Stephen Herbert was born in 1951 in London.
He had an extraordinary enquiring mind from a very young age. He spent his life collecting, researching, and writing on his many interests and skills: visual perception; projection; early animation; comic art; Popeye; astronomy; amateur movies; stereoscopy; early aviation; photography; magic mirrors. He was a collector of early 20th century projectors, toy projectors, flip books, old analogue radios.
He became a one-man ‘repair shop’ able to fix and restore most things: mechanical pinball machines, early film projectors, model aeroplanes, books, old toys, magic lanterns. Link to Stephen’s YouTube videos from the Menu.
His career started at the Public Record Office, then moved to cinema projection, through to student film supervision. Stephen’s talents led him to becoming Head of Technical Services at the National Film Theatre (NFT) and the Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI).
In 1996 with Mo Heard, he started the small independent publishing company The Projection Box. At that time Stephen was also working as a consultant on film museums in Dubai and Qtar. He was technical consultant on television programmes, and films including Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese.
Stephen was a meticulous researcher, writing thousands of words for his Blog The Optilogue : Studies in Popular Optical Media, on a wide variety of subjects within the field.
He was exceedingly generous, keen to share his expertise, and offering help and advice to people from around the world with their visual media projects.
“A true gentleman.… an irreparable loss for all the film community.“
Frederico Striuli Freelance film programmer
To find more details: https://theoptilogue.wordpress.com/about-me/
Stephen Herbert 