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The Development of the Motion Picture Raw Film Industry
By George A. Blair
Eastman Kodak Company
MANUFACTURING film for all of the many uses to which the motion picture is being daily adapted has always been a technical and precise task, involving great capital outlay and meticulous care and inspection in every stage of the process.
When one considers that each single picture is frequently magnified some 180 diameters or 30,000 times in area on the screen and run through a projector at tremendous speed, an appreciation of the machinery and methods involved in manufacturing film free from any obvious blemishes may be more easily reached.
While motion pictures are now more than thirty years old, no great volume of raw film was produced until about fifteen years ago. With the phenomenal growth of the industry, the demands upon the manufacturers have steadily increased, until now the Eastman Kodak Company turns out more than 200,000 miles of film yearly, 'j
Those who can remember thenrst crude movies of the nickelodeon period cannot view one of the modern feature pictures and not wonder at the rapid development of this, the greatest of all photographic arts.
George Eastman's Contribution
It was through the discovery of the nitro-cellulose film base in 1889 by George Eastman that motion pictures to-day are possible. Prior to this time Thomas A. Edison was busy eagerly seeking to depict pictures in motion. He lacked, however, the medium of the flexible film to perfect his invention.
This the coincidence of the Eastman discovery solved. The nitro-cellulose film base proved to be the "missing link" for which Mr. Edison had been looking.
What Mr. Eastman contributed toward the invention of motion pictures may best be told in his own words from a quotation in a letter which is now a permanent record of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. In the first part of this letter he tells of his discovery of the nitro-cellulose film support and the establishment of the first factory in Rochester to manufacture this product in 1889. Continuing, he writes:
While we were engaged in fitting up this factory I received a call from a representative of Mr. Edison who told me of Mr. Edison's experiments with motion pictures and how necessary it was for him to have some of this film. The idea of making pictures to depict objects in motion was entirely new to me, but of course I was much interested in the project and did my best to furnish him film as near to his specifications regarding fineness of grain and thickness as possible.
As far as I know, the film we furnished him then and from time to time later was satisfactory. In the years during which the motion picture industry has been developed, we have made many improvements in the way of fineness of grain, photographic quality and uniformity, but the film made today is substantially the same as the first film furnished Mr. Edison.
All the experimental film which was furnished Mr. Edison was negative film. Special film for printing positives was not made until 1895. The
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