16mm Projector

Flickers of light fly by as the once silent screen screams into life with the brightness of a sunny day. You sit back so smugly in your big cushioned theater seat, swinging bits of popcorn into your mouth, knowing that you are about to be taken on a journey through time and space, beyond your grandfather's wildest dreams. The two major suppliers of 16 mm film today are Kodak and Fujifilm. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) played a large part in the development of the format. They worked extensively with Kodak during the 1950s and 1960s to bring 16 mm to a professional level, since the BBC needed cheaper, more portable production solutions while maintaining a higher quality than was offered at the time, when the format was mostly for home display of theatrical shorts, newsreels, and cartoons, documentary capture and display for various purposes (including education), and limited "high end" amateur use. Today the format also is frequently used for student films, while usage in documentary has almost disappeared. With the advent of HDTV, Super 16 film is still used for some productions destined for HD. Some low-budget theatrical features are shot on 16 mm and super 16 mm such as Kevin Smith's 16 mm 1994 independent hit Clerks. Ironically, thanks to advances in film stock and digital technology - specifically digital intermediate (DI) - the format has experienced a dramatic improvement in picture quality since the 1970s and is now seen as revitalized option. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=124926