August Arnold, 1918 The Arriflex 35, 1937

Born in Werfen, near Salzburg, Austria; the "AR" in ARRI. Since its founding in 1917, ARRI has been an innovator in all areas of motion picture technology. Starting as a small shop repairing and modifying cameras used by the two founding partners and film pioneers, August Arnold and Robert Richter, ARRI quickly developed into an enterprise which built their own cameras, lights, printers and processing machines. In the thirties, August Arnold and Erich Kästner developed the first reflex shutter system for series-produced cine cameras. Arnold & Richter presented the Arriflex 35, the first industrially produced 35-mm SLR camera, at the 1937 Leipzig trade fair. For the first time, the cameraman could see in the viewfinder precisely the image that was captured on film. In 1982 the two designers of the Arriflex 35 were awarded an Oscar® for their revolutionary life's work. Arnold worked as cinematographer on DER VAMPYR (1920) and produced German films in the 1930s: GRENZFEUER / BORDER PATROL (1934), MUSIK ZU ZWEIEN, DER BITTSTELLER, BEIM RECHTSANWALT, BEIM NERVENARZT and ES WAREN ZWEI JUNGELSELLEN (all 1936), DER ANTENNENDRAHT (1937), and DER RETTENDE ENGEL (1940).  Academy Award of Merit (Statuette) 1982 - For the concept and engineering of the first operational 35mm, hand-held, spinning-mirror reflex, motion picture camera (reflex camera). (w. Erich Kästner - both of Arnold & Richter GmbH) 1 Scientific/Technical Award