Chatou Infos

10/10 In the late 1890s–early 1900s, their precision workshop at Chatou was acquired / involved with Claude Grivolas, leading to a merger with Pathé. The company became a major supplier of projectors like the 'Le Robuste' model and cameras for Pathé, helping industrialize French cinema production and distribution worldwide. Continsouza later designed projectors under his own name or for Pathé (such as contributions to the Pathé Kok). Bünzli also experimented later with short 3D films and Stereoscopic devices like the Bünzli L’Animateur which I have a series on. While celluloid strip film quickly dominated due to longer runtimes and easier duplication, the disk approach highlighted safety and simplicity concerns in the 1890s. Surviving examples of their mechanisms (often unmarked or attributed to Clément & Gilmer in some auctions) are rare collector items, with mechanisms from ~1897 still documented in museums or private hands. Mécanique Industrielle de Précision or MIP, the company Pierre-Victor Continsouza co-founded in 1928, made projectors until the beginning of the 1960s, first in Paris and from 1938 on, at the site of the Brand's factory in Tulle, Corrèze. -30-