Part of Apparatus used in Filming Development of a Chick Embryo

Part of apparatus used in filming development of the chick embryo, 1938 by F Percy Smith.

During the First World War, Smith made a series of films depicting battles through animated maps and worked as a Naval photographer. When the war was over he turned to comedy with The Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant (1925), featuring insect characters in a natural environment, but his real love was the 'Secrets of Nature' series he made for British Instructional Films. Beginning in 1922, the series continued into the '30s, when it became 'Secrets of Life'. Smith was a true pioneer, inventing original (and bizarre) methods for time lapse and micro cinematography, involving all kinds of home-made devices, including alarms all over his home to wake him up in the middle of the night if the film in the camera needed changing. With endless patience, he could spend up to two and a half years to complete a film.

This object is part of the equipment used in making the film 'The Development of the Chick'. It consists of a rectangular wooden box divided into three compartments. The two outer compartments each have a round hole cut into the side of the box, while the central one contains a raised stage holding a circular container. Underneath the stage, a metal rod connects with a sprocket on the outside of the box, which in turn are connected to electric wires. Although the precise intended use of this box is unclear, it seems likely to have doubled as an incubator and a microscope stage. The round holes were likely for warm air to circulate under the raised stage, creating the right temperature conditions for the egg to hatch in the embedded container, on which the microscope and camera could be fitted. This matches Smith’s notes under the heading ‘Incubator Room’, which detail a ‘Special thermostatic stage’ which guaranteed ‘maximum efficiency for egg area’, a ‘Look-down’ mechanism that allowed ‘three views’ to be captured without moving the camera, and a system of ‘interstage gears’ operated by a motor and a sprocket.