Film Industry Pioneers: Robert William Paul- The First British Film Producer

摘要

Robert Paul was born in Highbury on 3rd October 1869, and like so many of his contemporaries he became an electrical engineer with his own workshop in Hatten Garden. He had a successful business as a scientific instrument maker, and had no thoughts whatsoever about entering the new moving picture industry. But in 1894 the owners of an Oxford Street Kinetoscope parlour approached him to ask if he could make copies of the Edison Kinetoscope machines that they were already operating. Paul discovered that Edison had not bothered to patent the Kinetoscope in England, so he seized the opportunity of this extra business and agreed to make several machines. Paul was successful in copying the Kinetoscope, and after completing his initial order he made and sold around 60 machines for other Kinetoscope operators in the area.