Iwan Serrurier
Iwan Serrurier was a Dutch-born electrical engineer notable for inventing the Moviola.Career
Iwan was the son of Lindor Serrurier, director of the ethnographic museum in Leiden, and Martina Lindo. In June 1903, Serrurier married Catharina Damme in Utrecht, soon after which they moved to the US and settled in Pasadena, California. Here their son Mark was born in May 1904. Serrurier 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 Serrurier took over as president of Moviola Co., Iwan’s company. In 1979 Mark was awarded a special Academy Award for Technical Achievement for himself and Iwan Serrurier for their special contribution to movie editing.
