Early Pioneer: Eadweard Muybridge

Who is Eadweard Muybridge?

Eadweard Muybridge was an English Photographer and working in photographic studies of motion and motion-picture projection. Muybridge moved to America as a Young man and lived in San Francisco.  Muybridge started his career as a publisher’s agent and bookseller, but developed an interest in photography that seems to been boosted when he was recovering in England in 1860 after nearly being killed in a stagecoach crash. Muybridge quickly became famous for his landscape photographs, which showed the grandeur and expansiveness of the West.

What is Eadweard Muybridge famous for?

Eadweard Muybridge wanted to prove to Leland Stanford that a galloping horse cannot lift up all four feet clear off the ground during its stride. Muybridge decided to go to Stanford’s race track to attempt the experiment using one of Leland prize horses. Muybridge set up a series of cameras so that when the horse went round the track it would set off the cameras to take the picture. When they put all the pictures together it showed that all four legs were off the floor. In 1893, Muybridge lectures on the Science of Animal Locomotion and used his zoopraxiscope to show his moving pictures making this the very first commercial movie theatre.

When did Eadweard Muybridge create the motion picture?

The first actual modern motion picture camera was designed by Louis Le Prince in 1888. However, Muybridge developed the process of using a series of still photographs to stimulate motion for an experiment historically known as “The horse in Motion” in 1878.

What is the Zoopraxiscope?

The Zoopraxiscope is an early device for displaying motion pictures. People considered it as the first movie projector. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The stop-motion images were initially painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second series of discs, made in 1892-94, used outline drawings printed onto the discs photographically, then coloured by hand. Some of the animated images are very complex, featuring multiple combinations of sequences of animal and human movement.

What affected the Zoopraxiscope?

The things that affected the zoopraxiscope was that you had to set the camera up and it was huge, also you had to have complete darkness and as soon as you took a picture you had to treat it well straight away.

How this information has helped me

This information has helped me to understand Muybridge and his invention the Zoopraxiscope. The information that stands out in my mind is his experiment of ‘The horse in motion’. I was able to learn how the Zoopraxiscope came to be through him trying to prove a point about the horse and its legs being off the floor as it ran. Through him creating the Zoopraxiscope has inspired other inventors such as Thomas Edison and the Lumiere bros. Thomas Edison invented Kinetoscope and the Lumiere bros invented cinematography. These inventions paved the way to what we now know as cinema.

Early Pioneers: The Lumiere Brothers

Who are The Lumiere Bros?

Louis  and Auguste Lumiere were pioneer contributors to the birth of film in 1895. The Lumiere bros were born in France but then moved in 1870 to Lyon. Both of them attended the largest technical school in Lyon La Martiniere. Their father, Claude-Antoine Lumiere (1840-1911), ran a photographic firm and both brothers worked for him: Louis as a physicist and Auguste as a Manager. It wasn’t until their father retired in 1892 that the brothers began to create moving pictures. The Lumiere Bros were not the only ones to claim the title of the first cinematographers. The first scientific chronophotography devices developed by Eadweard Muybridge, Etienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschutz in the 1880 were able to produce moving photographs, as was Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope premiered in 1891.

What are the Lumiere Bros famous for?

The lumiere bros are well known by a lot of people for inventing the Cinematograph. The Lumieres held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in 1895. Thier first public screening of films at which admission was held on 28th December 1895, at the salon indien du Grand Cafe which is in Paris. This history-making presentation featured a short film, including their first film, sortie des Usines Lumiere a Lyon (Workers leaving the Lumier Factory).

What is Cinematography?

A cinematograph is a film camera, which also is a film projector and developer and it was invented in the 1890’s.There are many arguments to find its real inventor. People say that the device was first invented as “Cinematographe” by French inventor Leon Bouly on 12^th February 1892. It is said, because theirs lack of money, Bouly was not able to pay the rent the following year, and the Lumiere bros engineers bought the license. Popular thought, however, Louis Lumiere was the first to convince the idea, and both Lumiere brothers shared the patent.

The Factors that affected the invention

The factors that effected the cinematograph camera was that it was very big and was very hard to carry around unlike the cameras today. The quality of the image wasn't that great either because it was only the start of the creation of fast moving image.

How this information has helped me

This information has helped me to understand The Lumiere bros and their followed on invention the cinematograph. The information that interests me the most is the first film ever made with the usage of Cinematography. I feel that it’s just unbelievable that the audience found that very short film amazing comparing to our technology today. Through my research I was able to earn about the Cinematograph and how you can create motion through this old camera. As the Lumiere Bros were inspired by the famous pioneer Eadweard Muybridge it makes me feel how the public in that time would have been feeling when these amazing inventions that have affected the world today. 

Earl Pioneer: Thomas Edison

Who is Thomas Edison?

Thomas Alva Edison did a lot of things in his time including an inventor, scientist and a businessman who developed many devices that had a massive impact on life around the world.

What is Thomas Edison Famous for?

Edison invented the Phonograph, the motion picture camera and a long-lasting practical electric light bulb. As we know today, the light bulb is probably one of the most needed electronics of all time. He was also the inventor of the Kinetoscope. This device was used in stop motion animation.

What is the Kinetoscope?

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture device, but not a movie projector. It was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet containing its components. This invention was the basic introduction that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before video. Watching it creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of film bearing images over a light source with a high speed shutter.

Factors that affected it 

The factors that affected the kinetoscope was that only one person could view the invention at a time and the moving image shown only lasted about 5-10 seconds long. Another bad thing about the kinetoscope was that it was a huge box 4 foot long and there was a small peep hole at the top for people to see and the lighting wasn't that great when you looked into it as well.

How this information has helped me

This information has helped me to understand the basic knowledge of Thomas Edison. I have found out how the Kinetoscope works and how we create the illusion of moving image. The thing that inspired me the most about Edison is that he invented the light bulb and I feel that it is one of the most important inventions to this day.

Early Pioneer: Charles- Emile Reynaud

Who is Charles- Emile Reynaud?

Charles- Emile Reynaud was a French science teacher and projected the first animated cartoon films. Reynaud died in a hospice on the banks of the Seine where he had been cared for since 29 March 1917.

What is Charles- Emile Reynaud Famous for?

Reynaud is mostly known for creating a device called the Praxinoscope in 1877 and also created the Theatre Optique in December 1888, he presented this first animated film in public at the Musee Grevin in Paris.  In his later years, his inventions were slowly going to an end as the cinematograph camera was being brought in by The Lumiere Brothers. 

What is the Praxinoscope?

The Praxinoscope is very similar to the zoetrope (created by William Horner), it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The Praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its very narrow very slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in the positioned as the wheel was turned.  A viewer would look in the mirrors and then therefore sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope.

Factors that affected the Praxinoscope

The factors that affected the Praxinoscope is that if it was spun to fast it would look very blurry and you wouldn’t be able to see the moving image, also if you spun it backwards the sequence wouldn’t make sense.  

There weren’t just bad things about the Praxinoscope because it was the successor of the zoetrope. A zoetrope could only view the moving image to one person at a time, but now the Praxinoscope can be viewed multiple times by different viewers because it has mirrors all around it and you could see it at every angle.

How the information has helped me

I feel that I have learn't a lot from this research that I have found. I now understand how the praxinoscope works and what it consists off. The factors that effected the praxinoscope was very similar to the zoetrope and I feel that I now fully understand the key terms of this.