Motion Photography and the Beginnings of Cinema

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Motion Photography and the Beginnings of Cinema
Eadweard Muybridge 1879
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Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge
British 1830-1904) AKA Helios San Francisco
Landscape photographer Valley of the Yosemite
ca.1867

• Muybridges five-month trip to the Yosemite
  Valley in 1867 yielded 260 published views 160
  of them stereographs. His were among the most
  celebrated images taken of the Valley.

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Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge
British 1830-1904) Galloping Horse Motion
Study Sallie Gardner owned by Leland Stanford
running at 1.40 gait over the Palo Alto track
June 19 1879 wet plate collotype a sequence of
photographs with 12 cameras

• Muybridge began the project in 1872. In 1878 he
  succeeded in taking a sequence of photographs
  with 12 cameras that captured the moment when the
  animals hooves were tucked under its belly.
  Publication of these photographs made Muybridge
  an international celebrity.

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Eadweard Muybridge The Zoopraxiscope projector
presented in autumn of 1879 The private
gathering that watched the first Zoopraxiscope
projections at Mayfield Grange the home of
Muybridges sponsor Leland Stanford at Palo Alto
farm in the autumn of 1879 has the distinction
of being one of the earliest motion picture
audiences.
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Zoopraxiscope disc and detail of stencil
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Muybridge Animal Locomotion Plate 455 Woman
Throwing herself on heap of hay 1887
collotype The Pennsylvania Project 1883 1887
University of Pennsylvania
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Eadweard Muybridge Animal Locomotion Man
Shoveling (Self Portrait) 1895University of
Pennsylvania
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Thomas Eakins (American Realist Painter
1844-1916) George Reynolds Seven Photographs
1883 albumen print Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts (lower left) Motion Study male running
jump to left ca. 1885 (lower right) Motion
Study female nude blindfolded walking to left
ca. 1885
Eakins approached the human figure with the
analytical eye of a scientist.
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(left) Thomas Eakins The Swimming Hole oil on
canvas 1884-85 (right) Eakins Eakinss Students
at the Site for Swimming albumen print ca.1884
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Etienne-Jules Marey (French Physiologist
18301904) Photographic Gun camera with a
rotating plate capable of taking rapid sequence
of separate images. (below) Marey Pelicans in
Flight c.1882

• Marey saw Muybridges motion photographs when
  they were published in Paris in 1878.
  Muybridges multi-camera system wasnt scientific
  enough for Marey.

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Marey Chronophotographic study of Man Pole
Vaulting 1890 -1891 albumen silver print

• Marey used dry photographic plates faster than
  the wet plates Muybridge used and an ordinary
  camera with its lens left open. Behind the lens
  Marey put a rotating metal disk that had from one
  to ten slots cut into it at even intervals. As
  the subject dressed
• in white moved in front of a black background
  the rotating shutter exposed the glass plate
  creating a sequence of images.

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Thomas Eakins Motion Study using Mareys wheel
camera Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 1885
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Edgar Degas (French Realist/Impressionist Painter
and Sculptor 1834-1917)Frieze of Dancers 1895
oil on canvas 27 3/4 x 79Multiple views of a
single figure an approach that violated the
traditional notion that a painting must represent
a unity of time place and viewpoint
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Giacomo Balla (Italian Futurist Painter) Dynamism
of a Dog on a Leash (Leash in Motion) 1912 oil
on canvas 35 x 45Antonio Bragaglia (Italian
Futurist Photographer) Change of Position 1911
gelatin-silver print
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Giacoma Balla Swallows 1913 oil on canvas
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(right) Lucien Bull (Marey assistant) with
Marey-wheel camera photographing soap bubble
1906(left) Bull Soap Bubble Bursting 1904
silver gelatin print from a film strip
This stereoscopic camera took 54 pairs of
pictures per second.
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The Movies BeginFirst Kodak camera
1888Celluloid FilmYou press the button we
do the rest

• Drawings submitted by George Eastman for his new
  camera The Kodak showing detailed views of the
  cameras exterior and the interior with its
  barrel shutter and roll-film transport designs.

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Kinetograph motion picture camera William
Dickson (British inventor 1860 - 1935) under the
employ of Thomas EdisonCamera (the first to use
perforated film stock) for producing subjects for
the Kinetoscope peepshow machine. Developed over
several years shot commercially produced movies
from 1893 and patented in 1897
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Thomas Edisons Kinetoscope 1894. The loop of
film was about 45 feet long. Edison to George
Eastman on receiving 50-ft celluloid roll
Thats it -- weve got it -- now work like
hell!
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(center) Man Using a Sound Version of the
Kinetoscope(right) Kinetoscope parlor in San
Francisco ca. 1894(bottom right) Sandow the
Modern Hercules 1894 (Still from strip of the
Edison Kinetoscope) BW 39 feet Directed by
W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise Eugen Sandow
(Friedrich Muller) Edison Manufacturing Company
production
Thomas Edison wanted an instrument that does
for the eye what the phonograph does for the
ear.
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The Black Maria Edisons film studio part of an
industrial research laboratory Edison built in
West Orange New JerseyEdisons inventors in
West Orange c. 1890
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Within twelve years of its invention film
grammar is being determined in The Great Train
Robbery the cut the close-up parallel action
- along with the social and economic structures
that would integrate cinema into the pattern of
peoples daily lives and make it pay for itself.
The Great Train Robbery (1903) directed and
photographed by Edwin Porter 10 minutes long
with 14-scenes filmed in New Jersey at Edisons
studios and along the Lackawanna railroad.
Actor Justus Barnes