This kit is designed to acquaint students with principles associated with the Illusion of Motion. All types of movie devices—from simple flipbooks to motion picture film—operate on a basic set of principles. These principles are described and defined in the kit. By studying the definitions and looking at the kit’s images, an instructor can help students understand how their eyes perceive motion where there is only a series of still images. Then students can make their own devices to produce motion pictures.
While learning about moving picture devices, the students will also be learning some basic things about the whole process of seeing: how the eye receives light and translates the image on the retina into an understandable pattern in the brain. It is important students understand something about how the eye works to comprehend the Illusion of Motion.
The kit contains instructions for the class to make several projects—the Zoetrope (or Praxinoscope), Flipbook, Thaumatrope, and Phenakistoscope. The projects all illustrate some aspect of the principle of Persistence of Vision and all the projects are easy to reproduce. Additional information may be obtained by using the bibliography included. Some of the other devices illustrated—the Mutoscope, Kinora and Filoscope—should be discussed as adaptations of the phenomena and to further illustrate the principles. To place the devices in a sociological context, it may be helpful to point out that these devices became popular with the general public in the 19th century and began as an entertainment industry, which has had a major impact on society up to the present.
The Muybridge motion study series can be used to discuss the parts of an episode of motion. By conveying the idea of animation, the studies will help students understand how they should draw their motion picture strips/discs for the devices. The panels in the Muybridge study can be used as a model for making action sequences by showing how individual segments of motion are actually related.
The Persistence of Vision devices—the thaumatrope, for example—demonstrate the difference between that phenomenon and Illusion of Motion. It can be confusing for students to separate the two. Although Persistence of Vision is necessary to produce the Illusion of Motion, they are not the same thing.
The timeline included in the section of Important Dates in the History of Early Motion Pictures provides an easy reference for the historical flow of events leading to its development. The instructor might use this chronology to give students a perspective on the evolution of animation technology by pointing out parallel historical events with which they should be familiar—the Civil War, a particular president, or perhaps another significant invention.
Note: We have started our chronology roughly at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when scientific progress had made possible a serious pursuit of the subject of motion. Concern with the phenomenon, however, goes back several centuries. Leonardo Da Vinci described the Camera Obscura ("dark room") in 1500 and knowledge of principles such as Persistence of Vision go back much further still. The dates conclude at the end of the nineteenth century.
Using a Magic Lantern on wheels with a screen of smoke, Étienne Gaspard Robertson creates the "Phantasmagoria"—depicting the ghosts of heroes of the French Revolution.
Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre, an artist and pioneer in photography, invents the Diorama in Paris. The Illusion of Motion is created by changing lights on transparent paintings.
Michael Faraday, a British scientist, invents a way to demonstrate Persistence of Vision using a disc with a slot cut in one side. It became known as the Faraday Disc.
Although the device was probably known much earlier, the Thaumatrope, a spinning disc that demonstrates persistence of vision, is patented by Dr. John Ayrton Paris.
The Phenakistoscope is patented by Prof. J.A.F. Plateau of Brussels. It is probably the oldest device to show motion using a sequence of still pictures.
Prof. S. Stampfer of Vienna invents the Stroboscope, which was another version of the Phenakistoscope.
In England, William Homer invents a motion picture device that he calls the Daedelum, although he fails to patent it.
Franz von Uchatius, an Austrian army officer, develops a motion picture projector based on the Phenakistoscope and the Magic Lantern.
Homer's idea for the Daedelum is patented by the Frenchman Pierre Hubert Desvignes. The popularity of the device increases rapidly.
William Thomas Shaw exhibits his mechanism, the Stereoscope, which synthesizes motion from still stereoscopic photographs.
William Lincoln introduces the Daedelum to the United States, changing its name to that by which we know it – the Zoetrope.
The Kineograph, or Flipbook as it is more commonly known, is patented by Linnett and marketed commercially.
Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge) begins his experimentation of taking pictures of animals in motion, presenting these still pictures as a series.
Pierre Jules César Janssen, a French astronomer, makes a fixed motion picture camera, the “photographic revolver,” to aid in his work.
In France, Charles Emile Reynaud invents the Praxinoscope, an improvement on the Zoetrope. The device uses an arrangement of mirrors in the center of the cylinder instead of slots around the edge, as is done with the Zoetrope. This arrangement gives an improved image to the viewer.
Muybridge, with engineer John B. Isaacs, uses a “battery” of still cameras arranged to take a series of pictures of a moving object.
Reynaud works out a way to make his Praxinoscope project its images.
Muybridge develops the Zoopraxiscope, which uses a magic lantern system to project his pictures onto a screen.
French physiologist Étienne Jules Marey makes the first portable motion picture camera, a rifle-shaped device that takes twelve exposures in one second. Marey is also instrumental in the development of Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope.
In Rochester, New York, George Eastman begins to manufacture paper roll film for use in the Kodak camera (later introduced to the public in 1888). This development opens the way for a flexible roll film to be adapted to use in motion picture photography.
Marey uses strips of coated paper film in his motion picture system—the “chronophotographic” system.
Thomas Alva Edison begins experiments aimed at producing a motion picture system.
Eastman's celluloid film makes modern cinematography possible.
Mutoscope parlors are set up throughout the United States as a popular form of entertainment.
Edison applies for patents on two motion picture devices—the Kinetograph, for photographing moving objects and the Kinetoscope, for viewing the results.
Reynaud opens the first movie theater in Paris, the "Theatre Optique", using the basic principle of the Praxinoscope.
The Lumiére brothers, Louis and Auguste, develop the Cinematographe, an apparatus that combines camera and projector into one unit. They use film similar to that used by Edison, but adapt an intermittent gear drive that improves the projection process. On December 28, at the Grand Café in Paris, they become the first to charge admission for a public exhibition of moving pictures.
Projection of motion pictures on a screen for a large audience becomes commercially feasible and opens the way for the subsequent development of the industry to its important position in the twentieth century.
H.W. Short patents the Filoscope, a mechanism based on the flipbook.
French Artist and pioneer in photography. Developed the method of using copper plates as backing for photographic images—the famous daguerreotypes—and had a successful photograph by 1837.
His contribution to the Illusion of Motion came earlier, in 1822, when he invented the Diorama. The Diorama involved a public exhibition staged inside a special building, where the illusion was achieved by the use of transparent paintings illuminated by changing lights. The paintings were done on a flat, two-dimensional gauze-like material. For example, by "dissolving" from one transparency to another with the changing lights it could appear that a wave was moving across the set. Although the Diorama was not a 'moving picture' display as we think of one, Daguerre and his associates were instrumental in both initiating public exhibitions for entertainment and using multiple images and light to create motion.
Lived most of his life in Rochester, New York, where he established the Eastman Kodak Company. In 1888 the first Kodak camera, using paper roll film on a spool, was introduced. The Kodak revolutionized photography, replacing cumbersome glass plates and allowing a number of pictures to be made without removing the film from the camera. This development was a major step on the road to film that could be made in long strips—essential to the evolution of motion pictures.
In 1889, his flexible cellulose nitrate film helped solve the problem of extended continuous motion. He supplied some of this film for Thomas Edison's experiments. Although Eastman's primary interest was not in producing motion pictures, the manufacture of motion picture film became an important part of the company's operation. The Eastman Kodak Company went on to receive several Oscars from the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences for its contributions to the technical advancement of the industry.
A prolific American inventor with 1,093 patents in his lifetime, Edison’s experiments included the development of motion picture machines. In 1887 he began work on what later became the kinetograph and kinetoscope. By 1894, the kinetoscope was ready for display in New York City. Using flexible 35mm film with perforations for projector sprockets, this device set standards that are still in use today.
French brothers who were experienced photographers when they became interested in motion pictures. The Lumierés patented the Cinematographe in 1895. Like Edison's devices, the Cinematographe used perforated film to aid in guiding it through the projector—but with only one perforation per frame (rather than Edison's four). The Lumierés’ major contribution was the use of an eclectic claw drive to move the film rather than the less satisfactory methods previously developed. They are also credited with giving the first public exhibition of moving pictures where admission was charged: on December 28,1895, some 35 people paid one franc each for the show.
French scientist who invented chronophotography which recorded multiple phases of a movement on one surface. He was interested in how humans and animals moved and he used chronophotography in his research. Unlike Muybridge who used multiple cameras to record movement, Marey used one camera that could record multiple phases of movement on one piece of film or glass plate. He is considered to be a pioneer in the development of early motion pictures.
Born Edward James Muggeridge in England, Muybridge became interested in photography about 1860 after an earlier career that included representing a printing company and managing his own bookstore. By 1872, he was experimenting with photography in motion, initiated largely by Leland Stanford, onetime governor of California. Stanford wanted to settle a bet that all four feet of a horse are off the ground at the same time when it is running. Muybridge solved the problem by using a series of cameras set up along the track, with strings from the shutters stretched across the track. The running horse tripped the shutters, taking its own pictures. From the series of pictures taken, Muybridge was able to prove that all four feet were indeed in the air simultaneously.
Muybridge's experiments with human and animal locomotion, while not initially directly involved with efforts to produce moving pictures, had a lot to do with the understanding of motion—breaking down the parts of movement into a series of still photographs which could be used to analyze motion. This understanding was invaluable in learning how to depict movement. Muybridge's photographs could be used in motion picture devices and as a basis to develop other series. By 1880 he had perfected a device to project moving pictures based on his motion studies (the Zoopraxiscope—a revolving disc arrangement with a magic lantern), although he is still best known for his work with the motion studies themselves.
In 1877, this French inventor developed the Praxinoscope, which basically functioned like its predecessor, the Zoetrope. Although similar, the Praxinoscope used a central polygonal column of mirrors inside a larger cylinder so that instead of looking through slots on the side of the device, as you do with a Zoetrope, one or several people could look directly at the mirrors to see the Illusion of Motion. With this arrangement, the picture was clearer and brighter; the apparent motion being smoother than looking through slots. By 1881, Reynaud had produced a projector to use in conjunction with the Praxinoscope and in 1892 opened a motion picture theater, the Theatre Optique, in Paris. The pictures used in the theater were hand-drawn, not photographed.
Bourgeois, Jacques. Animating Films Without a Camera. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 1974.
Hobson, Andrew and Mark. Film Animation as a Hobby. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 1975.
Lidslone, John and Mclntosh, Don. Children as Filmmakers. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1970.
Manes, Stephen. Pictures of Motion and Pictures That Move. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1982.
Morrow, James and Suid, Murray. Movie Making Illustrated: The Comic Book Filmbook. New Jersey: Haydon Book Co., 1973.
Sayer, Philip and Sayer, Caroline Freeman. Making Victorian Kinetic Toys. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1977.
Thurman, Judith and Johnathan David. The Magic Latern: How Movies Got to Move. New York: Atheneum, 1978.
Watson, Terre and Wilt, Jay. Look! Waco: Creative Resources, 1978.
Wentz, Budd. Paper Movie Machines. San Francisco: Troubador Press, 1975.
Anderson, Yvonne. Teaching Film Animation to Children. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1970.
Bloomer, Carolyn M. Principles of Visual Perception. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1976.
Brosnan, John. Movie Magic. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974.
Ceram. C.W. Archaeology of the Cinema. London. Thames and Hudson, 1965.
Lidslone, John and Mclntosh, Don. Children as Filmmakers. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1970.
Quigley, Jr., Martin. Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1948.
Sayer, Philip and Sayer, Caroline Freeman. Making Victorian Kinetic Toys. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1977.
Stanford Art Book 14. Eadweard Muybridge: The Stanford Years. 1872-1882. Stanford University Art Department, 1972.
Thomas, David Bowen. The Origins of the Motion Picture/A Science Museum Booklet. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1964.