Forgotten Silver Page #2

a home-built projector

lept way beyond pedal power.

I don't know who else would have thought

of using steam power to drive a projection

system, but he did. And it worked!

Well, he was clever enough

to make his own film.

He got flax seeds from down at the

swamp at the back of the farm.

And he boiled them and boiled them.

Turned that into cellulose nitrate.

And then he had to find something

for the emulsion and he found eggs.

Not eggs. Egg whites.

He used the egg albumen process,

which they used in the 19th century

for making materials photosensitive.

He adapted that, though,

to use the moving images.

The trouble was, that it took 12 eggs

to make one minute of film.

That's alright as long as

he was making short films.

Colin was caught red-handed.

The precocious boy had been planning

the world's first feature-length film.

Colin's father flew into a rage.

This was an affront to his dignity.

He ranted and he raved, and he smashed

up all of Colin's gear.

Everything was destroyed.

Everything. All his gear. Except the camera,

which his clever mother had hidden.

Living less than 50 miles from the

McKenzie farm was

someone who, like Colin, nursed

extravagant dreams of invention.

His name was Richard Pearse.

In the early years of the century,

Pearse constructed a crude flying machine

and made several attempts to get airborne.

Pearse's exploits have always been

the subject of conjecture and legend.

Some writers believe he flew before the

Wright brothers.

But no reliable proof has existed

that he even got off the ground.

Until now.

Found among the films in the

Colin McKenzie collection

was an astounding cinematic record.

Seen here, publicly, for the first time

is a piece of film currently being examined

by the Smithsonian Institute.

A fragment of cinema that will

forever rewrite aviation history.

Minutes before takeoff, Colin positioned

his camera above a wagon.

And waited.

Colin McKenzie's remarkable film contained

yet another astonishing revelation.

The man on the left has

a newspaper in his pocket.

Digital enhancement

allows us to look closer.

The Wright brothers historic flight at Kitty

Hawk was not until December 17, 1903.

Richard Pearse, a farmer from New Zealand,

had beaten the Wright brothers

into the air by nine months.

But the thing that I find really funny is,

if you examine the footage,

He's flying straight at Colin McKenzie,

who's filming it, and he

has to swerve to avoid Colin and he

crashes into the hedge.

And if Colin had not been there,

he probably would have flown a lot further

and we would've all heard about it.

His father confiscated the film.

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