1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:09,080
Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

2
00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:12,040
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and I'm

3
00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,720
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be embarking on

4
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,640
Speaker 1: a sort of second part of our saga of photographic history.

5
00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:22,080
Speaker 1: We just did several parts talking about the camera obscura

6
00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: and then the invention of photography, and now we're moving

7
00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:27,720
Speaker 1: on to the motion picture. And I wanted to start

8
00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:30,480
Speaker 1: with a question that might be a stupid question, but

9
00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:33,440
Speaker 1: it's something that I often think about when I go

10
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,199
Speaker 1: to the movies, and it's that when you go to

11
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,640
Speaker 1: the movies, you sit down to see a motion picture.

12
00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:43,040
Speaker 1: The basic media that you're viewing is a succession of

13
00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 1: still images that are perceived by the brain, is continuous

14
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,560
Speaker 1: visual motion and audio that accompanies it. And so that

15
00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:53,760
Speaker 1: in itself is pretty neutral, right like that that it

16
00:00:53,840 --> 00:00:57,360
Speaker 1: could show you any number of sights and sounds. But

17
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:00,959
Speaker 1: what we came to view for some reason as the

18
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,600
Speaker 1: motion picture, the thing you go see in a theater

19
00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:07,679
Speaker 1: most of the time these days, is something like a

20
00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 1: visual novel or a visual short story. It's like a

21
00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,000
Speaker 1: story shaped thing, and then you watch it for an

22
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,119
Speaker 1: hour and a half or two hours and then it's over.

23
00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:18,640
Speaker 1: And obviously there are lots of exceptions to this, and

24
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:21,280
Speaker 1: if you want to expand a video you I mean, god,

25
00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:23,840
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole pool of different kinds of

26
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:25,520
Speaker 1: content out there, But the things we think of as

27
00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:30,360
Speaker 1: movies are these stories. And I wonder why that is. Well,

28
00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:31,920
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of we said about just

29
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,320
Speaker 1: the importance of storytelling in human culture or something we've

30
00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:38,480
Speaker 1: talked about on Stuff to Blow your mind recently. I

31
00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:40,560
Speaker 1: think that's that's a major factor, Like what do we

32
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,400
Speaker 1: what do we do with our art and our technology

33
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:47,400
Speaker 1: while we do human things? We we tell stories for starters.

34
00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:50,320
Speaker 1: But it's interesting when you go back to the earliest

35
00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:53,760
Speaker 1: days of the motion picture, I feel like you get

36
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: a sense back then that it wasn't always necessarily gonna

37
00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:00,520
Speaker 1: be this way, because yeah, it's some of the the

38
00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:02,760
Speaker 1: examples we're going to discuss in this episode. You see

39
00:02:03,080 --> 00:02:07,400
Speaker 1: the more of the scientific direction of motion picture, the

40
00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:10,560
Speaker 1: way that motion picture can be used to to unravel

41
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:12,840
Speaker 1: what is actually going on in the world, to to

42
00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,640
Speaker 1: slow it down and to better understand it. Yeah, to

43
00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:20,959
Speaker 1: either present kind of a non story based visual spectacle

44
00:02:21,639 --> 00:02:24,799
Speaker 1: to just kind of show you a succession of things happening,

45
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:28,040
Speaker 1: or to study, Yeah, to study the world and get

46
00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:29,840
Speaker 1: a closer look at it, maybe to see it in

47
00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:32,480
Speaker 1: a kind of slow motion that you wouldn't have seen before.

48
00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:36,160
Speaker 1: So you're you're wondering if there's perhaps like an alternate

49
00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:40,160
Speaker 1: reality where it, say, documentary is the primary Like when

50
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:41,720
Speaker 1: someone says, hey, do you want to come over to

51
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:44,519
Speaker 1: our house and watch a movie, you just assume documentary,

52
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,120
Speaker 1: and then if it's a fiction film, you're like, oh,

53
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:49,359
Speaker 1: it's not a documentary, how surprising, or things that might

54
00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,200
Speaker 1: be called like art films. Now, I mean, there are

55
00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:55,920
Speaker 1: a million different ways you could show somebody a succession

56
00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,400
Speaker 1: of still images simulating motion and accompanying sound, and it

57
00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,480
Speaker 1: would not like, you know, there's an infinite variety of

58
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,400
Speaker 1: things you could do there that wouldn't be a story

59
00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:10,680
Speaker 1: that some somewhat simulates the structure of a novel. Yeah,

60
00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:12,359
Speaker 1: or or I mean there of course, there are plenty

61
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:15,040
Speaker 1: of examples of things like say, live sporting events also

62
00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:20,440
Speaker 1: presented via the medium of essentially the moving picture. Yeah, Well,

63
00:03:20,480 --> 00:03:22,840
Speaker 1: maybe then this just has more to do with with

64
00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:25,440
Speaker 1: our categories, like the things that we end up calling

65
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,000
Speaker 1: movies because as you know, as we mentioned a minute

66
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 1: ago there there's there's an whole internet full of video

67
00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:37,560
Speaker 1: content that you wouldn't call movies, but it's it's something, right, yeah. Uh.

68
00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: But you know this, this does get to the heart

69
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:41,680
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here and what we've been

70
00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:46,960
Speaker 1: talking about with the evolution of photographic technology. How it

71
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:52,080
Speaker 1: how we see that the technology grow advance, then spread

72
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:55,600
Speaker 1: out and and and become you know, not merely the

73
00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:59,880
Speaker 1: technology of elite individuals, but the technology of the man,

74
00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:04,440
Speaker 1: and then how that inevitably changes everything as well. Exactly. Now,

75
00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:06,640
Speaker 1: one of the things that we have been talking about

76
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:10,200
Speaker 1: in our history of photography here is how the invention

77
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,520
Speaker 1: of photography was sort of part of a quest for

78
00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:16,120
Speaker 1: ever increasing realism in imagery, right that that was something

79
00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:18,560
Speaker 1: that Louis de Guerre was concerned with. He wanted to

80
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,640
Speaker 1: create more and more realistic paintings, first working on his

81
00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:25,920
Speaker 1: panoramas and the diorama, like taking the art of painting

82
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,919
Speaker 1: to two new heights of realism and simulating real scenes,

83
00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:32,919
Speaker 1: and of course the next step beyond that is directly

84
00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:37,159
Speaker 1: just transferring the light reflected off of things onto a

85
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,320
Speaker 1: permanent record. But of course, as we were talking about,

86
00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:44,400
Speaker 1: fixed images are also sort of a simulation because reality

87
00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:47,480
Speaker 1: is never a fixed image, right, We we see a

88
00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:50,960
Speaker 1: fixed image and it kind of implies motion, right, Yeah,

89
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 1: there's this this wonderful blurring that kind of takes place

90
00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 1: in our imagination. Yeah. Just I mean, just think about

91
00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:58,360
Speaker 1: the ways that people had to be put in the

92
00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:00,800
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden in order to have their portrait taken in

93
00:05:00,839 --> 00:05:03,320
Speaker 1: the earliest Guera types, because you know, you had a

94
00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,360
Speaker 1: exposure of several minutes and you couldn't move your face,

95
00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:09,799
Speaker 1: and so how natural is that a representation of a person.

96
00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:13,640
Speaker 1: Uh So the real way to get reality even more,

97
00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:16,520
Speaker 1: to get even closer to the experience of just looking

98
00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:20,719
Speaker 1: at the world, would be to record continuous imagery. Yeah.

99
00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:25,160
Speaker 1: This there's a particular type of video portrait. I think

100
00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: probably a number of people have probably seen it utilized

101
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:33,240
Speaker 1: in the film Baraca that came out many years ago.

102
00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:35,120
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, Oh you should. It's a you know,

103
00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: fabulous and beautiful cinematography. Um just you know, scenes of

104
00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:45,120
Speaker 1: life and tradition and ritual around the world. But they're

105
00:05:45,160 --> 00:05:50,240
Speaker 1: these wonderful scenes where it's just an individual staring into

106
00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:54,559
Speaker 1: the camera and and you're just kind of locking eyes

107
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:56,720
Speaker 1: with them, and it feels it feels very intimate. It's

108
00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:00,400
Speaker 1: you know, it's essentially a motion portrait. That is interesting.

109
00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:03,599
Speaker 1: I wonder why that didn't catch on once we had

110
00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:06,599
Speaker 1: photo and video technology as the new form of portrait.

111
00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:09,560
Speaker 1: You had painted portraiture, then you had photo portraiture. Why

112
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 1: not video portraiture. So up on the wall, there's Grandpa.

113
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 1: They're just on a continuous loop of about ten minutes

114
00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:17,080
Speaker 1: of looking into the camera. Well that's what they have

115
00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:21,839
Speaker 1: in the Harry Potter world. There do not seem to

116
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:26,719
Speaker 1: really be any stationary photographs. All photographs are these motion portraits.

117
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:29,880
Speaker 1: So their ahead, Yeah, they are aheading. We don't lack.

118
00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 1: The technology is just that doesn't seem to be what

119
00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:36,120
Speaker 1: people want when they're in their portraiture. Alright. So yeah,

120
00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:39,200
Speaker 1: as as we've been discussing, some of the predecessors to

121
00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:43,560
Speaker 1: the motion picture are are very much the photographic technologies

122
00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:47,160
Speaker 1: we've discussed before. But but but some things are not

123
00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 1: really directly related to that technology. And then we also

124
00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:55,760
Speaker 1: really need to discuss some key phenomena that play into

125
00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:59,160
Speaker 1: the experience of motion picture viewing. Right, These would be

126
00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:03,800
Speaker 1: neurological and brain brain phenomena. Psychological phenomenon also, and one

127
00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:07,400
Speaker 1: of these phenomena has historically been referred to though it's

128
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:09,920
Speaker 1: a problematic concept. We can discuss a little bit as

129
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:13,920
Speaker 1: as persistence of vision, and other relevant phenomena that I

130
00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 1: think we'll have to mention are known as beta motion

131
00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:19,840
Speaker 1: and the five phenomenon, which we will collectively call a

132
00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:23,239
Speaker 1: parent movement or a parent motion. Right, So as we proceed,

133
00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:25,679
Speaker 1: we'll we'll kind of like catch up on all of that. Yeah,

134
00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:29,480
Speaker 1: but let's let's start with this idea of persistence of vision. Okay,

135
00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:33,400
Speaker 1: so how do we think about motion pictures? Well, when

136
00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:35,480
Speaker 1: when when it's really good, we often don't think about

137
00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:37,120
Speaker 1: it at all, do we? Well? Yeah, I mean that's

138
00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 1: what they say is the best director of a film

139
00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:42,280
Speaker 1: is the one who creates a film where you don't

140
00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:45,640
Speaker 1: notice the direction, Like you're not picking out technical elements,

141
00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:47,800
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're really looking for them. But it's

142
00:07:47,840 --> 00:07:50,560
Speaker 1: the person who creates the film that is pure experience, right,

143
00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:53,160
Speaker 1: You just get lost in the action, the emotion, the wonder.

144
00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:55,840
Speaker 1: But even if we're say a little bit bored or

145
00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 1: checked out during a movie, or a TV show. We

146
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:01,720
Speaker 1: may think of these things as well. We might just

147
00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 1: think of it as a massive production or a work

148
00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:05,480
Speaker 1: of our We might kind of take it apart in

149
00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 1: these different directions, right, Like, I wonder how they shot this,

150
00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,480
Speaker 1: So this is this is a pretty pretty long take.

151
00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 1: I'm bored, but I'm admiring the all the work that

152
00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:17,440
Speaker 1: went into making it. But we're probably not thinking of

153
00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:21,200
Speaker 1: the film that we're viewing as visual stimuli. That exploits

154
00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:23,920
Speaker 1: a loophole in the way that we process images, right,

155
00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:26,840
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what it is. It's taking advantages of

156
00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:30,000
Speaker 1: sort of particular facts about the way our eyes and

157
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:33,360
Speaker 1: our brains work to make us have the illusion that

158
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:36,560
Speaker 1: we're looking at continuous images when actually we're when we're

159
00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:39,120
Speaker 1: looking at a succession of still images that do not

160
00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:42,559
Speaker 1: move at all. That's right. So, persistence of vision is

161
00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:45,320
Speaker 1: is the retention of a visual image for a short

162
00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:48,120
Speaker 1: period of time after the removal of the stimulus that

163
00:08:48,200 --> 00:08:51,319
Speaker 1: produced it. The human brain can only process ten to

164
00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:54,640
Speaker 1: twelve images per second, retaining an image for a for

165
00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:56,839
Speaker 1: up to a fifteenth of a second. If a new

166
00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,320
Speaker 1: image comes along within a fifteenth of the second, it

167
00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 1: creates an illusion of continuity. Yeah. Now, in the nineteenth century,

168
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:06,640
Speaker 1: persistence of vision was originally sort of believed to occur

169
00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:11,520
Speaker 1: because images lingered on the retina for a short period

170
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:13,840
Speaker 1: of time after you see them. But I think that's

171
00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:17,440
Speaker 1: not exactly believed to be the true cause of the

172
00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:20,640
Speaker 1: experience of persistence of vision. Now, it is true that

173
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:24,160
Speaker 1: fast successions of still images are processed in the brain

174
00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 1: as continuous motion or you know, as as a single experience,

175
00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:31,080
Speaker 1: and not as a a succession of images, but not

176
00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:35,000
Speaker 1: because the retina functions like a camera taking snapshots that

177
00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:37,440
Speaker 1: can be measured in frames per second, where they stack

178
00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:40,360
Speaker 1: up if they come fast enough. I think the idea

179
00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:44,200
Speaker 1: there was that you'd sort of blend one frame into another, uh,

180
00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:47,840
Speaker 1: that persists as new frames are sensed. But our modern

181
00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:51,360
Speaker 1: understanding of vision as as perception is less like a

182
00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:54,719
Speaker 1: camera taking snapshots and more kind of like an integrated

183
00:09:54,760 --> 00:09:57,400
Speaker 1: sensation that involves the brain as much as the eyes.

184
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,000
Speaker 1: So even though the original understanding of persistence of vision

185
00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:04,320
Speaker 1: might not be exactly technically correct, I think it's still

186
00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,800
Speaker 1: useful as a metaphor for one way that the still

187
00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,280
Speaker 1: image seems to flow smoothly from one moment to the next.

188
00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:13,920
Speaker 1: If these still images are projected fast enough, and it

189
00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:18,120
Speaker 1: it's ultimately simulates continuous motion. Yeah. And so motion pictures

190
00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:21,760
Speaker 1: were traditionally sixteen frames per second for silent films and

191
00:10:21,800 --> 00:10:24,840
Speaker 1: then twenty four frames per second for sound films. And

192
00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:28,080
Speaker 1: that seems to be kind of a low threshold of

193
00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:30,600
Speaker 1: what we what is good enough for us to perceive

194
00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:33,640
Speaker 1: is continuous motion. Yeah. Anything anything less than that, and

195
00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:35,959
Speaker 1: you're going to get into sort of a herky jerky

196
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:38,920
Speaker 1: stop motion kind of feel right towards then the herky

197
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,560
Speaker 1: jerkyman singing songs of love. Yeah. The the fire effect

198
00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:47,640
Speaker 1: was originally defined in nineteen twelve by psychologist mac Max Verdheimer,

199
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:50,320
Speaker 1: and it's a He looked at it as a type

200
00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:53,640
Speaker 1: of optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images

201
00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:57,280
Speaker 1: when viewed in rapid session as a continuous motion. Yeah,

202
00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:00,480
Speaker 1: and this is one form of apparent movement. Unfortunately, it

203
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:05,040
Speaker 1: seems to me that these two concepts are apparently constantly confused.

204
00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,240
Speaker 1: In writings on Photo History, I came across this because

205
00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,920
Speaker 1: I was getting confused reading about them when preparing for

206
00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:14,319
Speaker 1: the episode. Uh So. In in writings on vision Perception,

207
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:18,240
Speaker 1: and film scholarship. The definitions of beta movement in five

208
00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,840
Speaker 1: effect seem kind of blurred together, as documented in a

209
00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:24,400
Speaker 1: two thousand paper published in the journal Vision Research. So

210
00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:26,400
Speaker 1: it took me forever to figure out what was going

211
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:28,440
Speaker 1: on here, and I was glad to find out it

212
00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:32,840
Speaker 1: wasn't just me. Now here's the short, simple version both

213
00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:36,440
Speaker 1: of these two phenomena, the FI effect and beta movement,

214
00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:40,800
Speaker 1: they enable us to see various kinds of illusory motion

215
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,080
Speaker 1: in successive still images, but they referred to different speeds

216
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,320
Speaker 1: of projection and types of visual sensation. And to the

217
00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:50,720
Speaker 1: best of my understanding, it appears to me that what's

218
00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,040
Speaker 1: taking place in our perception of films is more related

219
00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:56,360
Speaker 1: to what's known as beta movement. But either way, it's

220
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,880
Speaker 1: the brain's tendency to interpret certain types of changes in

221
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:04,120
Speaker 1: successive static images displayed at the right speed as smooth

222
00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:07,560
Speaker 1: continuous motion. So, for example, if you see successive still

223
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: images in which three dots are changing position on a

224
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: black background in between the images, if you project them

225
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 1: fast enough, we don't see images one at a time,

226
00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:21,120
Speaker 1: but we see a snake moving around. Basically, you know

227
00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:23,360
Speaker 1: what happens when you make a little flipbook out of

228
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,600
Speaker 1: the corners of a of a document. Yeah, so, on

229
00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:30,800
Speaker 1: its own, apparent movement is an extremely interesting phenomenon given

230
00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:33,640
Speaker 1: what it illustrates about the brain. It might be more

231
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,040
Speaker 1: mysterious and more interesting than we give it credit for,

232
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:38,439
Speaker 1: especially now that we're used to the idea of movies.

233
00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:40,679
Speaker 1: But we've discussed it a bit on stuff to blew

234
00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:43,800
Speaker 1: your mind before. In the context of forming a perception

235
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:47,000
Speaker 1: of the present moment in our sense of now, like

236
00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:50,280
Speaker 1: apparent movement cited under the name of the fire effect

237
00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:54,000
Speaker 1: can be demonstrated, for example, by rapidly flashing dots on

238
00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:57,319
Speaker 1: different parts of a screen. Uh. And if the flashes

239
00:12:57,400 --> 00:13:01,360
Speaker 1: are timed and positioned correctly, we don't just perceive a

240
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,280
Speaker 1: dot flashing here and then a dot flashing there, but

241
00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:09,320
Speaker 1: we perceive a single dot that moves between the locations

242
00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:11,880
Speaker 1: of the flashes. And this is one of the many,

243
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: many ways for us to realize that our vision is

244
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:18,080
Speaker 1: not a straightforward objective record of reality, but it's a

245
00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:22,040
Speaker 1: world of sensation stitched together in the brain based on

246
00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:24,880
Speaker 1: objective light data, but definitely not a one to one

247
00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:27,680
Speaker 1: representation of it. And just as a side note, because

248
00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:30,520
Speaker 1: it's too strange and interesting not to mention. One really

249
00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:34,600
Speaker 1: spooky effect here is the so called color fi effect.

250
00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:37,040
Speaker 1: So what happens if you take this principle of two

251
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:41,000
Speaker 1: flashing dots perceived as a single dot in motion, and

252
00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,840
Speaker 1: then you change the colors of the dots between flashes.

253
00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:49,360
Speaker 1: If your brain perceived continuous motion when there was none,

254
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,839
Speaker 1: how does it handle the color change between the end

255
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,480
Speaker 1: points of this path? You imagine you see the dot

256
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,880
Speaker 1: taking right, flashes here, then flashes there, but changes color

257
00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:02,319
Speaker 1: in between. What what? What does the brain do there? Will?

258
00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:05,840
Speaker 1: Studies show that people tend to perceive a change in

259
00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:09,120
Speaker 1: the color of the dot about halfway along the path

260
00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:11,800
Speaker 1: that it takes. So you flash a red dot, then

261
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:14,559
Speaker 1: you flash a green dot, and people see a dot

262
00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:17,400
Speaker 1: zip from one place to the other and change color

263
00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:20,800
Speaker 1: from red to green about halfway there. But the really

264
00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:24,000
Speaker 1: interesting question is how can you have seen the dot

265
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:27,640
Speaker 1: change color halfway there if it wasn't actually traveling and

266
00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:30,440
Speaker 1: you didn't know what color the second dot would be

267
00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,400
Speaker 1: until you saw it. Oh wow, Yeah, that that's that

268
00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:36,720
Speaker 1: really forces you to rethink how we're perceiving now, how

269
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:39,880
Speaker 1: we're perceiving time exactly. It's so strange because it's like,

270
00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:42,440
Speaker 1: for a split second your brain was able to predict

271
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,480
Speaker 1: to the future, but of course we know that's not

272
00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:47,600
Speaker 1: what happened. In fact, what this seems to indicate instead

273
00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:50,160
Speaker 1: is that not only is our vision a stitch together

274
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:53,040
Speaker 1: impression in our minds that's not a one for one

275
00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:56,800
Speaker 1: representation of reality, our perception of time from moment to

276
00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:00,600
Speaker 1: moment is a stitch together simulation as well, such that,

277
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,840
Speaker 1: like our very perception can essentially be post addicted. What

278
00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:07,280
Speaker 1: you think you see in one split second can be

279
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,680
Speaker 1: changed by what you see a split second later. It's

280
00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,120
Speaker 1: not until after you see the green dot that your

281
00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:16,880
Speaker 1: brain forms your perception of the dot you saw halfway

282
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,840
Speaker 1: along its imaginary journey. So this means you're not just

283
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:23,320
Speaker 1: seeing with your eyes, you're seeing with your memory and

284
00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:26,080
Speaker 1: with other cognitive functions of your brain. So it's it's

285
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:29,720
Speaker 1: vision is not reality. Of course, it's an illusion mostly

286
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:33,320
Speaker 1: informed by reality, but it's sort of formed in a

287
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:37,000
Speaker 1: in a in an anti chamber of consciousness that's not

288
00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:40,400
Speaker 1: quite there in your sensation, where things are quickly edited

289
00:15:40,480 --> 00:15:43,320
Speaker 1: together for you to perceive. And of course all this

290
00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:45,600
Speaker 1: is crucial in the way that movies work. Movies are

291
00:15:45,640 --> 00:15:50,200
Speaker 1: not merely audio visual objects. They require quirks of the

292
00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:54,160
Speaker 1: human brain to make sense and to feel like representations

293
00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:56,760
Speaker 1: of reality. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but

294
00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:58,960
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to continue to discuss

295
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,120
Speaker 1: how of the motion picture works in our brain and

296
00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:09,000
Speaker 1: then also some of the earlier models of this technology.

297
00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 1: All right, so I've got a kind of weird proposition

298
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:18,440
Speaker 1: about film technology, and it is that film technology we

299
00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:21,440
Speaker 1: should think of the earliest versions of it that originally

300
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:27,880
Speaker 1: evolved as a specifically human biotechnology, sort of like a

301
00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:31,720
Speaker 1: medicine made specifically for the human body, rather than as

302
00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:36,520
Speaker 1: a pure physical technology, because it has to do specifically

303
00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:40,040
Speaker 1: with the human brain and the human eye. That's right.

304
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,640
Speaker 1: This is something that I think is really mind blowing

305
00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:46,080
Speaker 1: to to think about, because given the numbers we mentioned previously,

306
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:48,480
Speaker 1: you know, the human brain can only process ten to

307
00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:51,760
Speaker 1: twelve images per second um and and you know, and

308
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 1: then the way that the image will persist for the

309
00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:57,960
Speaker 1: fifte the second. You might be thinking, well, what about animals?

310
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:01,120
Speaker 1: What about the various pets it we sometimes have hanging

311
00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:03,760
Speaker 1: out in our living rooms while the TV is on.

312
00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:07,680
Speaker 1: You might wonder, well, can some animals not see television

313
00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:09,400
Speaker 1: or films, or at least not see it the same

314
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:11,199
Speaker 1: way we do? Right? And then how do they see it?

315
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:14,840
Speaker 1: What would that be like just uh, to have different eyes,

316
00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:17,720
Speaker 1: different visual processing. I was wondering about this and I

317
00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:22,200
Speaker 1: found an excellent little article in Science Nordic and UH.

318
00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:25,960
Speaker 1: In this particular article do dogs see what's happening on TV?

319
00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:29,760
Speaker 1: They talked to Auto rope Stad, an associate or at

320
00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:32,800
Speaker 1: least then associate professor at the Norwegian School of Veterinary

321
00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 1: Science and UH. He pointed out that he would this

322
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,560
Speaker 1: would probably be like a strobe like torture show for

323
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 1: for any for for various animals to try and watch

324
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,240
Speaker 1: or be forced to watch television um or a movie

325
00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:50,320
Speaker 1: at least on an older television set. So they're they're

326
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:53,800
Speaker 1: they're being visited by the herkee jerkyman basically. So. The

327
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,119
Speaker 1: article points out that while humans requires in this articles

328
00:17:57,119 --> 00:17:59,760
Speaker 1: at sixty twenty images a second to perceive the illusion

329
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:04,480
Speaker 1: of films, dogs require seventy images per second. So it's

330
00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:06,800
Speaker 1: really only been in the past decade or so that

331
00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:10,600
Speaker 1: TV has become watchable to the canine audience. So at

332
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:12,840
Speaker 1: least for the you know, the vast majority of canines

333
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, my dog has never shown any interest

334
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 1: in TV at all, even you know, our our more

335
00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:21,639
Speaker 1: recent TV and I but I think that may just

336
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:24,040
Speaker 1: be because he's a snob. Because I was looking this

337
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:27,080
Speaker 1: up and uh, there is research indicating that dogs can

338
00:18:27,119 --> 00:18:29,920
Speaker 1: recognize images, such as the images of other dogs and

339
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:32,840
Speaker 1: humans on modern digital TV screens. It just seems like

340
00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:36,840
Speaker 1: some dogs don't really care. I also wonder about just

341
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,879
Speaker 1: like the senses and that are important to have given

342
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:43,080
Speaker 1: an organism, because obviously dog can't smell. Yeah, that the

343
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:46,480
Speaker 1: dog sense of smell is is phenomenal, Like it they

344
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:50,120
Speaker 1: live in a different sensory realm Uh that it's really

345
00:18:50,119 --> 00:18:53,040
Speaker 1: difficult for us to try to even imagine where it's.

346
00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:56,199
Speaker 1: It's really like like odor first, and if you remove

347
00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:58,440
Speaker 1: odor from the equation, they're just not going to be

348
00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:01,360
Speaker 1: taken in by the illusion. But we're we we put

349
00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:03,960
Speaker 1: all of our emphasis on visuals and then you know,

350
00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,520
Speaker 1: an audio second. Uh, we don't for the most part,

351
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:10,000
Speaker 1: we don't really care what the films would smell like

352
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,640
Speaker 1: outside of you know, a few smell a vision gimmicks

353
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:17,160
Speaker 1: here and there. For the most part, we're we're fine

354
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 1: not smelling the film. Are we going to do an

355
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,080
Speaker 1: episode on smell a vision one of the most important

356
00:19:21,119 --> 00:19:23,399
Speaker 1: inventions of the twentieth century. I think it would be

357
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,480
Speaker 1: cool to do an episode where we talk about all

358
00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:31,080
Speaker 1: the sort of failed inventions and innovations of of of

359
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:34,159
Speaker 1: the movie theater industry. Uh, you know, getting into The

360
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 1: Tingler and whatnot. The Tingler, Yes, fun film, The Tinkler. Um.

361
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,439
Speaker 1: But okay, so the dogs seventy images per second. The

362
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:47,200
Speaker 1: article points out that birds need a hundred frames per

363
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:50,119
Speaker 1: second to see. And while the article didn't mention cats,

364
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:52,359
Speaker 1: I have read elsewhere that they need a hundred frames

365
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:55,480
Speaker 1: per second as well. Um and uh, and I have

366
00:19:55,640 --> 00:20:00,240
Speaker 1: noticed that that our cat, she will all lot of

367
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,640
Speaker 1: times just not look at the television, but occasionally we'll

368
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker 1: put on these these HD bird watching videos on YouTube

369
00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:10,280
Speaker 1: and she definitely perks up and gets into those. Now,

370
00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:12,879
Speaker 1: part of that is listening. Of course, dads have have

371
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,680
Speaker 1: you know, amazing hearing, so they are you know, they're

372
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,800
Speaker 1: she's definitely listening to all these birds sounds. But then

373
00:20:19,840 --> 00:20:23,879
Speaker 1: she's also tracking the movements as well. Um. But you know,

374
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:26,920
Speaker 1: conceivably though this would not have been the case if

375
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:31,280
Speaker 1: you were playing bird videos in prior decades. Well, I

376
00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:33,160
Speaker 1: think one thing we should keep in mind is that

377
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:37,000
Speaker 1: our while we can be fooled in this illusion of

378
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,200
Speaker 1: successive still images being interpreted as motion in our vision,

379
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 1: um that all our sense are different. Senses are not

380
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:49,000
Speaker 1: all synchronized in how they perceive things. Uh, And they don't.

381
00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:51,199
Speaker 1: They don't get fooled in exactly the same way as.

382
00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:53,200
Speaker 1: For example, I was reading somewhere that in the early

383
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,920
Speaker 1: days of film technology, when you would have like a

384
00:20:55,960 --> 00:21:00,920
Speaker 1: hand crank film playback, people could deal with slight variations

385
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: and speed at which the visual frames were coming, but

386
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,920
Speaker 1: they could not deal with variations in which the accompanying

387
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: sound was coming. Yeah, I think back on on the

388
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:15,160
Speaker 1: like the the the varying levels of of video quality

389
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 1: I've been willing to deal with, such as watching like

390
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:20,879
Speaker 1: half scrambled episodes of Tales from the crypt you know,

391
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:24,360
Speaker 1: in in my my childhood. But but when it comes

392
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 1: to audio, if there is audio present, like you needed

393
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: to have a certain degree of fidelity. Now, all of

394
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 1: this we we've discussed, then you can probably guess there

395
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 1: are ways to get to these effects, to to exploit

396
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:42,359
Speaker 1: these phenomena and the human visual processing system without using

397
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:47,399
Speaker 1: motion picture technology. Right, pote photographic motion picture technology, because

398
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 1: I guess you could have different definitions of what motion

399
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:52,159
Speaker 1: pictures are, but like you could, there were things that

400
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,760
Speaker 1: were sort of like a movie before there was ever

401
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 1: a photography based movie. Right. So the first thing we

402
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 1: want to talk about here is just sequential images and

403
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: sequential art, and we could easily do an entire episode

404
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: on sequential art. I I, for instance, I highly recommend

405
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 1: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. If you're at all interested

406
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 1: in comics and you haven't picked this up, uh, you

407
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,760
Speaker 1: definitely should. It's an insightful, uh comics based breakdown of

408
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 1: all of this. So it it itself is in comic

409
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 1: book form, and it discusses like how comics work, how

410
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,439
Speaker 1: they're composed, and its origins and sequential art. Can I

411
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 1: admit a weird personal thing about my experience with comics,

412
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 1: And I don't know why I do this. Often when

413
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 1: I read a graphic novel or read a comic book,

414
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: I find that I have to go back several pages

415
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 1: and look at the pictures because I get into a

416
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: rhythm of just reading the text in each frame and

417
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: only barely noticing what the image rey is. And I

418
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,400
Speaker 1: find I have missed important plot elements because they were

419
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: subtle visual things in the images, and I it's like

420
00:22:57,359 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: I don't pay enough attention to that, and if I

421
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,080
Speaker 1: don't make myself, I don't do it. Now, that's interesting.

422
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 1: I I've never experienced quite the same thing, but I

423
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: do find myself, especially if I'm reading a book that's

424
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: particularly gorgeous, I have to remind myself to go back

425
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,360
Speaker 1: and look at the images, just to to take them

426
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: in fully, because I'm I'm just kind of speeding. I'm

427
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: speeding through them, and I'm not really focusing on all

428
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: the work that went into each frame, which if you're

429
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 1: dealing with, you know, with with some of the again,

430
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 1: the more gorgeous graphic novels out there, I feel like

431
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 1: I'm doing a disservice to the book and and and

432
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: also I'm not getting my money's worth out of it, right, Yeah,

433
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,200
Speaker 1: I know I feel that sometimes too, And I don't

434
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:37,360
Speaker 1: know why I have that tendency. I Mean, it would

435
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: seem almost obvious and automatic that you should pay attention

436
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,880
Speaker 1: to the images, but sometimes the brain just doesn't work

437
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: that way. Maybe maybe this book you mentioned would help. Yeah, I,

438
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: like I said, I think it's a wonderful breakdown of

439
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: comics and it's uh, it makes you appreciate them all

440
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,239
Speaker 1: the more. But it does get in a little bit

441
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: into the history of sequential images sequential art. Uh. We

442
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: should probably just summarize a bit and point out that

443
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: the modern comic book, like what you're probably thinking of

444
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 1: a comic book, and our idea of comics itself, largely

445
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: this came out of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So

446
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: some of the earlier forms actually pre date the motion picture,

447
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 1: such as the French comics of the eighteen thirties. Um. Now,

448
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,360
Speaker 1: when you're going further back than that, when you're when

449
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: you're asking yourself, well, what are the oldest examples of

450
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: sequential art, I think about the fart scrolls, the fart scrolls. Oh, yes,

451
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: the Japanese farts and evil Japanese fart scrolls. I guess

452
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily always sequential, but but no, um, that

453
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,919
Speaker 1: is one of the one of the areas you can

454
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 1: end up going is not not so much the fart

455
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,440
Speaker 1: scrolls themselves, but but the use of scrolls in Eastern traditions,

456
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: illustrated scrolls, yeah, scroll paintings in India, scroll paintings in

457
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: in East Asia, and Chinese traditions. There are there are

458
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: also some traditions in which the scroll is presented umm,

459
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: almost like uh, you know, a scrolling picture where it

460
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 1: is it's there's there's a performance art to it as well.

461
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: It's not just hey, look at these scrolls. It's like,

462
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,920
Speaker 1: gather around, we will present to you the scroll, um,

463
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: and you know in the and so these are you know,

464
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: epic paintings where you you just you know, scan your

465
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,159
Speaker 1: eyes across you you take it all in. So this

466
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: doesn't in any kind of optical illusions since simulate motion,

467
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: but it does allow you to cognitively put the motion

468
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: together in your head. Right, Yeah, there's But then again

469
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: that does get kind of difficult to write because we

470
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: are creatures of the motion picture era making sense of

471
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: sequential art and potential examples of sequential art from the past.

472
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of these examples where it

473
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: depends on who's who's arguing which side. For instance, looking

474
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: at some of the uh, you know, the the the

475
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: ancient cave illustrations, some make the argument that, well, we're

476
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: looking at some form of sequential art. Others say absolutely not.

477
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: The bio tapestry is another example where some make the

478
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: argument it, yeah, what you're looking at here is sequential art,

479
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: grizzly medieval sequential art. But again, in all of this,

480
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 1: there is no actual illusion of movement. You know. I

481
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:11,959
Speaker 1: was just thinking that, on one hand, it makes sense

482
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: too to just naturally sort something like an illustrated scroll

483
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: or a comic book into a different category than than

484
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: like a modern motion picture with a high frame rate,

485
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: because one, at least, it seems to me, we just

486
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,239
Speaker 1: automatically perceive as continuous motion through this optical illusion, like

487
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: the beta movement type things. Uh, and and that's just

488
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: automatic and immediate, and whereas this other type of thing

489
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: like a scroll or a comic book with successive images

490
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: requires cognitive effort in the imagination to piece together into

491
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: a visual narrative that seems continuous. I do assume that

492
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: that's probably a difference that's hardwired into the brain. But

493
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: I wonder, I mean, I wonder what sort of role

494
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 1: conditioning and and sort of a culture of imagination in

495
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: place there that if you don't have things like movies,

496
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: if something like a comic book or a scroll with

497
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: successive images could, through a sort of culture of imagination practice,

498
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: feel more like a movie does to us, with like

499
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: this kind of automatic conjuring of continuous visual sensation. Does

500
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: that make any sense? Yeah? Again, this is one of

501
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 1: those areas where you can you can really work kind

502
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: of think yourself into a into a circle when you

503
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: start trying trying to decipher how you are actually absorbing

504
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: any particular form of media. You know, because you're getting

505
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 1: into the you know, you're reading an action scene in

506
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: a book and you're picturing it in your head um,

507
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: and then you're then you're watching an action scene. You're

508
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: reading an action scene on a comic book page. There's

509
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: something similar going on, but with more visual data to

510
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: inform what's happening in your mind. I read a book

511
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago called What We See When

512
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: You Read? And I think the author's name was Peter

513
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: MENDELSSOHND or something like that. But I thought it was

514
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: a really interesting book. Basically it was just a sort

515
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:14,680
Speaker 1: of artistically put together extension of this question of what

516
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: do you actually picture in your head as you read

517
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,360
Speaker 1: a piece of fiction. How does the imagination work? Um,

518
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: Because we have this idea that like, Okay, when I

519
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: read a book, I see the character, but it keeps

520
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: asking all these probing questions about what exactly is it

521
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,360
Speaker 1: that you think you see? How do you see it?

522
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: And it really makes you start to question the the

523
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: experience of your own imagination. It's almost like the imagination

524
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: can start to feel like a second order illusion within

525
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: your mind. Yeah, and and I feel like I had

526
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: my own experience. It's it's changed a lot over time.

527
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: Like when I first started reading like full blown novels

528
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: as a kid, I went to great lengths to sort

529
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: of cast it in my head and decide I did

530
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: like what actors were playing what characters, and then I

531
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: would like focus on a consistent casting throughout my reading

532
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: of the book. But for the most part, I got

533
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: away from that as I got older. Now I'll only

534
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: rarely do that, or or if there's some sort of

535
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: film adaptation of a book or something, perhaps that'll kind

536
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: of infect my my thinking along it. Um. I also

537
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: remember there was a time when if I watched anything

538
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: animated and then went and read a book, I would

539
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: end up seeing an animated and and it would always

540
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: kind of discourage me from reading. I'm like, I'm gonna

541
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: I'll read this tomorrow when the cartoons are out of

542
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: my head. But I don't really experience that anymore. I

543
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: wonder if does does the animation or the live action

544
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: take precedence when you've seen both, Like, do you so

545
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: you've seen live action and animation of the Hobbit and

546
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings, just one have precedence in

547
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: your mind? It's It's weird because this is a great example,

548
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: because there was a time, like the first time I

549
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 1: read The Lord of the Rings, I went to great

550
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: pains to not think about the animation right, and then

551
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: in rereading The Hobbit to my son Um, I kind

552
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: of forced myself to and I think by just distance,

553
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: by having not seen them in a while, I was

554
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: able to avoid like summoning just the images from the

555
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: Peter Jackson films and hopefully kind of have something in between,

556
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 1: something that we just kind of emerged more from from

557
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: my mind as opposed from these visual adaptations. I guess

558
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: there's some elements that are easier to dash than others,

559
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: because I feel like I could read Lord of the

560
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: Rings without picturing most of the stuff from movies, except

561
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: like Christopher Lee would be stuck there. Yeah, I couldn't.

562
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: I couldn't have any sorrow moan but him. Here's another example.

563
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: Um the Name of the rose By and Berto Eccho.

564
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: The first time I read it, uh, like uh in

565
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: high school. I think I was a big fan of

566
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: the film adaptation, which I had seen previously. So of

567
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: course I pictured brother William as being Sean Connery. But

568
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: that's not really how he's described in the book. He's

569
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 1: they say he's extremely tall and thin with red hair.

570
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah. So when I reread it, uh, And

571
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: this was several years ago. But during that I actually

572
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: had to I went to great pains to focus myself

573
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: and not picture Sean Connery, but instead to picture something

574
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: more along the lines of, say Jeremy Bratt or maybe

575
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons. You know, someone who has actually played Sherlock Holmes,

576
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: or has you know, something more in line with with

577
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: the like the field of a Home's character. Okay, I

578
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: feel like we've gotten really far field. I think it's

579
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: my fault. We should get back to simulations of the

580
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: h of movement. Simulations creating this illusion of continuous motion uh,

581
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: I guess after just mere sequential art, when they're started

582
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: to be devices that could rapidly show us images, that

583
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: would that would more automatically simulate motion. And one of

584
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: the crazy things about these, uh, these these these technologies

585
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna discuss here is that they all emerge from

586
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: the same time period. They're all products of the photographic

587
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: era and and and products of the the birth of

588
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: the motion picture. Well, yeah, I mean this is a

589
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: time when people were thinking about the science of imagery

590
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: and vision, not just in the invention of the photograph.

591
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: And I remember it was in the eighteen thirties that

592
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: Louis de Gerret and Henry Fox Talbot were inventing their

593
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: their photography methods, like the Digera type and the what

594
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: would eventually become Talbot's Cala type method. It was in

595
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine that they both announced them. So in

596
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two, that is when we see a little

597
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: invention that was known as the finn akistoscope. Yeah, and

598
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: so you you may have seen one of these in

599
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: a museum or perhaps you own one yourself as a

600
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: toy or a collectible. But it's a spinning cardboard disc

601
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: attached vertically to a handle and in position radially around

602
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: the center of the disk center, you have a subsequence

603
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: of images that, when rotated and viewed through slits on

604
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: an opposing disc, this creates the illusion of movement, like

605
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: a very simple animation. Generally it's something like an individual

606
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: jumping rope or an animal running, that sort of thing,

607
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: a person walking. Another example of this, pretty much the

608
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: same device is the zoo trope from four, a cylindrical

609
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: variation of the previous invention with viewing slits on the side,

610
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: so it looks like a drum, and you rotate it

611
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: and you stare through, and again you watch a very

612
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: simple animation unfold. And these two you'll find them in

613
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: a lot of like hands on science museums, you know,

614
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, and to be clear again, in

615
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: the zoo trope, it's still images, but because you view

616
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: them spinning rapidly, and because you view them in these

617
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: slices through the slits, it simulates the continuous motion, but

618
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: it doesn't perfectly simulate it. It's a little bit jerky.

619
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: And one thing that's cool about that is that it

620
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: creates a kind of creepy effect. I was going to

621
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: mention that there are several scenes with a zootrope in

622
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: the horror movie The Conjuring Too, where the one of

623
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson. Well, he's in all the Conjurings, I think

624
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: at least the first two. The second one is the

625
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: one where he sings an Elvis song for some somebody

626
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: thought that was a good idea, but uh, there's a

627
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: sea where Patrick Wilson stares into one of these zootropes.

628
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: He's looking through the slit says the thing is spinning,

629
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: and he watches this strange man in a bowler hat

630
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 1: and an umbrella walking around until suddenly, like there's a

631
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,359
Speaker 1: jump scare. A boogeyman with bad teeth does a jump

632
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: scare on Patrick Wilson. But it's actually a very effective

633
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: sort of set piece object for a horror film because

634
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: there is a way in which it's obvious and not

635
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 1: quite Their simulation of smooth motion is unsettling. I can't

636
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: think if I've seen it used in another horror movie.

637
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: Maybe it has been, but certainly other films have used

638
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: the idea, if not of a zootrope, at least of

639
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: a flickering presence or gait like I think of the

640
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: ghost in The Ring. Basically, I think any presence that

641
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: is almost but not quite smooth and continuous the way

642
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: modern films are tends to be perceived, at least these days,

643
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 1: is creepy or horrifying. And this could have to do

644
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: with a version of the Uncanny Valley effect, which we've

645
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: discussed on a couple of episodes of Stuff to Blow

646
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: your Mind. But I it's clear that a lot of

647
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: people perceive that type of motion or presence in a

648
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: flickering way as creepy today. Well, I know with Samara

649
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: in The Ring, I remember correctly they filmed the actor

650
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: walking backwards and then reversed the footage, so she's walking

651
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: towards the camera, but the motion, like we can tell

652
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: there's something weird about the motion, the way that her

653
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 1: limbs are moving. Yeah, but there is also like a

654
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: like a like a flicker, like there's a glitch in

655
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: a VHS tape or something. Uh, And so that that's

656
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: a weird. So there's the weird gate and there's the

657
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,399
Speaker 1: flickering like you would see in the zootrope. I don't

658
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 1: know if it would have been perceived as creepy in

659
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: the same way back when these things were popular children's toys.

660
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe not, I don't know. Now another case, and

661
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: this is a a really fun case to consider, is the

662
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: flipbooka um, and uh, you know it's easy, especially with hindsight,

663
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: to assume that the flipbook was surely invented, you know,

664
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 1: well before uh these pretty previous advancements, But there's no

665
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: evidence that it was really I mean, I made them

666
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. You have to imagine that

667
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: people came up with this idea hundreds of years ago. Yeah,

668
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: I mean you can you I would guess like, all right,

669
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: well you need you need paper, so you need the

670
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,959
Speaker 1: printed word and then you just need somebody board enough

671
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: to start drawing like a just a cartoon horse in

672
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: the corner, and then flip through them to create the

673
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: illusion of movement. Uh, you know, the kind of thing

674
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: that we all did as children, uh, in various notebooks

675
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: and what have you. But yeah, when when you start

676
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: looking at the history, it looks like, again, this is

677
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: one of those things that, yes, it clearly could have

678
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: been invented at any point, uh, in as long as

679
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: that we had paper and uh, you know, and it

680
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: was readily available. You know, we had some sort of

681
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: flippable book at your disposal. But it seems like eighteen

682
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: sixty eight is about as far back as we can

683
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:56,800
Speaker 1: go the flip book. That is when uh, British printer

684
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 1: John Barnes Lena patented a flip book and uh, and

685
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 1: that's the oldest known documentation of the flipbook. And I

686
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: think a few things are illuminated here. Again, as we've

687
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: discussed in uh in previous episode, the dangers of hindsight

688
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: in considering the history of inventions, also just the true

689
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 1: impact of motion picture technology and the way it's changed

690
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,919
Speaker 1: the way we think about images. And then of course

691
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: the fact that for most of of of of history,

692
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: paper wasn't something so readily wasted or even uh and

693
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: even bound flippable books. I imagine we're too revered for,

694
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: you know, for someone to make a bunch of scribbles

695
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:36,760
Speaker 1: in the corners, though I'm kind of surprised a monk

696
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: never made one in the Middle Ages, like doing an

697
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: illuminated manuscript, Well, it's entirely possible that it that it

698
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: did and it didn't survive, Like that's possible, there's just

699
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: no evidence. Um. I think there have been some cases

700
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: for certain sequential art in illuminated manuscripts, but not not

701
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: a flipbook, nothing that creates the actual illusion of movement.

702
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Yeah, hindsight bias exactly. All Right, I

703
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: think we need to take another break, but then we

704
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: will be back to discuss a little more about the

705
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:15,479
Speaker 1: technology that directly preceded the motion picture. Alright, we're back.

706
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: So when you think about a motion picture camera, in

707
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: order to do what it does, it has to take

708
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,839
Speaker 1: a lot of photos in very quick succession that can

709
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: be played back in very quick succession, right, in order

710
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: to get the level of frame rate that actually looks

711
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: like motion to our eyes. So how how do we

712
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: get there? Like? What was there between the Daguero type

713
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: or the Cala type, you know, these single exposure camera

714
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: shots and the actual movie camera. Yeah. I can't help

715
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: but use the metaphor of of guns and weapons of

716
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: war when thinking about them, because certainly a Daguerreo type

717
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: would be kind of like an old timey canon, right,

718
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: Who's a pain to load it, to aim it, to

719
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: fire it, and then you'd have to go through the

720
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: whole rigamarole of loading it again. Uh So you know

721
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: you're you're dealing with with lengthy exposure times and some

722
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: of the earliest cameras. Right. But but but as the

723
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: but from a motion picture camera. To function as a

724
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: motion picture camera, you essentially have to have a machine gun.

725
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 1: It's just just taking picture after picture after picture after picture.

726
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: And so one thing that immediately occurs to me is

727
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: that you've got to somehow deal with the change in

728
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,760
Speaker 1: the media on which it's recorded. Because the earliest photos

729
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: were taken on on media that had to be sort

730
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: of specially prepared and loaded up one at a time.

731
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: How how how could you load a camera for rapid

732
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: exposures of many images? Yeah, and when we're talking rapid exposure,

733
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,720
Speaker 1: we're talking expacture exposure times of a fraction of a second,

734
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: a long way from those hour long exposures that we

735
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: were talking about and in previous episodes for photography, by

736
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy the exposure time was down to one second

737
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: and ultimately one one thousands of a thousandth of a second,

738
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: which is fast enough for for motion pictures of course,

739
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 1: But how do you get all the like you obviously

740
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be using like metal plates for that, right, Yeah, Well,

741
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: so here's the here's the thing. One of the earlier

742
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 1: approaches to this problem simply involved using multiple cameras. You know,

743
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: think again about the cannon where you can't possibly create

744
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: a single old timing cannon that's gonna fire uh six

745
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: cannon balls in the space of a few seconds. It's impossible.

746
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: Get your six cannons. You get six cannons, you line

747
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: them up, you have them, you know, you know, in

748
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: the ship, right, and then you just fire them all

749
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: off in succession. That's exactly the approach that was taken

750
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: early on by photographers such as Edward my Bridge. Oh yeah,

751
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: famous for the his running a Horse images from seven

752
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: He used a battery of twelve cameras to pull this off.

753
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: And I guess we'll explain more about that in a minute. Yes, Now,

754
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: before we came in here, Robert, you were you were

755
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: telling me some strange details about the life of Edward

756
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: my Bridge that I have never heard before. Yeah, I was.

757
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:56,799
Speaker 1: I was reading a little bit about him in the

758
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: History of Photography by Beaumont new Hall and and um,

759
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 1: my Bridge is a fascinating character. Um do you know

760
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: why he spells his name the way he does? Yes,

761
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: so he wanted he wanted his name to sound more

762
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: archaic because he was born Edward James, Uh Muggeridge and Uh.

763
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:18,240
Speaker 1: He wanted a fancier show name essentially, so it's Edward

764
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: in his name is spelled like ed weird, yes, and

765
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: then uh, and then my bridge is spelled m U

766
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: y b r I d g E. So earlier in

767
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: his life he was he was born eighteen thirty. He

768
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: would die in nineteen o four, but earlier in his

769
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: life he was a bookseller. But then he sustained severe

770
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 1: cranial injuries in a runaway stagecoach crash in eighteen sixty,

771
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 1: which it was like a brutal accident, actually killed one

772
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: of the passengers and injured just about everybody else too.

773
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 1: But anyway, you know, severe cranial injuries required a good

774
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: year of treatment uh, and he was forever changed by it.

775
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: Possibly there's possibly the reason for some of his emotional

776
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 1: and erratic behavior later in life. But during his recovery

777
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: he took up photography. Now and then this in photography

778
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,879
Speaker 1: is where he would he would really make his name.

779
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,360
Speaker 1: But as a there was just a note about a

780
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: murder trial that took place in the history of photography,

781
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: so I had to look into it a little bit

782
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: more and the and this is the story. Basically, in

783
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two he married Flora shall Cross Stone, but

784
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 1: then he caught wind of a former lover that lived

785
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: in the area and Major Harry Larkins, and he got

786
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: it in his head that that that Larkins was the

787
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: father of Stone's son, Floredo. So my Bridge went to

788
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: Larkins house, confronted him at the front door, and shot

789
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: him dead on his doorstep. Yeah, uh he or he

790
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: shot him and then he died later that day. At anyway,

791
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: fatally shot him on on his doorstep. And so my

792
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: Bridge was accused of the murder, and the defense ended

793
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: up leaning on his previous brain injury, saying, look, you

794
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: know he was in this horrible accident and it it

795
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 1: changed the way his his brain works. And and they

796
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 1: brought in an expert testimony, They brought in people to

797
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: speak to say, yeah, he was a totally different person

798
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: before this took place. And they were going for, you know,

799
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: an insanity plea, which I've read that that my Bridge

800
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 1: apparently undercut this himself when when he was questioned. But

801
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: at any rate, the judge ended up throwing out the

802
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 1: insanity pla and then acquitted my Bridge on the grounds

803
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 1: of justifiable homicide. That was a different time. Yeah, it was, yeah,

804
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: because clearly there was no questioning based on what I

805
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: was reading that he killed this guy, he murdered this

806
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: guy on on his doorstep. But but yeah, he was

807
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: he was acquitted. Uh, and it was considered justifiable homicide. UM.

808
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: It was an important case apparently because it serves as

809
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: like an historic forensic neurology case and neurology forensic neurology

810
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: neurology defense. Uh. It would also, by the way, go

811
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: on to become an opera. Philip Glass would compose an

812
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: opera based on these events titled The Photographer. But It's

813
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: just a yeah, really tragic episode. Uh. Flora petition for divorce,

814
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 1: had to do it twice and was finally granted it.

815
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,760
Speaker 1: She died in eighteen seventy five, and then my Bridge

816
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: had the son placed in an orphanage and Florida ended

817
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: up working his entire life as a ranch hand and

818
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: a gardener, and he himself died into in a pedestrian

819
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: traffic accident. But but my Bridge had established himself by

820
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: this point as a as a photographic pioneer. Former Governor

821
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: of California, Leland Stanford had commissioned him to photograph his racehorses.

822
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,760
Speaker 1: Work that was interrupted by the trial, but the resulting

823
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: images were widely published for their detailed depictions of horse locomotion.

824
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: And this was the idea of using multiple cameras set

825
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: up in succession to to capture images very rapidly back

826
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: to back. Yeah, run the horse pass this battery of cameras,

827
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: fire the cameras off, and then we can look and

828
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: see are the horses legs actually all coming off the

829
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: ground as it runs across the field. Apparently this is

830
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: a controversy in the eighteen seventies, like people are are

831
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: actually highly concerned to know whether the horses ever completely

832
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: airborne or always has at least one hoof on the ground, right. Yeah,

833
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: And so these images were since it were a sensation,

834
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: they were widely published for their detailed depiction of horse locomotion.

835
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: And uh And in eighteen eighty my Bridge invented what

836
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:33,720
Speaker 1: he called a zoo gyroscope or a zoo practice scope

837
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: to project his pictures on the screen. So you know,

838
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: in all of this from capturing locomotion to projecting images.

839
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: He was highly influential. Like he he influenced a number

840
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: of individuals who would go on to continue to to

841
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: tinker with and uh and innovate uh motion picture technology.

842
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: I'd heard about his his accomplishments in photography before, I

843
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: had never heard about like the murder or any of this. Yeah. Yeah,

844
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: it's like it's a brutal and sad story because it's

845
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,479
Speaker 1: it's one of those where you're you're dealing again with

846
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 1: with a brain injury as well, so it's not just

847
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: a situation. And I mean, we've talked a bit about

848
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 1: this and stuff to blow your mind when you really

849
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: start breaking down like neurological realities. A lot of our

850
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,839
Speaker 1: judgments about people's behavior are not so cut and dry,

851
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: but this one I feel feels especially problematic. Um first

852
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: of all because of the brain injuries is sustained, and

853
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: then secondly because it's just like he clearly murdered somebody

854
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: in cold blood and um and was acquitted. So it's uh, yeah,

855
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: I'd say it's a tragic, tragic episode. But like I said,

856
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: he influenced a number of individuals, including in the eighteen

857
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: seventies French physiologists Etna Jules Mara, who lived eighteen thirty

858
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: through nineteen o four. Yes, the same the same years

859
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: that that my Bridge lived, and they both died in

860
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: May of nineteen o four, one week apart. So it's

861
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: just pure dumb luck. It is one of those things

862
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: that suggesting my Bridge did it. No, but it's one

863
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 1: of those things. When I was putting together my notes,

864
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, did I just write down the

865
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: wrong dates for this individual's life because they're exactly the

866
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: dates of the previous individual. No, they just happened to

867
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: have been born and to have died in the exact

868
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: same years. But anyway, Um Murray he invented what he

869
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: would call the chrono photographic gun to capture the movements

870
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: of birds in flight. So he set out He's one

871
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: of these individuals who, like he was really going after

872
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: the science first, Like he was, he really wanted to

873
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: to break down how a bird is flying, to capture

874
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: the visual details that are that are happening too fast

875
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: for the human eye to observe, and so he was

876
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: developing the photographic technology to make it happen. Inspired by

877
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: my bridges work with horses, and this is a wonderful

878
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: contraption to look up, because it really did look like

879
00:47:56,560 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: a gun. Uh. It imprinted twelve photos a second on

880
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:03,839
Speaker 1: a rotating glass plate. Uh. And it had it had

881
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: like a butt, you know, the shoulder, It had a

882
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 1: trigger like it was it was it was built on

883
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: the like the stock of a rifle. So there are

884
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 1: these wonderful old illustrations of a of a gentleman, presumably

885
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: Murray himself, you know, going down on one knee and

886
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: holding up the uh, this fabulous photographic gun and aiming

887
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:29,880
Speaker 1: it at birds in flight. And and with this device again,

888
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: he's doing what my bridge did, but he's doing it

889
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: with a single instrument, yes, with one camera. So this

890
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: is a step closer actually to the idea of a

891
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: movie camera. Right. Again, only twelve images here, So all

892
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: he could do, and all he was setting out to do,

893
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,760
Speaker 1: of course, was to capture the movements of a bird.

894
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: And uh and the and the the images that this uh,

895
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: this camera gun produced are are pretty impressive. Like they

896
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: are taking locomotion that is happening at a scale that

897
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: the human eye can't really perceive, in the human mind

898
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 1: can't fully process, and it's breaking it down so that

899
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: we can analyze it and this, uh, this continue to

900
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: inspire that both of these cases continue to inspire other

901
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 1: individuals to do the same thing with human locomotion, with

902
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: the locomotion of various animals. Uh, and you know, really

903
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 1: taking on the scientific task of using this new technology

904
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: to better understand what is transpiring in reality. Well, as

905
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: we were talking about at the very beginning, it makes

906
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,280
Speaker 1: me imagine an alternate history in which movies come about,

907
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 1: but they're only considered like a tool of documenting reality

908
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 1: in order to study it, and they never get repurposed

909
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 1: into like any form of storytelling. Yeah, or you could

910
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:44,800
Speaker 1: imagine an alternate world where where it's prohibited, where where

911
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:50,760
Speaker 1: cinematic technology, photographic technology is only for uh, for science

912
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 1: and truth, never for for for narrative, never for transformers. Alright, well,

913
00:49:57,640 --> 00:49:59,919
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and cut this episode off here,

914
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:02,959
Speaker 1: but we will be back to finish with a part

915
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:07,280
Speaker 1: two on motion picture technology. That's right, we'll get into

916
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:12,359
Speaker 1: a great Edison rivalry that doesn't even involve Nikola Tesla. Yeah,

917
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: but but yeah, Edison will definitely play a role, as

918
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 1: will Kodak as as we set up in previous episodes,

919
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 1: and and we'll discuss more about just the impact of

920
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 1: like how how motion pictures were initially perceived and how

921
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 1: people reacted to this in this new medium, and then

922
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: again how it's just changed the way we understand reality

923
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:33,839
Speaker 1: in the passing of time and our our own sense

924
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: of self in the meantime. If you want to check

925
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 1: out more episodes of Invention, head on over to in

926
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: Invention show dot com. That's where we'll find all the episodes.

927
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: If you want to discuss episodes of Invention, a really

928
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: cool place to do it is to head on over

929
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: to the old Facebook and look for the Facebook group

930
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:53,319
Speaker 1: um the Stuff to Blow Your Mind discussion module. That's

931
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,399
Speaker 1: where folks talk about episodes of Stuff to Bow Your Mind,

932
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,360
Speaker 1: which Joe and I also host, but also episodes of

933
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: Invention are discussed there as well. Big thanks to Scott

934
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 1: Benjamin for research assistance with this episode, and to our

935
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,719
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer, Tor Harrison. If you would like to

936
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback about this episode

937
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

938
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

939
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: contact at invention pod dot com. Invention is production of

940
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,839
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio

941
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 1: because the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you

942
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,