William Greene was born in Bristol on September 7, 1855
and destined to become one of the more controversial pioneers of the industry.
Greene added his surname in 1874 when he married Helena Friese to become
William Friese-Greene.
In 1880, he became fascinated by experiments with the magic
lantern that were being done by John Rudge and began his own experiments.
In 1885, he opened two photographic shops in London with Esme Collings.
Greene was constantly experimenting and worked with a variety of engineers
and technicians in a variety of areas, but had very little success.
Greene, however, constantly was applying for patents
on devices that were poorly thought out or were sketchy and lacked sufficent
mechanical details.
In 1898, Greene began experimenting with colour cinematography,
he called Biocolour System, that would have a significant impact on the
direction of the industry. Around that time, G.A Smith, another Brighton-ite
was also experimenting with colour.
In 1906, G. A. Smith patented and presented
the first commercial cinematographic color process to be used in the industry,
using a similar process as Greene, that Smith called Kinemacolour. Smith
turned to Charles Urban
and immediately began a very successful marketing campaign of the new colour
film.
For several years, Urban expanded and started setting
up offices in other countries while Greene, primarily complained. Greene
finally filed a law suit of Greene's Biocolour system against Smith's Kinemacolor.
In 1913, the court ruled in Greene's favor stopping Smith and Urbans expansion
of British colour films. Unfortunately because of his financial condition,
Greene was unable to capitalise on the victory and basically set the industry
back a few years.
Greene, the constant optimist, continually made wild
claims of all of his inventions and processes that he had created but was
constantly in financial trouble and nothing ever came to fruition. Greene
died a pauper on May 5, 1921 and became known for a rambling speech about
the British film industry just before he died.
As a side note, his son Claude Friese-Greene grew
up in the industry. After WWI, he specialized in aerial and colour cinematography
and became very successful.
