Half-Term Homework

The First subject we looked into during unit 16 was early moving images, this involved how moving images first developed throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. First we looked at how people viewed images through projection through early simple devices and establish how they have changed throughout the years, we will be studying at how early methods of image projection have developed in to the mass production and full feature length films today. At first we analysed a device called the Magic Lantern developed around 1820, this instrument would be the basis for projecting images on a screen and would later influence other methods of viewing pictures. A Magic Lantern was simple as it would use a mirror and a direct source of light to project an image onto a still backdrop, this method involved a manual way of moving the slides to show the images and there would only be one still image projected at a time on the backdrop. The magic lantern lead to people inventing illusions to portraying images, an example of this would be the popular toy in 1825 called a Thaumatrope. This would involve a disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image. The invention of the Thaumatrope would be an important part to developing animation, it had branched off other ideas for developing devices that portray multiple images at a time, and one after the other showing what appears to be a moving image, therefore the Thaumatrope was the earliest form of animation. The idea of multiple images moving at a time developed into the Praxinoscope, it was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-mile Reynaud. It used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The praxinoscope used an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion. The invention of the Praxinoscope developed into a similar device called a Zoetrope around 1867. The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together like the Praxinoscope, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing a similar illusion of motion for the viewer. Next we looked when people started to capture an image perfectly for the first time. They achieved this by taking a still image by photograph. The first photograph ever taken was by Joseph Nicphore Nipce around 1826 or 1827. This was the first time a record of surroundings was captured without using paint or other Medias. This invention lead to the next giant leap buy Eadweard Muybridge in 1878, Muybridge wanted to capture a series of images to prove a point. Eadweard Muybridge wanted to show that horses legs all lift off the ground at one point during its run, he did prove this by setting out a series of 12 cameras along a track and 12 trip wires to set off the cameras as the horse goes through them. Up until this time it was assumed that a horse always had at least one leg on the ground at a time.

Muybridge had revolutionised the way people viewed moving images, his breakthrough was an opportunity to develop moving images. It was first developed further by Auguste and Louis Lumire, during 1892 the brothers began to create moving pictures. They patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera, most notably recognized for their moving picture of women workers existing a factory. This was the longest moving picture in its time, the picture did not consist of any varietys of shots, and it was simply a single camera in one spot filming for a set amount of time when hand cranked through a projector, it runs approximately 50 seconds. This short film was revolutionary as it showed that technology could capture real life to then be viewed again later on projection. The Lumire brothers short film had no plot or direction; it was made to show that real life could be captured by technology. This influenced other moving pictures to be created, but moving pictures with a story or a theme. The earliest of these movies was called A Trip To The Moon this is a 1902 French silent film Inspired by a wide variety of sources, it follows a group of astronomers who travel to the moon in a cannon-propelled spaceship, explore the moon's surface. It is the best known of the hundreds of films made by Mlis, and the moment in which the spaceship lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic images in the history of cinema. It was considered one of the most important feats in film history as it used different sets and shots, although the camera stationary. The 17-minute long film was an extraordinary success as it was only a period of 5 years before when the Lumire brothers processed there short moving picture, within the short amount of time, Mlis had produced a full movie with different shot angles and special effects.