As Talbot points out in his 1914 book Moving Pictures, “it was the chemist who solved the problem of instantaneous photography” as he carried out “innumerable laboratory experiments for the purpose of rendering the sensitized surface more and more susceptible to light- accelerating it actinic speed” (Talbot, 2). By the end of the 19th century, camera apparatuses had been developed, but they lacked an ideal medium for exposure. Thus, an essential collaborative dialogue has always existed between the chemist and the mechanical engineer, the first working to devise new materials for sensitized plates and the second working to devise optical instruments that could minimize the interval between successive exposures. Before film, glass plates were used for motion pictures but they proved to be bulky, heavy, fragile, and awkward and also limited the number of images that could be captured. In a search to discover a more convenient and practical medium, numerous experiments were conducted to test various promising materials like gelatin, transparent paper, and of course, celluloid (Talbot, 23).

 

At the time, celluloid was not manufactured in thin sheets; special machinery would have to be designed to do so, given there was a market for the product. However a different strategy was realized where the celluloid was reduced into a liquid form which was poured over large glass plates and rolled out to form a thin skin. Then, this layer was covered with an emulsion layer and the whole sheet was left to dry before being cut into strips that would fit into the camera apparatuses. Unfortunately, this version of celluloid film had its deficiencies as it would buckle, warp, and shrink, making it difficult to achieve a uniform thickness and flatness (Talbot, 24). The problem was not yet resolved.

 

Finally, George Eastman conceived the first successful self-supporting celluloid film suited for Edison's Kinetoscope and Cinematograph. Like others, he experienced countless failures before arriving to a solution (no pun intended) in 1889 when he recognized the potential of one of his chemist’s actual solutions of gun-cotton in wood alcohol that was being used to create a varnish. This solution could be made almost as transparent as glass, and after devising a machine to prepare thin sheets of the mixture, Eastman was able to produce the first long strips of celluloid film in the United States (Talbot, 28). Celluloid film quickly became marketable as a commercial good in photography and cinematography.