The Kinora was an early
motion picture device. It was developed by the French inventors
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...
in 1895, while simultaneously working on the
Cinematograph. It was patented in February 1896.
[
Basically a miniature version of the ]mutoscope
The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and later patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to ...
for home use, the Kinora worked very much like a flip book in the shape of a Rolodex
A Rolodex is a rotating card file device used to store business contact information. Its name, a portmanteau of the words ''rolling'' and ''index'', has become somewhat genericized (usually as ''rolodex'') for any personal organizer performing th ...
. It used conventional monochrome photographic prints fixed to strong, flexible cards attached to a circular core. A reel was revolved handle by turning a handle, making the pictures flip over against a static peg one by one. The moving pictures could be viewed through an eyepiece.[Kinora]
at dlt.ncssm.edu, accessed 28 October 2011
Or reels contained printed versions of films by the Lumières, later also films by other companies.
The Cinematograph proved very successful so the Lumières didn't bother about the Kinora, but passed the idea on to Gaumont who marketed the device and circa 100 different reels around 1900.[
The British rights to the Kinora were bought by The British Mutoscope & Biograph Co. in 1898, but the machine was not marketed in the UK until 1902.][
In May 1907 Biograph chairman W.T. Smedley set up Kinora Limited in London. The company introduced the first amateur Kinora camera in 1908,][ A Kinora Grand for reels of 1,000 pictures of 2 1/2" by 3" also featured in their advertising booklet.][ By 1914, when the company's London factory burned down, public interest in the Kinora had declined, at a time when the cinema screen held greater attractions. The company did not rebuild the lost factory.][
]
Notes
External links
Illustration and demonstration of the Kinora
Auguste and Louis Lumière
Film and video technology
History of film
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