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Page 3
About that time Ansch�tz in Germany followed the Muybridge suggestions
with much success and gave to this art of photographing the movement of
animals and men a new turn. He not only photographed the successive
stages, but printed them on a long strip which was laid around a
horizontal wheel. This wheel is in a dark box and the eye can see the
pictures on the paper strip only at the moment when the light of a
Geissler's tube flashes up. The wheel itself has such electric contacts
that the intervals between two flashes correspond to the time which is
necessary to move the wheel from one picture to the next. However
quickly the wheel may be revolved the lights follow one another with the
same rapidity with which the pictures replace one another. During the
movement when one picture moves away and another approaches the center
of vision all is dark. Hence the eye does not see the changes but gets
an impression as if the picture remained at the same spot, only moving.
The bird flaps its wings and the horse trots. It was really a perfect
kinetoscopic instrument. Yet its limitations were evident. No movements
could be presented but simple rhythmical ones, inasmuch as after one
revolution of the wheel the old pictures returned. The marching men
appeared very lifelike; yet they could not do anything but march on and
on, the circumference of the wheel not allowing more room than was
needed for about forty stages of the moving legs from the beginning to
the end of the step.
If the picture of a motion was to go beyond these simplest rhythmical
movements, if persons in action were really to be shown, it would be
necessary to have a much larger number of pictures in instantaneous
illumination. The wheel principle would have to be given up and a long
strip with pictures would be needed. That presupposed a correspondingly
long set of exposures and this demand could not be realized as long as
the pictures were taken on glass plates. But in that period experiments
were undertaken on many sides to substitute a more flexible transparent
material for the glass. Translucent papers, gelatine, celluloid, and
other substances were tried. It is well known that the invention which
was decisive was the film which Eastman in Rochester produced. With it
came the great mechanical improvement, the use of the two rollers. One
roller holds the long strip of film which is slowly wound over the
second, the device familiar to every amateur photographer today. With
film photography was gained the possibility not only of securing a much
larger number of pictures than Marey or Ansch�tz made with their
circular arrangements, but of having these pictures pass before the eye
illumined by quickly succeeding flashlights for any length of time.
Moreover, instead of the quick illumination the passing pictures might
be constantly lighted. In that case slits must pass by in the opposite
direction so that each picture is seen for a moment only, as if it were
at rest. This idea is perfectly realized in Edison's machine.
In Edison's kinetoscope a strip of celluloid film forty-five feet in
length with a series of pictures each three-quarters of an inch long
moved continuously over a series of rolls. The pictures passed a
magnifying lens, but between the lens and the picture was a revolving
shutter which moved with a speed carefully adjusted to the film. The
opening in the shutter was opposite the lens at the moment when the film
had moved on three-quarters of an inch. Hence the eye saw not the
passing of the pictures but one picture after another at the same spot.
Pretty little scenes could now be acted in half a minute's time, as more
than six hundred pictures could be used. The first instrument was built
in 1890, and soon after the Chicago World's Fair it was used for
entertainment all over the world. The wheel of Ansch�tz had been
widespread too; yet it was considered only as a half-scientific
apparatus. With Edison's kinetoscope the moving pictures had become a
means for popular amusement and entertainment, and the appetite of
commercialism was whetted. At once efforts to improve on the Edison
machine were starting everywhere, and the adjustment to the needs of the
wide public was in the foreground.
Crowning success came almost at the same time to Lumi�re and Son in
Paris and to Paul in London. They recognized clearly that the new scheme
could not become really profitable on a large scale as long as only one
person at a time could see the pictures. Both the well-known French
manufacturers of photographic supplies and the English engineer
considered the next step necessary to be the projection of the films
upon a large screen. Yet this involved another fundamental change. In
the kinetoscope the films passed by continuously. The time of the
exposure through the opening in the revolving shutter had to be
extremely short in order to give distinct pictures. The slightest
lengthening would make the movement of the film itself visible and
produce a blurring effect. This time was sufficient for the seeing of
the picture; it could not be sufficient for the greatly enlarged view on
the wall. Too little light passed through to give a distinct image.
Hence it became essential to transform the continuous movement of the
film into an intermittent one. The strip of film must be drawn before
the lens by jerking movements so that the real motion of the strip would
occur in the periods in which the shutter was closed, while it was at
rest for the fraction of time in which the light of the projection
apparatus passed through.
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