A hundred years after the invention of 16mm, we dig into the history and technology of a film format that transformed the way moving images were made and distributed.
The idea of combining film and sound had been around since the invention of the cinema itself: Thomas Edison had commissioned the Kinetograph to provide visual images for his phonograph, and William Dickson had actually synchronized the two machines in a device briefly marketed in the 1890s as the Kinetophone. Léon Gaumont’s Chronophone in France and Cecil Hepworth’s Vivaphone system in England employed a similar technology, and each was used to produce hundreds of synchronized shorts between 1902 and 1912. In Germany producer-director Oskar Messter began to release all of his films with recorded musical scores as early as 1908.
Lights! Camera! Action! ithaca.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ithaca.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.