uncelebrated genius who deserves a place in history.
www.frameonframe.co.uk
Why?
The short film was made as a promotional project
for a feature film based on the life of Charles
Babbage. The idea for a biopic film based on the
life of Babbage came from the projects producer
Trevor Hughes. Trevor was told by his late mother
that Charles Babbage was his great great
grandfather and so the fascination began. Trevor's
mothers maiden name was Joyce Babbage, the short
film is dedicated to her memory.
Director Claire Barker and script writer Eamon Wyse joined the project in 2007 to develop a feature script. During this process the idea to shoot a short film that would promote the feature project was introduced. The concept of a fantasy dinner party was the ideal vehicle to present the characters and themes from Babbage's story.
Since making the short and moving deeper into research the teams passion for making a feature based on the life of Charles Babbage has grown. What started out as a family related curiosity has developed into a need to make the feature film happen.
www.frameonframe.co.uk
Director Claire Barker and script writer Eamon Wyse joined the project in 2007 to develop a feature script. During this process the idea to shoot a short film that would promote the feature project was introduced. The concept of a fantasy dinner party was the ideal vehicle to present the characters and themes from Babbage's story.
Since making the short and moving deeper into research the teams passion for making a feature based on the life of Charles Babbage has grown. What started out as a family related curiosity has developed into a need to make the feature film happen.
www.frameonframe.co.uk
The Feature Film
The
Feature Film.
If the short film of Babbage leaves you wanting to know more than you will be pleased to hear that the feature project is currently in development.
The aim of the short film was to create a vehicle that would introduce the characters and themes from the life of Charles Babbage in order to promote a feature project. Like the soirees Babbage would hold at his home in Dorset Street a fantasy dinner party with Babbage’s loved ones as the guest was the ideal model. The short film has had much success in it's own right, screening at the years Cannes Film Festival, however this is just a taster, our goal has always been to tell the story in a full feature length project
The feature film of Babbage is set in a time when mankind was in a period of intense technological and philosophical transition. Our hero is Charles Babbage, an uncelebrated genius whose ideas concepts and visions were firmly rooted in the future and whose brilliance and failure go hand in hand. The action moves from ingenuity, obsession to self-destruction, the characters vary from the intellectual elite to the most sordid Victorian rube.
The story of Charles Babbage is a celebration on the human spirit, of mans instinct and drive to look at the world ever closer, to build and discover. Traditionally cinema takes a more distopian view of technological advancement, focusing on mankind’s guilt and apocalyptic fantasies. While this view is relevant to any living breathing person there is also another way of appreciating human nature. Babbage was certainly a man who looked at things differently seeing a unique harmony between nature, science and religion.
The story of Charles Babbage's life is filled with characters and events we will all recognize his personal story is one of love, loss, rivalry and bitterness. With his life spanning most of the nineteenth century Babbage was witness to a changing world. Our film also follows the story of a changing man his rebellious charisma descending into stubborn arrogance his final chapter is one of isolation and perceived failure. Babbage towards the end of his life announced that he had not lived a happy day in his life. Understanding the future significance of his work he also proclaimed that he, “..... would gladly give up my life if I could have lived three days five hundred years hence..”
The film is a celebration of a life and an era. It is a story of invention, obsession, failure, passion, love and loss.
Babbage, it is not just a story about sex, drugs and mathematics.
www.frameonframe.co.uk
If the short film of Babbage leaves you wanting to know more than you will be pleased to hear that the feature project is currently in development.
The aim of the short film was to create a vehicle that would introduce the characters and themes from the life of Charles Babbage in order to promote a feature project. Like the soirees Babbage would hold at his home in Dorset Street a fantasy dinner party with Babbage’s loved ones as the guest was the ideal model. The short film has had much success in it's own right, screening at the years Cannes Film Festival, however this is just a taster, our goal has always been to tell the story in a full feature length project
The feature film of Babbage is set in a time when mankind was in a period of intense technological and philosophical transition. Our hero is Charles Babbage, an uncelebrated genius whose ideas concepts and visions were firmly rooted in the future and whose brilliance and failure go hand in hand. The action moves from ingenuity, obsession to self-destruction, the characters vary from the intellectual elite to the most sordid Victorian rube.
The story of Charles Babbage is a celebration on the human spirit, of mans instinct and drive to look at the world ever closer, to build and discover. Traditionally cinema takes a more distopian view of technological advancement, focusing on mankind’s guilt and apocalyptic fantasies. While this view is relevant to any living breathing person there is also another way of appreciating human nature. Babbage was certainly a man who looked at things differently seeing a unique harmony between nature, science and religion.
The story of Charles Babbage's life is filled with characters and events we will all recognize his personal story is one of love, loss, rivalry and bitterness. With his life spanning most of the nineteenth century Babbage was witness to a changing world. Our film also follows the story of a changing man his rebellious charisma descending into stubborn arrogance his final chapter is one of isolation and perceived failure. Babbage towards the end of his life announced that he had not lived a happy day in his life. Understanding the future significance of his work he also proclaimed that he, “..... would gladly give up my life if I could have lived three days five hundred years hence..”
The film is a celebration of a life and an era. It is a story of invention, obsession, failure, passion, love and loss.
Babbage, it is not just a story about sex, drugs and mathematics.
www.frameonframe.co.uk