Richard Ashton’s Presentation on pioneering Australian Cinema equipment manufacturers.
Though Australia was a significant pioneers of full length movies, the fledgling Australian film industry was eventually overwhelmed by the American movie product. Attempts were also made to stifle Australian manufacturers of cinema equipment. Now this story has been researched in great detail and been told in a massive illustrated document, which is covered in the following video presentation.
Perhaps the most detailed presentation ever made of the history of the Cummings and Wilson company and affiliated cinema projection equipment manufacturers was made in November, 2009, at the National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA) in Canberra, by veteran television identity and cinema enthusiast and scholar Richard Ashton.
This was the culmination of several years of research, visits to various state libraries and archives, and a Fellowship at the NFSA in Canberra. Cummings and Wilson projectors were first made just after the First World War. A company partnership was formed to manufacture cinema projectors under the heading Australian Biograph, designed and manufactured by Cummings and Wilson. The company was headed by James Cummings and Harold Wilson who together designed and manufactured their machines at 29 Alberta Street Sydney.
The presentation also covered other Australian companies, such as cinema sound pioneers Raycophone and their distribution and installation arrangements. Working details and descriptive parts lists of the many C&W models has been included in extensive manuals Richard has produced on the subject.
Richard’s presentation also covered the opposition the Australian’s encountered in competing with the more expensive American manufacturers, who wanted a monopoly in this field.
