© Mark Ollig
In the late 1800s, groundbreaking technological changes unfolded in visual storytelling.
Motion picture cameras and projectors brought stories to life on illuminated screens.
Between 1890 and 1892, Thomas Alva Edison and William Kennedy Dickson developed the Kinetograph, an early motion picture camera.
The Kinetograph is the first true motion-picture camera using a flexible celluloid film strip to capture a sequence of motion photographs of people or objects.
It captured motion at about 40 frames per second, contributing to the illusion of movement when seen through the Kinetoscope, an early device used to view processed film from the Kinetograph.
The Kinetoscope, a precursor to the modern-day motion-picture film projector, created the illusion of movement by running a strip of perforated film containing sequential images over a light source fitted with a high-speed spinning wheel shutter.
A person looked into the Kinetoscope through its peephole, a small window aperture to watch the film’s moving images.
The Kinetoscope used a Geneva drive or Maltese Cross mechanism to move the film strip forward in small, consistent steps, ensuring that a new picture film frame was always in front of the viewing lens, creating the illusion of continuous motion for the viewer.
Our brain interprets rapid, successive still frames as continuous movement, a phenomenon known as the visual phi effect.
Although the Kinetoscope was not a projector machine for movies shown on a screen, it did introduce the primary approach for cinematic viewing.
In April 1894, the Holland Brothers opened the first commercial motion picture theater in New York City with ten Kinetoscope machines.
They charged five cents per Edison “moving picture,” including the “Annabelle Serpentine Dance” featuring Annabelle Moore, who, in 1907, was cast as the Gibson Girl in the Ziegfeld Follies.
The Eidoloscope, an early motion picture projector, was completed in New York City by Woodville Latham and his sons, Otway and Gray, along with Eugene Lauste, between 1894 and 1895.
The Eidoloscope used the Latham loop, which stabilized the filmstrip between the continuous sprocket and intermittent mechanism movement, reducing film wear.
Using a 51mm wide film, the Eidoloscope was the first to use a widescreen format projecting motion film onto a large screen with an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1.
“It reproduces all moving objects and their every motion life-size and with absolutely lifelike accuracy and fidelity,” said The Minneapolis Star newspaper article titled “Marvels of the Eidoloscope,” published August 12, 1895.
In the early days of motion pictures, the films were seen in old shops and restaurants converted into makeshift theaters. The projection screen could be a painted wall, a tightly stretched white linen sheet, or a canvas hung on a wall.
Movies back then were called “flickers” because the illuminated film frames changed rapidly, causing the images to flicker on the screen.
In the early 1890s, Charles Jenkins was busy developing the Phantoscope film projection machine.
He later met Thomas Armat, who provided financial backing and worked on the film projection apparatus modifications.
They disagreed on who deserved recognition for the modifications made to the projector, leading to a legal conflict over the ownership of the Phantoscope patent.
The judgment ruled Charles F. Jenkins would be issued a patent for the original design of the Phantoscope.
Thomas J. Armat, who had been working on his modified version of the Phantoscope with Edison Manufacturing Company, was granted a US Patent (No. 580,749) on April 13, 1897, for his electrically-powered film projector titled “Vitascope.”
Armat transferred his patent to the Edison Manufacturing Company, and they renamed it “The Edison Vitascope.”
The company then began mass-producing Vitascopes to showcase Kinetoscope movies to larger audiences.
In 1892, a French inventor, Léon Bouly, coined the term “Cinématographe” (meaning ‘motion picture writer’) and a device called “Cynématographe Léon Bouly.”
However, due to his inability to pay the patent fees, the rights to the name “cinématographe” became available in 1894.
In 1895, Auguste and Louis Jean Lumière acquired the rights and designation, adopting Cinématographe as the name of their invention.
The Cinématographe, which functioned as a camera and projector, was lightweight for its time, weighing around 16 pounds.
The Cinématographe, using a hand crank, was recorded at 16 frames per second. While seemingly low, this rate was sufficient to create a lifelike illusion of fluid motion when projected.
The Cinématographe was publicly demonstrated for the first time on Dec. 28, 1895, at the Grand Café on Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, France.
“The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” is an 1895 short film created by the Lumière Brothers.
When it was first shown, the audience was so overcome with the realism of the life-sized train moving toward them on the screen that they screamed and ran to the back of the room.
See their films at tinyurl.com/LBFilms (the train appears at 4:29).
Early pioneers of motion picture technology laid the foundation for today’s film industry.
