National Science and Media Museum facts for kids
National Science and Media Museum with statue of J. B. Priestley
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| Former name | National Media Museum National Museum of Photography, Film and Television |
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| Established | 16 June 1983 |
| Location | Bradford, West Yorkshire, England |
| Collections | National Photography Collection, National Cinematography Collection, National Television Collection, National New Media Collection |
| Collection size | 3.5 million items |
| Visitors | 439,916 (2019) |
| National Museum of Science and Industry | |
| National Media Museum · National Railway Museum (Shildon Locomotion Museum) · Science Museum (Dana Centre, Science Museum Swindon) | |
The National Science and Media Museum is a super cool place in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It's part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK. This museum has seven floors packed with awesome stuff! You can explore permanent exhibits about photography, television, animation, videogaming, the Internet, and even the science behind light and colour.
The museum also has special temporary exhibits that change often. Plus, it keeps a huge collection of 3.5 million items in its research area. It's like a giant treasure chest of media history!
Did you know the museum has three cinemas? One of them was Europe's very first IMAX screen, which opened way back in April 1983. The museum hosts fun festivals about wide-screen films, video games, and science. It used to have popular film festivals, like the Bradford International Film Festival, until 2014.
In 2011, people voted the museum the best indoor attraction in Yorkshire. It's one of the most visited museums in the north of England! In 2016, the Science Museum Group planned to invest £7.5 million over five years to make the museum even better. In March 2017, its name changed from National Media Museum to National Science and Media Museum.
As of July 2023, the museum is closed for a big project. It will reopen in 2025 with two brand new galleries!
Visiting the Museum
It's free to enter the museum, but you need to buy tickets for the cinema shows. The museum is usually open from 10 am to 6 pm every day.
In 1998, the museum had a huge £16 million makeover. They added a new digital technology gallery and a cool glass-fronted area. This new area has a café where you can grab a snack and a shop to find souvenirs.
Awesome Galleries to Explore
The museum has six main exhibits that are always there:
- Kodak Gallery: This gallery takes you on a journey through the history of photography. You'll see everything from the very first photos ever taken to the digital pictures we snap today. Most of the items here come from a huge collection of 35,000 objects and images given by the Kodak company.
- Wonderlab: This is a super interactive gallery where you can explore light and sound. It has hands-on exhibits and even live science experiments! It opened in 2016 and replaced the old Experience TV gallery.
- BFI Mediatheque: Here, you can watch films and TV shows from the British Film Institute collection. It's like having access to a huge library of British TV history!
- Games Lounge: Get ready to play! This lounge has classic video games you can try on their original arcade machines or consoles. You'll also learn about the history of video gaming and how it became a worldwide hit.
- Sound and Vision: These are exciting new galleries that are planned to open in 2025. Get ready for more amazing experiences!
Cool Cinemas to Watch Films
The museum is home to the first ever permanent IMAX cinema in the UK. It opened in 1983! You could even see the projector from a special booth. They showed popular films like Apollo 13 and The Lion King on the giant screen. In 1999, IMAX upgraded the system to show awesome 3D movies. In 2015, they switched to digital projectors, so the old film projector is no longer visible.
The museum also has the Pictureville Cinema. Famous director David Puttnam once called it 'the best cinema in the world'! Pictureville shows all kinds of films, from old 70mm movies to new digital ones. It plays everything from Hollywood blockbusters to Bollywood films, and even silent movies with digital sound. It's one of only three public cinemas in the world that can show original 3-strip 35mm Cinerama films. It's the only one in the UK! You can see Cinerama films at the yearly Widescreen Weekend festival.
The Cubby Broccoli Cinema is named after the producer of the James Bond films. It has 106 seats and is used for many different film showings.
Insight Centre
The Insight centre is a special place where you can see parts of the museum's collections that aren't usually on display. You need to book a visit in advance to explore these hidden treasures.
Amazing Collections
The museum's collection holds 3.5 million items! These items are super important for history, culture, and understanding society. Some of the most famous things include:
- The very first photographic negative.
- The earliest television footage ever recorded.
- The world's first colour moving pictures.
- Louis Le Prince's 1888 films Roundhay Garden Scene and Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge.
- A collection of 35,000 objects and images from Kodak.
- About 1,000 historical items from the BBC.
- The huge photo archive of the Daily Herald newspaper, with millions of pictures.
- The original toys from the BBC show Play School.
- Objects and designs used to make Hammer horror films.
You can see many of these items at the museum's Insight study centre.
The collection of the Royal Photographic Society was moved to the museum in 2003. However, in 2017, most of this collection started moving to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The National Science and Media Museum will keep items that help show how photography developed, like the Kodak collection, and things that are important to Bradford, like the Daily Herald archive.
Museum History
Early Days: National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
The museum is built on a site in Bradford where a theatre was supposed to be built in the 1960s, but it was never finished. Dame Margaret Weston from the Science Museum, London, and Bradford's city leaders decided to create the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television there. It opened on June 16, 1983.
Money from the local area and the Science Museum helped turn the unfinished building into a museum. The old theatre bars and dressing rooms became galleries. The museum's main attraction was its huge IMAX cinema. It opened with "the largest cinema screen in Britain," which was five storeys high! Back then, the museum focused on the art and science of images. Colin Ford, the first director, believed that understanding how images are made helps us appreciate them more.
In 1986, to celebrate 50 years of public television, two interactive TV galleries were added. Visitors could use cameras, mix sounds, read news from an autocue, and learn about chroma keying (green screen). In 1989, for photography's 150th birthday, the Kodak Gallery opened. It showed the history of photography from its start. Later, a real TV studio was built, which was even used by TV channels like TV-am and Nickelodeon. These were the first live broadcasting studios in a museum!
The museum closed its main building on August 31, 1997, for a big 19-month, £16 million makeover. It made the museum 25% bigger! The IMAX cinema was also updated to show 3D films. The new museum was opened on June 16, 1999, by actor Pierce Brosnan.
Becoming the National Media Museum
On December 1, 2006, the museum changed its name to the National Media Museum. Two new £3 million interactive galleries opened: Experience TV (now Wonderlab) and TV Heaven (now BFI Mediatheque). These galleries showed the past, present, and future of television. They had scientific exhibits, like TV inventor John Logie Baird's original equipment. They also had fun items like a Wallace and Gromit film set and Play School toys. TV Heaven let visitors watch over 1000 British TV shows from 60 years of history. TV Heaven closed in 2013, but you can still watch 50 shows through the BFI Mediatheque.
In 2009, the museum helped Bradford become the world's first UNESCO City of Film.
In February 2010, the museum updated its entrance area. This included a brand new Games Lounge. This gallery was so popular that it became a permanent part of the museum!
In March 2012, the museum opened Life Online. This was the world's first gallery all about the Internet and how it changed our lives.
In October 2014, the museum partnered with Picturehouse Cinemas to run its three cinema screens. This helped boost ticket sales. However, the museum later stopped being part of the Bradford International Film Festival. This decision, along with moving a big photo collection to London, caused some debate.
In August 2016, the museum announced that its Experience TV gallery would close. A new gallery called Wonderlab opened in spring 2017. It lets visitors explore the science of light and sound with interactive exhibits.
Today: National Science and Media Museum
In March 2017, the museum opened its £1.8 million interactive Wonderlab gallery. It also announced its new name: the National Science and Media Museum. Wonderlab is all about light and sound. It has a mirror maze, a 15-meter echo tube, and a musical laser tunnel! It even has the world's first permanent 3D-printed zoetrope.
In August 2017, The Magic Factory exhibit closed. Its space was turned into a new activity and picnic area called Makespace.
In September 2017, the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft was displayed at the museum. This was the capsule that brought British astronaut Tim Peake back to Earth after his time on the International Space Station. It was the first time the capsule was shown outside London!
In April 2018, the museum reported 505,000 visits in one year. This was a 25% increase and the highest number since 2009!
In September 2019, the museum announced it would run its cinemas independently again. This new cinema operation officially launched on November 1, 2019, under the name Pictureville.
On June 5, 2023, the museum temporarily closed for a big refurbishment. Life Online is being improved, and the TV Gallery and Animation Gallery are being redeveloped into the new Sound and Vision Galleries. The museum is set to reopen in 2025.
Fun Festivals at the Museum
The museum hosts some exciting festivals throughout the year!
Widescreen Weekend
This festival started as part of the Bradford International Film Festival. Now it's a four-day event all on its own! It happens every October and focuses on large-screen films and cinema technology. You can see films in special formats like 70mm and Cinerama.
Yorkshire Games Festival
This video game festival started in 2016. It celebrates game culture, design, and how games are made. It has talks and events for families. It used to be in November but moved to February in 2019. Famous game creators have attended this festival!
Bradford Science Festival
This family science festival first took place in 2012. The museum took over running it in 2017, working with partners like the University of Bradford and Bradford Council. It's a great way to explore science in a fun way!
