Tweet What type of film stock did Melies use??

What make and type of film stock (orthocromatic or panchromatic) would Georges Melies have shot his movies on from 1896 to 1905?

I know he had to build his own camera but where did he get the film stock that far back? The Lumere Brothers?

Also, besides Kodak, who was making 35mm film stock back then?

Any one know?

Melies probably did use Lumiere Brothers stock and it was blue sensitive only; not even technically what we call orthochromatic today. For a short time in the history of film, the very first filmstock were dual purpose; both for negative and prints. You just used the same stock for different purposes and developed it to a higher contrast for the print.

I don't know that it is possible to fully understand just who was making motion picture filmstocks in that time frame, as all of Europe, especially Germany, was rife with small photochemical manufactures of glass plates, photographic paper and flexible base filmstocks.

Kodak held the majority lock on stocks in the USA and, with the help of the Patents Trust Company, maintained that hold for mainstream productions throughout the life of the Patents Trust Company, BUT independent distributor Charles Brualator (sp?) did supply many independent (aka "illegal") productions in the USA with Lumiere Brothers filmstock smuggled into the country.

Melies' first stocks were actually purchased by him as unperfed strips, which he himself perforated. AGFA-Gevaert begin producing MP stocks around 1903, so I suspect around that time was when he started buying pre-perfed stock.

Check out this: http://www.filmvorfuehrer.de/topic/9843 ... ntry129295" target="_blank

in talking about dual purpose with film stock, I would gather that is similar to the Vitagraph camera that perforated the raw stock and could be converted to a projector, an ultra primitive version of near instant playback as the films were not that long. This would become impractical when films started hitting the 3-reel on up running lengths.

After you developed the film ....

Bob