Mondo Knows Facts
Kodak's 16mm film was launched for amateurs
Kodak launched the smaller gauge in 1923 for hobbyists and schools Kodak brought out 16mm film in 1923, aimed at amateurs, schools and industry rather than cinemas. It ran through smaller, lighter cameras and cost far less than 35mm. Television news and documentary crews later adopted 16mm, and a Super 16 variant is still used for drama today. It sits in Mondo's movies & tv collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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More facts like this
Film stock was slit from 70mm rollsEastman Kodak cut Edison's wide roll in half to make the standard gaugeSuper 8 made home movies cheap and simpleKodak launched the cartridge format in 1965 with cameras to matchSuper 35 crops the picture for widescreenThe negative is exposed full height and masked to a wide shape laterOptical sound is printed beside the pictureA wavering line of light and dark runs down the edge of every frameSeventy millimetre prints carried magnetic soundStrips of iron oxide were glued to the edges to hold six audio tracksAn IMAX frame is about ten times largerThe format runs film sideways through the camera at 15 perforations a frame
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Tags: 1923, film-formats, kodak
Kodak's 16mm film was launched for amateurs: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Kodak launched the smaller gauge in 1923 for hobbyists and schools. The figure is taken from Kodak, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a movies & tv fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.