The Making of 'The Incredibles'

Francis Doublier does bicycle tricks in the street.

A Japanese theatre performance based on a legend.

Two Penny Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) starting off with a little magic trick. It then presents an array of images from swimmers, bicyclers, murderers, airplanes in flight, boxers, lovers, runners, becoming in the end a collection of images in a magazine.

Behind the Action in 'Biker Boyz'

"The Amblystoma: Curious Salamander From Mexico". Vintage French educational film from 1913 describing the Axolotl. Very impressive footage for the time.

Close up we see pistons move up and down or side to side. Pendulums sway, the small parts of machinery move. Gears drive larger wheels. Gears within gears spin. Shafts turn some mechanism that is out of sight. Screws revolve and move other gears; a bit rotates. More subtle mechanisms move other mechanical parts for unknown purposes. Weights rise and fall. The movements, underscored by sound, are rhythmic. Circles, squares, rods, and teeth are in constant and sometimes asymmetrical motion. These human-made mechanical bits seem benign and reassuring.

It’s a world we don’t truly know—yet it feels oddly familiar. Deep canyons and jagged crevices carve through the land, while towering mountains rise above scorched plains. Lush jungles and acidic lakes conceal strange creatures—fierce predators, peaceful grazers, and masters of disguise. But this alien world isn’t in outer space. This world... is your body.

This shows the heart of one of the tremendous drifts in the east end of Galveston. Hundreds of dead bodies are concealed in these immense masses, and at the time the picture was taken the odor given out could be detected for miles. The subject shows a gang of laborers clearing away the debris in the search for corpses, one of which was discovered while the picture was being taken. (Edison film catalog)

While our photographers were crossing the Atlantic Ocean a most wonderful and sensational picture was secured, showing a storm at sea. The picture was secured by lashing the camera to the after bridge of the Kaiserine Maria Theresa, of the North German Lloyd Line, during one of its roughest voyages. The most wonderful storm picture ever photographed. Taken at great risk. (Edison Films, 1901)

Early IMAX documentary about the development of human flight.

It's just a simple stretch of interviews and images capturing the people who camp out, dope up, drink up, sometimes get naked, and jump into a nearby waterfall, whilst listening to musicians like Daniel Johnston.

In the darkroom, 50 unexposed film strips were laid across a surface, upon which a frame of "La sortie des ouvrier de l'usine Lumière" was projected. The stringing together of the individual developed sections make up the new film, which reads the original frame like a page from a musical score: within the strips from top to bottom and sequentially from left to right.

Three athletes make their way to wicker baskets that contain a mishmash of wacky costumes. They need to dress up as quickly as they can, and make their way back on the running track.

The festive start and disastrous aftermath of the launch of the H.M.S. Albion.

The Switchback Railway was the forerunner of the roller coaster. Passengers sit in a small car which trundles up a swooping railway track then performs a 180 degree turn at its summit before swooping back down on a parallel track.

Propped upon the tail-end of a match, a housefly performs astonishing feats, alternately juggling a series of objects - a blade of grass, a cork, a miniature dumbbell… Most extraordinary of all is the sequence in which the fly spins a ball twice its own size, while a second fly perches on top. In the final sequence, the fly repeats some of its earlier tricks while apparently seated on a tiny chair.

“This view was taken upon Mr. McKinley's lawn at his home in Canton, Ohio. Mr. McKinley appears walking across the lawn in company with his Secretary, who hands him a telegram, which he reads with apparent satisfaction. The characteristic walk and gestures of Mr. McKinley will be noted with interest by his friends.” (AMB Picture Catalogue)

During the Alaska gold rush, one way to reach the Klondike was over the Chilkoot Pass. A stationary camera is placed to see a ways down the curving trail. A pack train comes into view and passes in front of us, led by a man on horseback. Eight loaded mules follow, then another cowboy on horseback and a man walking, then eight more laden mules, another cowboy, then nine more mules, a cowboy, and still the pack train stretches as far as the eye can see. A solitary man watches from atop a hillock.

Georgetown, 1901. A silver-mining town at 8,500 feet near the crest of the Rockies. Hooked somehow to the rear of a four-car passenger train is a camera that pans the scenery and, when the train goes around curves, looks ahead to see the engine and passenger cars: the passengers wave hundreds of white handkerchiefs out of the train's left-side windows for the benefit of the camera. The town comes into view; the tracks are above the town, so the camera looks down on dozens of modest rooftops as it pans the area. (AMB 1901, copyrighted 1903.)

Footage shot not long after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco is edited together so that more than one scene and more than one vantage are included. We see fire raging. We see burned-out buildings, piles of rubble, and buildings with only one wall standing. People stand and watch; others walk purposely through the debris. A carriage passes; the camera pans the desolation. A horse-drawn cart is laden with a family's remaining possessions. A sign hangs outside one building: "A little disfigured but still in business. Men Wanted."