28 mm film

[1] Within fifteen years of its establishment, Pathé Frères was arguably the largest entertainment company in the world.

[2] They had purchased all the rights to the films of George Méliès as well as the Lumiere Brothers' cine camera/projector patents within the first decade of the twentieth century.

[2] Pathé created an improved studio camera that ruled the market in Europe and America as well as making his own film stock.

[3] In 1906 Pathé Frères began to market themselves to the upper-class society in France by building the world's first luxury cinema, the Omnia-Pathé.

In 1910 Arthur Roussel was hired to build a machine that would enable the public to view a film inside their home.

This projector featured dynamo lighting which was "powered by a belt from a large flywheel connected to the main shaft.

The projector "sold for 30 dollars which included two printed films, a screen, metal carrying case and cleaning outfit.

[2] As World War I grew more intense, production in France came to a halt, but sales continued in the United States and Canada.

In 1916 Willard Beech Cook began working on a new 28 mm projector that would be smaller in order to bring production cost down.

Many of the films were originally created in Europe, but eventually the selection contained American pictures starring actors such as Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.

Kodak’s larger film library was superior in both scale and quality, so much so that when Willard Beech Cook was asked to run it in 1924 he accepted the job offer.

Big-budget Hollywood pictures such as The Birth of a Nation had grabbed the attention of the public in France, and 28 mm film was no longer profitable.