The first photographic film is credited to John Corbutt †, an Englishman working in Philadelphia, who in 1888 coated sheets of celluloid with photographic emulsion. The following year George Eastman produced roll film, designed for a new camera called the Kodak; after exposure the film would be returned still in the camera for processing.

Daylight loading film was produced by Eastman Kodak in 1894.

The early films were highly inflammable, and gradually became replaced by non inflammable cellulose acetate in the 1930s. Cine projection seemed to be a pretty hazardous business, if the advice to users printed in New Photographer, 2 January 1926 is anything to go by:

"Choose a room with more than one exit door if possible, and make sure that the windows can be easily opened in the event of the film charring and beginning to emit smoke, as this smoke is poisonous... Keep a bucket of damp sand close by the projector, and at the first sign of a flare-up throw the machine on the bare floor and tip the sand all over it. If this is done smartly without fuss, and if the people are at once got out of the room and the windows opened, no great harm will accrue beyond the destruction of the film..."

† Well, it depends where you look! One book states that the idea of a paper roll film was first conceived by Arthur James Melhuish in 1854. Even more interesting is the story of Revd. Hannibal Goodwin, which clearly suggests that Eastman Kodak had made a claim to inventing film that was unjustified.


By Dr. Robert Leggat