Louis Aim Auguston Le Prince

Born in Metz, France, Louis Aim studied chemistry and physics at university and then worked as a photographer and painter. By the 1880s, he was one of many inventors trying to master the technology for what would become film. Le Prince's first camera had 16 lenses, which took "sequential photographs". He then moved on and used a single-lens camera to film short sequences of people and carriages and his son, Adolphe, playing the accordion. The film used paper-based strips with one side covered with high-sensitive silver halide crystals made into a gelatinous emulsion.

The technology to view the film did not exist. Le Prince experimented with projection techniques and was due to hold his first public screening in New York in 1890. But he never got there. While visiting his brother Albert in France with two friends, Le Prince was said to have boarded a train from Dijon to Paris in September 1890. He was never seen again. His disappearance created an international story that has never been solved.