Our Lady Procession

The silent 16 mm format was initially aimed at the home enthusiast, but by the 1930s it had begun to make inroads into the educational market. The addition of optical sound tracks and, most notably, Kodachrome in 1935, gave an enormous boost to the 16 mm market. Used extensively in WW2, there was a huge expansion of 16 mm professional filmmaking in the post-war years. Films for government, business, medical and industrial clients created a large network of 16 mm professional filmmakers and related service industries in the 1950s and 1960s. The advent of television production also enhanced the use of 16 mm film, initially for its advantage of cost and portability over 35 mm. At first used as a news-gathering format, the 16 mm format was also used to create television programming shot outside the confines of the more rigid television studio production sets. The home movie market gradually switched to the even less expensive 8 mm film and Super 8 mm format.

Our Garden

an old super 8 mm movie

Gardening has been very popular in Holland at least since the renaissance and today Holland is the centre of Europe's horticultural industry. There are many Dutch gardens from the Baroque period, though they tend to be on a smaller scale then equivalent French gardens – which makes them closer together and much easier to visit. The character of Dutch gardens can be seen from the aerial photographs on our Dutch Garden Finder pages. Holland produces a high proportion of Europe's plant stock but it is not as evident in gardens as one might expect.

 

Playing with puppets

Puppet film develops on the basis of traditional puppetry. It is in the form of a film that the main characters are puppets. Puppets’ limbs are controlled by people and their mouths usually does not move frequently. The height of a puppet is approximately 20 centimeters and the background is a model which fits the size of the puppet. The film is shot by grid-by-frame photography. Puppet film starts around 1900s. Between 1930s and 1980s, most genres of puppet films are comedy and animation. There are some famous magnum opus such as Thunderbird series and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. After 1980s, many horror puppet films appeared such as Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. Compared to other films, puppet film focuses more on characters’ movements and the main audiences are children and teenagers. More and more reality elements are added into puppet film in recent years.