Skladanowsky, Max

Born Apr. 30, 1863 in Berlin; died there Nov. 30, 1939. German inventor. One of the creators of the motion picture.

Independently of L. Lumière, Skladanowsky constructed an apparatus in 1895 for photographing and projecting films. The apparatus, which he called a bioscope, consisted of a double projector and two cemented strips of celluloid film. Skladanowsky made several films up to 1.5 m in length composed of 48 frames each, including The Italian Peasant Dance, Acrobats, and The Juggler; he demonstrated the films for the first time in Berlin in November 1895. In 1895 and 1896 he showed motion pictures in Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. Because of its high cost and unsuitability for mass production, the bioscope was supplanted by more technically advanced equipment designed by the German inventor O. Messter.