Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book explores 100 years of 16mm film, a foundational but often forgotten 20th century media phenomenon. The contributors chart the ways this uniquely important film format—constituted by a family of technologies and a broad range of practices—revolutionized filmmaking and watching, radically changing how, why, and by whom films were made. 16mm forever shaped what films look like and crucially opened up the many ways in which moving images could be watched. From its introduction in 1923 and for decades thereafter, the portability, affordability, adaptability, and user–friendliness of 16mm enabled new film forms and functions, innovative styles and stories, and expanded possibilities for screening and using motion pictures. A Century in 16mm demonstrates that in contrast to the high–tech, big–budget, often centralized commercial film monopolies, 16mm was a powerful do–it–yourself set of tools and ideas for an expanding audio–visual age. Relying on new research, chapters examine the technologies of 16mm and the international uses of this format by scientists, artists, missionaries, activists, amateurs, commercial entrepreneurs, and, not least of all, by state agencies the world over. Long before laptops or smart phones, these 16mm practices led to new ways to view and engage with moving images and sounds, shaping a lasting ecosystem of small–scale media and forever changing the role of media in industry, science, government, art and culture. This book tells a series of compelling stories not just about a unique film format, or about the past, but about the world we all inhabit today.</jats:p>