Charles Urban is an American producer, director, cinematographer and editor born April 14, 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio (United States), died August 29, 1942 in Brighton (United Kingdom).
Urban made many types of non-fiction films at the Charles Urban Trading Company, including travel films, war reports, exploration films, sports films, commercials and natural history films. Filmmakers who worked for him include Jack Avery, Joseph Rosenthal, Charles Rider Noble, Harold Mease Lomas, mountaineer Frank Ormiston-Smith, George Rogers, J. Gregory Mantle, and naturalist F. Percy Smith. Smith directed one of Urban's most successful films, The Balancing Bluebottle (1908), which featured a fly balancing objects such as a wine cork with its legs.
In 1906, George Albert Smith and Charles Urban created a new process in England, Kinémacolor, which recreated the impression of (partial) colors in cinema. Marketed at the beginning of 1911, the process was used in some 250 short films.
