09/29/2026
🎞️Happy National Silent Movie Day!🎞️
Did you know the founder of Sanborn Theatres (The Movie Experience) A.L. Sanborn began his career as a youngster working in production on Silent Films in Hollywood? He first worked at Paramount Pictures, and then as Assistant Director with business manager duties for Stuart Paton at Universal Studios on several films including Paton's 1916 "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". 🐙
🌊 This was the first feature-length motion picture filmed underwater. The film's pioneering underwater photography helped make it a landmark of early cinema. Imagine seeing the ocean floor on a movie screen for the first time 110 years ago!
📽️ The underwater scenes were photographed by the Williamson Submarine Film Corporation in the Bahamas. Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. For the scene featuring a battle with an octopus, cinematographer John Ernest Williamson devised a viewing chamber called the "photosphere", a 6×10-foot steel globe in which a cameraman could be placed. The chamber was connected to a boat by a submarine tube from where Williamson would give his directions. The results gave 1916 moviegoers sights few could ever have witnessed for themselves and helped make Universal's enormously ambitious production a milestone in motion-picture history. 🎬✨
#1916
