WEBVTT - Invention Playlist: The Motion Picture, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.240 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.400 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and I'm 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.160 Joe McCormick, and we're back with another part of our 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.840 exploration of the invention of the motion picture. So, as 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.880 we were discussing in the previous episode, so, I think 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:23.480 one of the things we've we've been trying to lay 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.880 the groundwork for, is that the idea of the motion picture, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.159 like the movies we watched today, was not one of 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.080 these inventions that just like comes out of nowhere, right, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.199 the Eureka moment that strikes some brilliant inventor's brain. The 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.400 motion picture very much grew out of several streams of 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.960 existing technology, right, absolutely, Yeah, there's not just one individual 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.000 as this is this dream of motion pictures and then 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.240 develops it, invents it, and then an unveils the motion 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.279 picture for a hungry for the hungry masses to view. Right. Uh. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.720 And it's something also that I think people's taste for 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:00.680 in a way had to develop up over time. And 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.680 I think we can explore that more as the episodes 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.759 go on. But uh, where we're starting today, I think 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.920 there are three major streams of technology that are feeding 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.399 into the development of the motion picture. So one is 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.759 something we talked about last time that we might call 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:21.680 animation devices like the Phoenickista cope or the Phoenikista scope 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.680 it's been called both, or the zootrope. These were toys 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:30.839 that created an illusion of continuous motion by rolling through 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.240 a succession of still images that took advantage of loopholes 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.440 in the way that our eyes and our brains perceive images, 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.720 known as a parent movement. Basically, it was an optical 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.400 illusion that allowed a bunch of still images to appear 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.840 to us as something that is moving, right, And these 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.480 were devices that grew out of the age of photography. 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.560 So these were not ancient by any or really any 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.040 older than photographic technology. Right. But these early animation devices 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.600 were mostly known for animating like drawings or silhouette cutouts. 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.760 But an interesting question you might have wondered about at 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.120 the time, say it's the eighteen seventies of the eighteen 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.600 eighties or so, you might be getting to wonder if 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.680 you could combine the optical principles here in the in 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.440 these animation devices of a parent movement generated by looking 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.880 at successive still images really fast with another technology and development, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.080 which of course is photography, so to replace these hand 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.120 drawn or hand cut still images with direct records of 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.120 scenes in reality exactly. And then finally, another technology that 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.959 we've explored a lot less so far but will become 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.120 really important in today's episode that feeds into the history 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:41.520 of the motion picture is something that's known as the 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.120 magic lantern, and that's an invention that had existed for 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.120 centuries by the time of the motion picture was invented. 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.280 But essentially you can think of it as kind of 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.440 an early version of the slide projector. You ever like 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:54.880 go over to you know, back in the day, you 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:56.480 go over to somebody's house and they want to show 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.120 you pictures of their vacation, and they go through the 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.560 slide projector it shows them up on a screen or 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:03.519 up on the wall. Oh yeah, I mean, I fondly 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.320 remember my family's own slide projector. I was never really 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.480 allowed to mess with it, uh, and maybe that's why 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.640 it was so fascinating And then you broke it. No, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.280 I never never never got the chance. Okay, I guess 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.680 some some schools use these two occasionally. Yeah, I definitely 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.320 remember projectors, slide projectors coming up in in classroom environments 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.080 as well. Yeah, But basically it combines a transparent plate 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.079 on which an image is drawn or otherwise captured, uh, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.160 and a lens and a light source that shines through 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:34.519 the plate that has the image on it, and through 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.480 the lens projecting the image on a surface or screen. Yeah. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.040 I mean I should also add that, of course, you 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.880 have you have other old performance methods that involved you know, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.560 shadow puppets, yes exactly, which would have also been a 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.120 projection based medium. Well, that's a really great point. I mean, 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.120 one way to create a very crude version of a 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.400 motion picture would be to use a magic lantern to 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.160 project images and then actually just to move the plate 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.720 or elements within the plate around, kind of like you 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:06.920 would move your hands in a shadow puppet show. You know, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.520 like if you're projecting through a glass plate and you've 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:11.520 got things on the plate, you could kind of have 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.760 them dance around and fight each other and all that 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.320 kind of stuff. But obviously you'd be fairly limited in 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.479 what you could do with that. So all three of 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.600 these are not motion pictures, and yet they all kind 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.240 of converge into the idea of the motion picture. Right 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.400 if you combine these three principles, you've pretty much got 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.880 the earliest makings of a live action movie, but we're 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.480 not there yet. A sort of early combination of these 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.400 three elements was another device that we mentioned in the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.840 last episode, the Zoa practice scope, which was invented by 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.320 Edward my Bridge, the photographer and inventor around the end 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.320 of the eighteen seventies. So you remember we talked about 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.000 Edward my Bridge in the last episode where he didn't 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.839 just use one camera, but he would use a battery 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.560 of cameras to capture a bunch of images really fast. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.280 Absolutely Yes, as the as a horse ran by, this 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.640 battery of cameras would go off, resulting in this this, this, 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:09.800 this series of images to portray the locomotion of the horse. Right, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.120 So if he wanted to like show off those images 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.480 in a way that wasn't just like you know, looking 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.200 at them one at a time. He he could sort 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.280 of animate them together. And that's what the zoo practicoscope 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.920 was for. Uh. He used a very complicated process to 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.800 sort of treat and re render the silhouettes of all 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.280 those still images taken really fast by a battery of cameras, 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.560 and then it would put he would put them around 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.200 the edge of a glass disk in sequence, which could 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.200 then be rotated in front of a projected light source, 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.719 showing off the sort of realism of movement captured frame 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.679 by frame. But of course, even if you look at this, 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.000 this is sort of the principle of the motion picture. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:50.760 But I think most people wouldn't think that it was 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.640 a movie just yet. Now, at this point in the story, 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.440 we have to reintroduce a character who has already shown 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.360 up on invention in the past. I believe he made 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.839 an appearance in our X ray episode. Oh really, Yeah, 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.800 he shows up a lot in the especially like the 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.599 second half of the nineteen hundreds. If you're dealing with inventions, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.120 whether or not he necessarily deserves all the credit for 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.960 some breakthrough, he may show up in the story, right 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.440 and you, yeah, you can't remove him from the story. 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.320 He was a major player, right. So this is where 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.039 Thomas Edison enters the picture. So you may have heard 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.360 that the prolific inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison invented 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.920 the motion picture, And I think if that is what 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.320 you believe, you are sort of unwittingly a part of 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.080 Thomas Edison's diabolical plan. Uh, though he did play a 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.839 very important role in the early development of the motion 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.280 picture I don't want to play that game. A lot 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.880 of people really love to sort of over demonize Thomas Edison. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.800 I think there are some very valid critiques of the 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.640 man historically, but you know, a lot of people just 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.400 like that. They go the Tesla versus Edison route, and 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.159 like Tesla is the hero and Edison's the villain. But 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.640 I do think it's basically true. A lot of what 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.520 Thomas Edison did was come up with, or catch wind 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.200 of innovative technological concepts that are sort of on the 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.720 edge of discovery, and then hire other people to do 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.920 the heavy lifting of designing these things, so then Edison 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.800 could reap the much of the profit and the credit himself. 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.280 And one of these assistants that Edison hired who worked 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.200 for Edison was a guy named William Kennedy Lorie Dickson, 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.680 also known often in books referenced as W. K. L. 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.240 Dixon and Dickson was a photographer, and this may have 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.600 been part of the reason that in June eight eighty nine, 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:40.480 Edison selected him to actually design a device that Edison 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.600 had kind of conceptualized, which he was calling the kinetoscope, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.560 of course, from kineto meaning movement and scope meaning like 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.000 to see or to watch. But you might wonder where 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.960 did Edison get this idea from. Well, we can't know 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.600 for sure all of what Edison had in mind before this, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.600 so I think there's some indication he may have already 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:00.960 been interested in the idea of move being images. But 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.520 one thing we do know that I was reading about 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.920 is that in eighty eight Edward my Bridge visited Edison's 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.120 laboratory in New Jersey. Apparently my Bridge was there to 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.680 suggest a partnership. UH see, Edison and his lab workers 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.880 had recently invented a device, or not not quite so recently. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.160 It was around eighteen seventy seven. I think it was 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.480 patented in eighteen seventy eight called the phonograph, And the 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.640 phonograph was huge. It was a big breakthrough. It was 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:33.880 a sound recording and playback device that was immensely popular. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.880 It would later evolve into the record player, though the 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:42.400 original uh phonograph both recorded and played back cylinders, not disks, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.280 you know, if I remember correctly, These pop up in 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.120 brom Stoker's novel Dracula Really yeah, some of the you know, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.000 it's all a little bits, tidbits from various people's journals 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.480 and diaries and in some cases their cylinder recording. Oh 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.240 Dr Seward does he do dictation on phonograph cylinders? See, 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.560 I don't remember exactly which characters. I know it's not Dracula, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:11.280 and there are no chapters from Dracula's perspective, unfortunately. But yeah, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.320 So so Edison and his people they had the phonograph, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.440 and that was this very popular revolutionary technology could record 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:23.120 in playback sound. And so in February of eight, my 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.280 Bridge showed up with an idea. He said, Hey, let's collaborate. 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.760 I'll pare your phonograph with Miso practice scope, and we'll 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:37.600 have sound accompanying moving pictures, which is perfect. Like, that's 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.080 exactly the direction things we're gonna go in. Edison passed, 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.719 and he was like not interested. But then pretty much 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.079 immediately Edison moved on the idea of creating an improved 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:53.120 motion picture capture and playback device quote to do for 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.600 the eye what the phonograph does for the ear. And 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.320 this would be the kinetoscope that we mentioned a moment ago. 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.440 So I don't think you can say that Edison was 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.600 stealing my Bridge's idea because what they would eventually come 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.880 up with was so much better and more practical than 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.360 the Zoo practice practice code. But it does seem right 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.800 that he thought, you know, instead of partnering with this guy, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.400 I can just make a much better version of his thing. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.480 Whether that's crooked or not, I don't know. I'll leave 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.959 that up to you to judge. So in eighteen eighty nine, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:29.000 Edison tasks uh William Dixon, his his worker W. K. L. Dixon, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.840 with inventing this device that he has conceptualized to do 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.760 for the eye what the phonograph did for the year, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.880 essentially a video recording and playback device, and apparently early 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.160 prototypes did not work very well. One idea seemed to 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.320 be inspired by the phonograph cylinder, Uh, and it was 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.079 the idea that you would place tiny reflective photos on 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.800 a cylinder that would simulate motion through reflected light. As 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.560 the cylinder spun, you can kind of just like picture. 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.400 That not working very well, so you might want or okay, 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.400 how do we solve these problems? Well. In the last episode, 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.640 we talked about the French physiologist A Tene Jules Moray 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.080 who in the eighteen seventies invented this device that was 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.000 called the Chrono photographic gun, or at least that's what 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.760 we called it at the Chrona Photograph uh And it 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.120 was like this scientific instrument. It's kind of like a 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.160 machine gun for taking pictures. Its goal was to rapidly 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.280 capture a lot of photographs very quickly, around twelve photos 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.080 per second on a rotating piece of glass on which 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.240 photographic emulsions had been prepared inside a drum. That makes 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.880 it look kind of like a mutated Tommy gun. Yeah, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.240 it's super weird. It's like a Wizards machine gun. It's whatever. Yeah, 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.560 that's right. Uh So, so it's a precursor in the 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.040 movie camera in a way. But it also straight up 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:52.160 looks like a rifle. And Murray was inspired by Edward 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.160 my Bridge's work and he used the chrona Photographic gun 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.040 to take lots of pictures really fast, of like birds 0:11:58.080 --> 0:11:59.920 in flight, to get a better idea of what's happened 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.240 with the movements of a bird's wings and body during flight, 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.520 which normally happens too fast for us to see is 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.040 just a blur. So Murray was very much in the 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.280 in the spirit of science. He was not trying to 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.520 create an entertainment device. He was trying to study nature, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.760 study the locomotion and of birds in this case. So 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.760 in a way, Murray's Gun was a step in the 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.679 right direction toward motion pictures. But because it it has 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:27.000 some limitations that either variously relied on either plate glass 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.280 exposures or relatively fragile paper film, there's no way you 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.160 could use it to record more than a very short 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.400 period of motion, maybe like a second or two, and 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.679 you couldn't effectively load and have ready enough of the 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.720 medium it recorded the images on to make it, you know, 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.680 something that could record for extended periods of time. But 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.840 it seems Edison did draw some inspiration from Murray in principle. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.040 And this is where another individual from a past episode 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.000 pops up, an individual who played an important role in 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:02.120 the development of photographic technology. G George Eastman. That's right. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.840 So Eastman played an important role, uh with helping come 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.480 up with the medium. So Eastman of Eastman Kodak, of course, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:14.200 who we discussed previously, had created paper film rolls that 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.120 did not require glass plates. And this is this is 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.760 an important step in in thinking about the media on 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.320 which photographs are recorded, because just think about if you 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.800 had to create a movie cameras capturing I don't know, 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.400 so you're trying to capture forty frames per second or 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.560 even if you're going low and just trying to do 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.960 like sixteen frames per second or something, and you want 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.560 to do that all on like glass plates. How do 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.680 you do that? You do use like glass glass plates 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.160 framed with wood that are on like a belt chain 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.520 together to go past the camera to get exposed. How 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.679 many times per second? You can imagine how the medium 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.920 there makes the camera set up really unwieldy and and 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.240 to a certain extent, impossible to record more than a 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.520 few seconds at a time. Right, Yeah, you're coming up 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.719 against the hard limits of the of the material there. 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.800 I would love to see one of these, though. I'm 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.079 sure there's a great version of like a steampunk video 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.320 game or something that has like just like giant drums 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.000 of glass plate belts rattling through as the cameras shooting 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.000 on them. Uh So, one thing Eastman had created by 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.040 eighteen eighty eight was paper film roles that didn't require 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.960 glass plates. Uh this wasn't the first paper film, but 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.680 this was a version of paper film. Uh and and 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.040 this is an improvement because you can imagine at least okay, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.320 paper can be like rolled up in great quantities that 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.760 you could feed through a camera if you needed to 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.520 shoot tons of photos in quick succession. Right, it begins 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:44.000 to to make it possible to really um capture footage 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.320 of of of the world in action. Yeah, but this 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.320 paper film was relatively fragile, flimsy, difficult to work with. 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.720 It just wasn't very good. Meanwhile, a year before, in 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:59.720 eighteen eighty seven, an American Episcopalian rector named Hannibal Goodwin 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.320 who lived in Newark, New Jersey, came up with a 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.720 different ideas, an idea for a medium for photographic exposures, 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.800 and that would be celluloid. Now, celluloid is a transparent 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:15.480 kind of synthetic plastic invented in the eighteen sixties. And 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.400 to to make it, you can start with natural cellulose, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.360 which is a plant polymer that you'd find in cotton 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.400 or wood or in himp. Cotton is like mostly cellulose, 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.760 so you can just picture a ball of cotton, and 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.120 then you take that cell cellulose and you treat it 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.480 with nitric acid and this gives you an extremely flammable 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:39.080 plastic compound called nitro cellulose, and nitro cellulose and celluloid 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.480 become the early basis of film technology, creating these continuous 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.120 strips of plastic that could serve as film roles. Uh 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.040 And originally, though it's funny reading about how celluloid plastic 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.680 in the like eighteen sixties seventies that served all kinds 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.400 of weird uses, or at least people imagined it would 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.760 like as a substitute for expensive precious materials like ivory, 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.160 or it was also used in clothing. I've read something 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:11.359 about like men's shirts and stuff being having cell celluloid components. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.400 Another one was I read about somebody's idea to use 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:20.720 celluloid to make billiard balls. Um. But eventually Eastman and 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.680 collaborators would switch over to producing roles of celluloid based film, 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.760 and this could be manufactured in the kinds of long, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.640 durable roles necessary for exposing the dozens or hundreds or 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.600 thousands of shots necessary to record more than a second 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.560 or two of motion picture. Uh. Though Eastman did have 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.120 a long running patent dispute with Hannibal Goodwin and his 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.040 estate about celluloid film. They had to go back and 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.200 forth about who had the rights to do what with it. 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:54.520 But once this durable plastic film celluloid film was available 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.000 in bulk from Eastman, William Dixon and Edison and colleagues 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.760 suddenly had new kinds of option is open to them, 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.240 Like this would allow you to do a lot more 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.120 with filming the world and why did they ever film 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.040 the world? We're going to take a quick break and 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.879 when we come back we'll continue our discussion with the 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:19.760 history of the motion picture. Alright, We're back, all right, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.640 So I guess we should discuss some design issues with 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.919 the movie camera that William Dixon in Edison's lab was 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.600 trying to create. One problem would be this, do you 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.280 ever think about the like, how does a movie camera 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.199 simulate motion? In the last episode we talked about how 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.680 it has to simulate motion by showing you still images 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.800 in a very rapid succession. This is the way that 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.320 the optical illusion works. Uh. And it doesn't work to 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.480 take say a few hundred photos in succession and then 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.160 roll them past your eyes in one smooth emotion, right, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.000 because what would you see there? Just a blur? Right? 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.560 That won't cut it right. I mean, that's not showing 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.320 you a succession of still in images. That's just showing 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.920 you images that are moving top to bottom or moving 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.080 side to side too fast for you to look at them. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.080 So instead, what you have to do is find a 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:13.360 way to project lots of distinct, unmoving images very rapidly, 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.159 one after another. So how to do that? Well, if 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.080 you've ever think about what celluloid film roles look like, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.359 especially movie film, you know those holes in the sides 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.879 of the film strip, Well that's where they come in. Uh. 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.720 These holes allowed their devices to rapidly grab the film 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.520 strip with a fast moving lever that had teeth to 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:39.240 fit the holes, advance exactly one frame, project that frame 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.199 through the shutter without moving it, and then close the 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.320 shutter and advance the next frame. So you're hitting here's 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.240 the image, and then here's the new image, here's the 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.639 here's the next image. Yeah again, not just running it 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.000 through like it's the like the belt on an engine, right, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:54.960 but dozens of frames for second and it has to 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:59.280 stop on each one. So in AUGUSTE. Edison filed for 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:03.399 a patent on two separate machines, the kinetic graph, which 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.760 was the movie camera and the Kineta scope, which was 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.159 the movie playback device. And these were two separate things, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:15.120 so that the Kinetic Graph camera was this gigantic, monstrous 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.800 electrical device for shooting films. It weighed like a thousand 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.320 pounds or something. It was huge. Uh. It used components 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.919 modeled on the internal workings of a clock to ensure 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.080 the regular stop and start motion of advancing the film 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.679 and stopping it one frame at a time, and to 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.879 synchronize the opening of the shutter with the placement of 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.560 the next frame. And this device initially filmed at a 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.840 rate of about forty frames per second. Meanwhile, the Kineta 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.639 scope was a large wooden cabinet about four ft high 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.520 that held a film strip inside, and this was the 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.200 dedicated playback device for films made on the Kinetic graph. 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.200 The viewer would look through a lens at the top 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:58.080 of the cabinet, kind of like the eyepiece for a 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.400 view master. Did you ever have one of those? Okay, yeah, yeah, 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.280 So it's not really a screen. It's like binoculars that 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.359 you know, you put your eyes in and you look 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.840 down into the machine, and inside the machine the film 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:15.000 hung from rollers and during playback it would be advanced rapidly, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.400 one frame at a time by an electrically powered sprocket 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.920 with an electric lamp shining up through each frame into 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.639 the viewing lens, which allows you to see the motion 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.760 picture projected into your eyes. Right, and now that this 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.399 is impressive, don't get me wrong. But but obviously the 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.560 limitations are apparent, Like this is a device that can 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.280 be used by one person at a time. It is 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.600 a large cabinet. Uh, it's more like a peep show 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.160 as opposed to what you might think of as a 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.880 as movie viewing, certainly as a communal experience. That's exactly right. 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.240 I mean, can you imagine a world where everybody was 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:54.439 just walking around staring into their own individual devices to 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:59.480 watch video and weren't interacting with each other. Yes, but 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.359 it is a great point because the history of of 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.960 motion picture technology, cinematic technology, the ability to watch the 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.320 moving image. Uh, it's kind of you see these different 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.840 trends like the like, like something will be individual and 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:15.719 then it will go communal, and then there'll be new 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.800 ways to make it more individual again and generally with 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.720 the we see it both ways. Like here, the advancements 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.720 would make movie viewing more communal, and then later on 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.120 it would be in the different direction. Let's take let's 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.240 take this thing that is that has to be communal, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.040 and let's let you do it in the privacy of 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.760 your own home. Um, and I imagine you know, they're 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.320 they're they're pros and cons with with both with both directions. Yeah, exactly. 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.160 I mean this was a very different viewing experience, even 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.360 then looking at a video on your phone. Uh, it 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.800 was just extremely different because number one, um, we'll talk 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.480 a little bit more about where these kinetoscopes were deployed, 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.160 but they would be out in public semi public places, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:21:59.960 you know, and you could go use one. And while 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.400 the kinetoscope parlor might be a happen and hang out 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.359 when you view the movie, you're viewing it alone with 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.240 your face attached to a box. That's not like going 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.240 to a movie theater, like you're saying. It's completely different 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.720 kind of culture around how these things are viewed. But 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.200 also the films had to be very different then because 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:22.800 of the technical physical limitations on the film strips, on 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.200