The Earliest Motion Pictures Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jul., 1929), pp. 90-93 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14828 . Accessed: 02/05/2014 04:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scientific Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Fri, 2 May 2014 04:05:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Transcript
The Earliest Motion PicturesSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jul., 1929), pp. 90-93Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14828 .
Accessed: 02/05/2014 04:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to The Scientific Monthly.
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LELAND STANFORD BUILDER OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILWAY, UNITED STATES SENATOR AND FOUNDEPR OF STANFORD
UNIVERSITY. THE PORTRAIT WAS PAINTED BY MEISSONIER IN 1881. THEY BECAME ACQUAINTED THROUGH THE MOTION PICTURES OF THE STANFORD HORSES. STANFORD IS HOLDING THE ALBUM
OF HORSE PICTURES.
THE EARLIEST MOTION PICTURES IN May, Stanford University held a
semi-centennial celebration in commemo- ration of the motion picture research conducted by Leland Stanford at his Palo Alto stock farm in 1878 and 1879 with the assistance of Eadweard J. Muy- bridge and John D. Isaacs. It is be- lieved that this is the first investigation to make use of consecutive instantaneous pictures and, therefore, lies at the basis of the photographic analysis of motion and also the portrayal of movement
thro.ugh the motion picture. Something over two thousand such pictures were taken by Muybridge. Many of those that had to do with the locomotion of the horse were later analyzed by Dr. J. D. B. Stillman, whose book, "The Horse in Motion," was published in 1882. Offi- cial delegates from the Academy of Mo- tion Picture Arts and Sciences took part in the exercises. Tablets commemorat- ing the Stanford-Muybridge research were unveiled, one in Memorial Court at
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the mnain quadrangcle of the university and the other, a duplicate, near the site of the Mlui-bridge studio. Dr. Walter R. Mliles, professor of experimental psyehol- ogv at Stanford Ulniversity, gave two ad- dresses, "The Stanford-Mluybridge Re- seareh on the Portrayal of Mlotion'" and "Techuique anld Results of the Palo Alto Experiments." Among other addresses by scientifie meii ancd leaders in the motion picture industry was a talking picture address by the hIonorable Ray Lyman Wilbur w-hich was made possible through a portable outfit recenitly- de- veloped in the Bell Telephone Labora- tories. This address for a specific occa- sion and presented in a college banquet
hall marks an advance in motion pic- tures that is of much educational sig- nificaniee.
The motion picture art and industry has grown to immense proportions. One of its essential beginnings is associated with the Stanford University Campus in that Leland Stanfoid conceived and caused to be carried out a photographic investigation at his Palo Alto stock farm in 1878 and 1879. His interest in the locomotion of the horse caused him not only to take interest in the general analysis of the horse's stride, but he ap- preciated the individual differences and saw the importanee of this in connection with his attempt to breed and rear the
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MONUMENT COMMEMORATING THE STANFORD-MUYBRIDGE MOTION PICTURE RESEARCH
CONDUCTED IN 1878-1879, UNVEILED AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MAY 8, 1929. REPRLESENTATIVES,
OF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ATTENDANCE AT THE- DEDICATION:
(LEFT TO RIGHT) WILLIAM C. DE: MILLE, CLARA BERANGER (MRs. DE, MILLE), ALwC B. FRANiCIS, Louis B. MAYER, MRS. MAYER, MRs. DENNISON CLIFT, Louis H. TOLHURST, MRs. TOLHURST.
fastest horses. Mr. Stanford, desiring to make objective certain of the fleeting phenomena that he had learned through practice to perceive by eye, turned to photography. In general at this period, photographers were content if they could register waves of the sea and they were not striving for instantaneous pic- tures as we think of them to-day.
Mr. Muybridge, when lecturing about his animal photographs in the eighties, was fond of telling that at first he did not believe Leland Stanford's projection at all feasible. He considered that pho- tographic technique was not up to the task of registering such rapid sugeces- sions of motion as- the running of a horse. The problem was conceived by Mr. Leland Stanford, who secured Muy- bridge as photographer and paid him for his services. Muybridge did the first
work for Stanford in 1872 at Sacra- mento. Mr. Stanford moved from Sac- ramento to Palo Alto and established his stock farm here in 1876. Muybridge worked as a photographer in San Fran- cisco. A man by the name of Larkyn, from Australia, fell in love with his wife; Muybridge shot Larkyn at the Yel- low Jacket Mine near Calistoga, Cali- fornia, on October 18, 1874. He was arrested and lodged in jail and on De- cember 8, 1874, the Grand Jury returned a bill against him. He was tried at Napa, California, beginning February 15, 1875, and the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty." Shortly after this he went to Central America and took many photographs relating to the coffee in- dustry, returning to San Francisco sometime in 1876. Leland Stanford was then well established at Palo Alto and
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wanted to continue his investigation of the locomotion of the horse. He got Mr. AMuybridge to make some further trials in 1877. It was Stanford who suggested using more than one camera. He finally suggested using twenty-four cameras placed a foot apart, adopting this on the basis of the stride of the horse being as a rule somewhat less than twenty-four feet. He therefore conceived that the twenty-four cameras, a foot apart, would cover the longest stride and would give a sufficiently detailed analysis. A re- flection screen, fifty feet long and fif- teen feet high, built at an angle facing the south, provided a brilliant back- ground against which to photograph the horse. Horizontal lines and vertical lines placed on this background provided the coordinates against which to measure the successive silhouettes. The ex- posures of the wet plates were of one thousandth second and shorter. John 1). Isaacs, mechanical engineer, working in one of the shops connected witlh Mr. Stanford 's railroad interests, was se- cured to develop better technical means of timing the photographic exposures in reference to the progress of the horse past the cameras. Isaacs devised elec- trical means of operating the shutters which materially advanieed the research.
These were the first truly conisecutive instantaneous pictures portrayinig rapid motion that were used by Mlr. Stanford, Mr. Muybridge and others in the "wheel of life, " zoetrope and other devices whieh had formerly been developed to give motion from series of drawings and from sets of posed photographs.
Stanford permitted Muybridge to copyright the photographs as he himself originally had no idea of publishing any- thing concerning the work. IHe kept Muybridge quite busily engaged during the years 1878 anid 1879 and invested all in all about $40,000 in the project, send- ing Mr. Muybridge to Europe in 1881. MIuybridge did not return to Palo Alto or Sani Francisco to take up photo- graphie work again. He got into corre- spondence with Provost William Pepper in 1884. This correspondeniee resulted in his goinig to work at the University of Pennsylvania, where, according to the statement of Muybridge, "the Palo Alto outfit was duplicated " and in fact, in place of one battery of twenty-four cameras three batteries of twelve were used at differenit angles. In the mean- time, dry plates had become available so that the photographic results were much better than the Palo Alto silhouettes.
The text of the tablets reads: IN COMMEMORATION OF
THE MOTION PICTURE RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN 1878 AND 1879 AT THE PALO ALTO FARMI NOW THE SITE OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
TIIIS EXTENSIVE PHOTOGRAPIIIC EXPERIMEINT PORTRAYING THE ATTITUDES OF MEN AND OF ANIMALS IN
MIOTION WAS CONCEIVED BY AND EXECUTED UNDER TIHE DIRECTION AND PATRONAGE OF
LELAND STANFORD
CONSECUTIVE INSTANTANEOUS EXPOSURES
WERE PROVIDED FOR BY A BATTERY OF TWENTY-FOUR CAMERAS FITTED WITHI ELECTRO-SHUTTERS.
EADWEARD J. MUYBRIDGE, PHOTOGRAPHER,
CARRIED OUT TIlE INVESTIGATION AND SHOWED
THAT THE PHOTOGRAPHS COULD BE COMlBINED IN PROJECTION TO GIVE THE TRUE APPEARANCE OF MOTION.
JOIIN D. ISAACS, -MECHANICAL ENGINEER,
ADVANCED THE RIESEARC(L BY DEVISING ELECTRICAL EQUIPMfENT.
J. D. B. STILLMAN, MK.D.,
ANALYZED THE PHOTOGRAPIIS RELATING TO THE LOCO'MOTION OF TIFE HORSE.
THIS TABLET ERECTED BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MTAY 8, 1929.
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