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And then there is television. Over the last half
a century billions of feet of 16mm film have
been used in TV News; Documentaries;
Entertainment Features, Series production
and distribution. So, the "Sub-Standard"
people have nothing to be ashamed of. I have
worked on both sides of the dividing line, but
I still get very cross when I hear some old-
timer use that unfortunate word with all
its usual connotations.

The first movie camera I ever owned was a
secondhand 9.5mm Campro (c.1935). It was
the cheapest one on the shelf, and as the name
suggests it was a camera projector all in one.
(It sounded like a good idea at the time). As
a camera it was OK, but as a projector it was
hopeless.

I reckon that about half the people in the
Australian film industry at that time had their
first film making experience using a 9.5mm Filming at Mt. Macedon (Victoria) in 1946,
using my first home movie camera, a 9.5mm
camera and projector. The 9.5mm film and Campro, mounted on a flimsy tripod guaranteed
hardware were much cheaper than the to give shaky pictures.
equivalent in 16mm, and the makers of
9.5mm boasted that the image size was almost as large as 16mm anyway. This was
achieved by using the full width of the film for image area, with a narrow sprocket hole
centred between each frame.
Sixteen millimetre movie making was
generally considered to be a "rich man's toy"
but we all aspired to graduate to that class, at
least equipment-wise, as soon as possible. In
the meantime 9.5mm gave us the opportunity
to become masters of the moving image, at a
price we could almost afford. One or two
items in my collection remind me of those
days and as usual I find the beginnings of it
all quite fascinating, so here it is -

Left: The Campro camera-projector c. 1935

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