The term Film Pack is now generally applied to the Premo Film Pack introduced in 1903 by the Rochester Optical Co. based on a patent by J.E. Thornton. Other film pack arrangements were developed around the same time but did not have the same commercial success.

The systems differ in detail but the essentials were that a number of cut films were held by, or attached to, a paper backing with tabs by which they could be moved from the front to the back of the pack. Several methods of attaching individual films to a roll of film were proposed but were not put into production.