Filming and cinema quickly won the hearts of New Zealand from the mid-1890s, yet the story of the cameramen and the film they took here and in the First World War has never been fully captured. The Camera in the Crowd does that in style, bringing to fruition years of original research and archival work by esteemed historian Christopher Pugsley. This authoritative work, told with Pugsleys brilliant and engaging style, features over 350 photos and illustrations many of them precisely linked to early filming. It tells the fascinating story of early film and filmmakers, deploying links to websites where film can be seen, and featuring a still image on each page than can be flipping pages in the manner of old-style flip books. Beautifully written, designed and printed, this is a major publication.
Christopher Pugsley is one of New Zealand's leading historians. A retired Lieutenant-Colonel in the New Zealand Army, he was a lecturer in military studies in New Zealand and Australia, and retired in 2012 as a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Among his recent works are the fifth edition of Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story and A Bloody Road Home: World War Two and New Zealand's Heroic Second Division. He has a long association with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly the New Zealand Film Archive).
"A daunting, definitive and interactive history of how moving pictures first arrived in Aotearoa... Pugsley delivers many intriguing stories of how the movies first took hold in pre-war New Zealand and of the pioneers of making and exhibiting them here." - Russell Baillie, Noted, February 2018
"Told in his characteristically straightforward and engaging style, Pugsley combines these twin interests in The Camera in the Crowd, which brilliantly brings to life the first years of film-making in New Zealand through war and peace." - Howard Davis, Scoop, December 2017
"The Camera in the Crowd is the type of book you will dip in and out of as the mood takes you... Dont be fooled into thinking this book will only appeal to history buffs because it deserves a much wider audience that that. Those with an interest in early movie making will find it illuminating (pardon the pun), while those with an interest in society and how it evolved will enjoy reading the historical reports and items from newspapers of the time" - Faye Lougher, The Reader, December 2017
