Page 16 - untitled

The Cinema At Home by Roger Seccombe

'Borne Movies' are probably as old as the cinema itself. onymous in the minds of most with 'Kodak Film'. By con-
We have that apochryphal story of British cinema pioneer trast, the early competitive 9.5mm film gauge became iden-
William Friese Greene inviting a passing London 'bobby' tified with Pathe Freres of France. The 'gauge war·, as it
into his home to see his fLrst experiments with moving pic- later was known amongst amateur film makers, was largely
tures (immortalised in the film The Magic Box). fought out at first between the adherents of 16mm and those
of 9.5mm. The latter was, in fact, not much smaller in pic-
While Lumiere's pioneering efforts in Paris filming arriv- ture area than 16mm. In those early years standard 8mm
als of trains and street scenes were undoubtedly first tried never really got a look-in amongst serious film makers and
out on family or friends. Then too, of course, there were gained the derogato1y nickname as the 'bootlace' gauge.
the private screening rooms in the homes of American cin- As time passed, however, and costs increased, 16mrn as-
ema moguls: De-Mille had one, so did other luminaries. sumed the mantle of a semi-professional ftlmstock, 9.5mm
went into a slow decline and Kodak pushed 8mm as the
But the popular notion of the movies at home didn't reaiJy major amateur film gauge.
take off in a big way until safety film was available on both
16mm and 9.5mm stock especially developed for the ama- Movies in the Home
teur film market. The dangers of nitrate film fires on 35mm
Essentially there were two complementary influences at
were too well documented to imagine that p01table lime-
work in promoting home cinema. The major one reflected
light burning 35mm projectors would have been too wel-
the growing intereslt in shooting home movies. [n all so1ts
come in the lounge rooms of well-heeled film fans! The
of magazines aimed at the more affluent middle classes,
fear of the old inflammable nitrate stock was even echoed
especially in America, advertisements proclaimed the fas-
in early advertisements for the new I 6mm and 9 .5mm home
cination with the new craze of home movie making. In the
movie equipment.
late 1920's, in publications like the National Geographic,
competing comparues like Eastman Kodak and Bell and
Howell extolled the virtues of their new 16mm cameras and
projectors:
"Movies in the home•·: the target was to sell equipment to
the movie fan. "Movies of the family" ... "Record of your
vacation" ... "Baby on the lawn" etc. The moving 'snapshot'
was the new angle.

The 'art' of film making rarely got a look-in, but then, the
cinema itself was
scarcely out of its own
infancy stage and the
novelty of the moving
image in the home was
a direct throw-back to
those first magical
moments of the mov
ies' own adolescence
not many years earlier.

The second, and less
promoted, aspect of
movies in the home was the screening of the products of
the cinema itself: shorts and featme films. A precursor to
PATHESCOPI!! LTD.- !S LISLE STRI!!:E T- L O N DON. W.C.2 the universal little box today in most living rooms. On one
l'&..altla toiUfTIOH -"'OlOO •• UU G• 'l'ka •c..t~a oo • "-'M c.oa a llf>"'OUIG WiT .... 0~1~U.I;IIU..
hand you find the marketing of 'toy' projectors as a child's
Pathescope advertisment: Mike Trickett Collection playd1ing: everything from do-it-yow·self make-believe 'cin-
emas' to primitive tinplate hand-cranked devices.
The Gauge War
How many later film makers cU£ their ftlmic teeth, as chil-
The new 16mm filmstocks were introduced in 1923, de-
dren, on winding short strips of movie film through hand-
scribed by the trade (with not a little contempt) as 'sub-
wound toy projectors-cum-playthings? Of course these
standard' stock (as distinct from 'standard' 35mm film).
primitive machines were generally low wattage jobs and
From the beginning George Eastman's Kodak empire was
the old rolls of 35mm nitrate filmstock posed few fLre risks
at the forefront of popularisi ng 16mrn. In fact, over the years
for child operators!
both this, and later in the 1930's, 8mm film became syn-
- 16 -