In 1878, a simple bet would begin a sensation. Railroad tycoon Leland Stanford and a friend were struggling with a disagreement the two shared. The subject of the disagreement was whether or not a horse's hooves, all four of them, ever left the ground all at once during a full gallop. Stanford hired British professional photographer, Eadweard Muybridge to help resolve this issue. Muybridge came up with the idea to use 12 steroscopic cameras set up in a straight line 20 feet long, with each camera 21 inches apart. Each camera was controlled by a trip wire designed to be triggered by the horse's hooves as it ran by. With the local press present, on June 11 the experiment took place with successful results. Proven, was the fact that all four hooves were indeed shown to be off the ground at once during a full gallop. But that's not the successful results I'm talking about.
Muybridge took his photographs and journeyed around the country. He began presenting his pictures on a machine called a 'zoopraxiscope'. This device was able to show the photos in such a way that it made the horse appear as if it were really in motion. Inspired by Muybridge and his unique device, Frenchman, Etienne-Jules Marey, a scientist, began studying the movements of humans and animals, using a camera he created called the 'chronophotographic camera'. Marey's invention was able to photograph an image in motion and then run the images together, showing the motion of the subject.
On the front-lines of film creation was Geaorge Eastman, the founder of Kodak. In 1885, Eastman invented a celluloid based and flexible roll of film to replace the somewhat cumbersome dry plates being used in photography at that time. Eastman was also the inventor of the plates. Geaorge Eastman is basically the 'father of film'.
By the late 19th century, many inventors, such as Muybridge, Marey, Thomas Edison, and Eastman, were realizing that the ability to create working motion pictures was a real possibility. In 1891, the possibility would become a reality. Under the guidance and tutelage of Thomas Edison, W.K.L. Dickson invented the 'kinetograph'. Using a strip of Eastman's celluloid film 35mm wide, the camera could take several pictures in an instant. Dickson then would play back the moving pictures on another one of his creations, the 'kinetoscope'. This ground-breaking device was unveiled to the public in 1893. The kintoscope was basically a box with a single peep-hole. This meant that only one person at a time could view the film. Sounds like the Stone Age compared to the equipment of even 30 years ago, but this was huge and almost magical to folks in the latter part of the 19th century. But the motion picture couldn't be projected yet. It was coming...and soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment