Origins of the Motion Picture

Year Published: 1956

Creator: The United States Army/The United States Navy Presents

Complete Record: Film describes the events leading to the perfection of motion pictues. Presents a summary of the pioneering efforts made in the development of motion pictures in the quarter century beginning 1880. Examines the technological development, from the theories of Leonardo Da Vinci to the inventions of Thomas Edison. Also contains film clips taken at the turn of the century, including motion pictures of U.S. naval ships and early submarine. Footage of the Great White Fleet from the early twentieth century seen throughout the world in LS. MS of President Theodore Roosevelt coming aboard one of the ships years earlier. Roosevelt was a president whose image was seen around the world in film. A few excerpts of Roosevelt’s dynamic way of gesticulating shown. 1903 car racing. Sponsored by Vanderbilt? [Hard to hear full name.] Illustrations and demonstrations are provided of the following: Man records his life through his arts. First in cave drawings. Relief on walls of his temples -- montage of various from Assyrian to Indian. Man could record motion in pictures but not record actual motion. Da Vinci’s Camera Obscura. Used in the 11th Century by Arabian Astronomer Al Hassad to study of eclipses. The Italian, Giovanni de la Porta, a 16th century Neopolitan writer, was the first “projectionist,” as he employed the camera obscure. He called is portraits, “natural magic.” Athanasi Kircheri, 17th Century German priest, wrote a book “Arts Magna Lucis et Umbrae”. Kircher used sunlight and mirrors to capture images. His book, shown, has illustrations of early magic lanterns. Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist, 1576, could project drawings on wall for many people to view at once. Magic lanterns, Johaan Zanz, etc. Peter Mark Roget, wrote a paper and presented it before the Royal Society in 1824, on the persistence of moving objects. This principle is demonstrated with the Thaumatrope, or “wonder turner.” 1829 Joseph Plateau noted that a distorted image could look normal viewed through a moving disk leading to the “Phenakistiscope.” This was also called a silver scope. Almost simultaneously an Austrian designed “the magic disk” with changeable disks as parlor entertainment. The same principles guided the development of the Zeotrope. This was refined into the Praxinoscope by Charles Renault. An Austrian military man, by the last name of Uchatius, developed the Magic Lantern that produced the first motion pictures projected on a screen. Louis Daguerre with others developed a photographic process to transfer images to a metal plate, called a Daguerreotype. Fox-Talbot was able to put images on paper, and the Langenheim Brothers of Philadelphia made images on glass plates. All that was lacking was motion. Leland Stanford engaged Edward Muybridge to study motion of horses. Muybridge developed the “Zoopraxiscope” to show the motion of horses and other subjects. Maurey, Edison, etc. refined these ideas until Edison built the Kinetograph using film developed by George Eastman.. Edison made a kintoscopic theater which was popularly called “The Black Mariah.” The theater revolved to catch the suns rays which illuminated the performers as a camera photographed the movement. One of the earliest films is of two men dancing together to a fiddler. The results from The Black Mariah were shown in a smaller kintoscope popularly called a “Peep Show,” and was mass-produced for locations around the United States. The first copyrighted film by Edison in the Library of Congress is that of a man sneezing. Edison set the precedent for each frame of the film in sequence being printed on a roll of paper. It was the still image being copyrighted. American movie house dates from 1896 when motion pictures were shown the Vitascope. Other devices were developed all over the world and many are demonstrated on this film. Film = Reproductive power.