PRỐSZYŃSKI, Kazimierz

In 1894/95 and from 1905 to 1908, P. studied at the Faculty of Technology of the University of Leig. In 1895, he constructed the first cinematographic camera, the so-called »pleograph«. The deciding element in the construction was the moving of the strip inside the camera and making a transmitter for the filmstrip. »Pleograph« was a device which enabled playing and recording. In 1895, P. recorded the first short films. After constantly trying to improve his device, P. presented his new invention »biopleograph« in 1899, which prevented the wavering and jumping of the film, and could be used for cinematographic projections. In 1899, a camera for film amateurs was created.
At a cinematographic exhibition in Warsaw in 1901, P. presented his cameras and played short films of the streets of Warsaw and a few fictitious scenes, among others a film entitled Adventures of a Cabman. The Pleograf limited liability company was established in the same year for the production and sale of his cameras, but was supplanted as early as 1903 by French competition.
In 1903, a world premiere took place in Warsaw: during the first performance of Wagner's opera Valkyrie at the Great Theatre, a film projection was played on stage for the first time. A 20 m long film depicted the valkyries flying on clouds.
After finishing his studies, P. left for Paris in 1908. With the use of the so-called circular shutter, which evenly refracted light during projection, he succeeded in completely eliminating vibrations of the image. The »cinematograph«, which he presented in 1909, enabled the use of 3000 m long films and thus decisively contributed to the spread of the cinema. The Paris Academy of Sciences and the French Society for the Advancement of National Industry commended his camera.
Due to financial difficulties, P. was later on forced to sell his invention. The so-called »aeroscope", P.'s first hand-held film camera, was therefore presented at the French Academy of Sciences in 1910 by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Gabriel Lippmann. The camera, which originally ran on compressed air and was later powered by an accumulator located in the pouch, had a 137 m long film and enabled approximately 15 minutes of footage. In 1913, the invention received a gold medal at the international cinematography exhibition.
P.'s »cinematograph« was used massively during World War I for war reportage. He also adapted the camera to filming in the air; it was first used so in 1920, during a flight around the world. It remained in use until the invention of the sound filmstrip.
In 1907, P. registered a patent for a »cinephon«. This new camera enabled the synchronisation of image and sound. In 1913, he used this camera to make the first footage with sound. A year later, at the Royal Photographic Society in London, he presented a new cinematographic camera for amateurs, called »eye«.
World War I prevented him from developing the cameras further. In 1921, P. returned to Poland. In 1922, he founded the limited liability company Oko [eye], which he named »Central European Workshop of Amateur Cinematographers of the Engineer P.«; it only existed for three years.
During World War II, he developed a new structure of the »eye« camera, this time with a 16 mm wide film. He also developed a camera called »autoreader«, which enabled the blind to read books.
Before 1900, P. was also engaged in transmitting moving images. In 1898, he presented the so-called »telephot« in Warsaw, which was of practically no use, but still ranks P. as one of the pioneers of television technology. From 1925 onwards, he was a partial owner of the newspaper Gazeta Świąteczna.
In 1944, P. was arrested and taken to the Mauthausen (Austria) concentration camp, where he was murdered.