Iwan Serrurier

Iwan Serrurier was a Dutch-born electrical engineer notable for inventing the Moviola. Iwan Serrurier moved to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. He settled with his wife Catharina in Pasadena, California, where he sold real estate and worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad as a draftsman. Around 1917 Serrurier developed a home movie projector, which he called the "Moviola" since it was a similar concept to a Victrola. The device was hard to sell to home users since it cost $600 in 1920, a very large sum. An editor at Douglas Fairbanks Studios suggested that Serrurier should adapt the device for use by film editors; he did this and the Moviola as an editing device was born in 1924. In 1946 Iwan Serrurier's son Mark...