Latham loop

It isolates the filmstrip from vibration and tension, allowing movies to be continuously shot and projected for extended periods.

Invention of the Latham loop is usually credited to film pioneers William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and Eugene Lauste.

Both men worked with Woodville Latham, developing a motion picture camera and projector in 1895.

Dickson later acknowledged Lauste as inventor of the loop, though rival claims were made in support of another Latham associate, engineer Enoch J. Rector, who used the technology to shoot an hour-and-a-half-long documentary film, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, in 1897.

When Thomas Edison excluded his competitor Biograph from licensing Edison's key motion picture patents in 1907, Biograph retaliated by purchasing the patent for the Latham loop.