Ambroise-François Parnaland

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Ambroise-François Parnaland (* 1854 in Tournus , Saône-et-Loire , † May 23, 1913 in Paris ) was a French inventor and film producer.

Life

Parnaland lived in Paris from 1890 and worked as an auditor. His hobby was inventing and building mechanical objects. Together with his brother, he applied for several patents on it. On April 24, 1895, he founded the company Parnaland Frères for the purpose of patent exploitation, whose logo "PF" later led to confusion with that of the Pathé Frères .

One of Parnaland's interests was chronophotography ( serial photography ), with which Eadweard Muybridge , Étienne-Jules Marey , Georges Demenÿ and numerous others had already experimented. In February 1896 he applied for his first patent for a film camera . The device with the name "Phototheagraphe" transported its imperforate film by means of a piston and still proved to be cumbersome, but on June 9 of the same year Parnaland was able to use a more sophisticated mechanism with medium perforation in France and a month with its further developed camera "Cinepar" later also patented in the USA. His first films, which he sold together with his cameras in his own shop in Paris, were made in 1897. With the photographer and cameraman Clément-Maurice , he made recordings of operations by the surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen from June 1898 . When these seemed to have become a bestseller at Parnaland Frères and were seen at fairground performances, Doyen filed a lawsuit against Parnaland to clarify the exploitation rights, which he won in 1905. He was awarded 8000 francs in damages and the release of the films because the court regarded the films as Doyen's artistic property with reference to the right to one's own picture and Parnaland had not given his permission to sell the film recordings commercially. Clément-Maurice also worked with Parnaland's cameras on the recordings for his sound film experiments , which he presented in his Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre since the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 . Parnaland Frères marketed various film equipment until 1907 and offered 480 of its own films in its catalog, which were intended for showing at fairs.

In 1907, Ambroise-François Parnaland wanted to expand his business with financial support from the lawyer Charles Jourjon . On April 22nd of that year, together with Clément-Maurice and Marcel Vandal, they founded the company Éclair , which from then on was to distribute Parnaland's films and cameras. A chateau in Épinay-sur-Seine was acquired as a studio and company headquarters . The company hired Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset , who established from 1908 with film series such as Nick Carter and Zigomar Éclair position as the third largest French film company after Pathé and Gaumont . Jourjon pushed Parnaland out of management by 1909 at the latest. He turned back to camera production and marketing and in 1912 switched to accounting.

literature

  • Laurent Mannoni: Parnaland, Ambroise-François . In: Richard Abel Encyclopedia of Early Cinema , 2005, p. 499 f.
  • Laurent Mannoni: Ambroise-François Parnaland, pioniere del cinema e co-fondatore della società Éclair. In: Richard Abel, Lorenzo Codelli Lightning Images: the Éclair Company, 1907-1920 , Griffithiana 47, pp. 10-30

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://wichm.home.xs4all.nl/cinelisc.html
  2. ↑ Patent US610560 A - AF PARNALAND. KINETOGRAPHIC CAMERA.
  3. ↑ Thierry Lefebvre: Dr. Eugène-Louis Doyen and the beginnings of the surgery film
  4. ^ Wenceslas J. Wagner: The Right to One's Own Likeness in French Law . In: Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 46, 1970, pp. 18 f.
  5. ^ Danièle Clermontel: Chronologie scientifique, technologique et économique de la France , 2009, p. 274
personal data
SURNAME Parnaland, Ambroise-François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French inventor and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Tournus , Saône-et-Loire
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1913
Place of death Paris