thus making it possible to record action sponta-
neously and simultaneously as it occurred. In 1887,
George Eastman began the mass production of a
paper “film” coated with a gelatin emulsion; in 1889,
he improved the process by substituting clear plas-
tic (film) for the paper base. Although there have
been subsequent technological improvements, this
is the photographic film we know today.
This experimentation with optical principles
and still photography in the nineteenth century
made it possible to take and reproduce photo-
graphic images that could simulate action in the
image. But simulation was not enough for the scien-
tists, artists, and members of the general public
who wanted to see images of life in motion. The
intermediary step between still photography and
cinematography came with the development of
Series Photography
Series Photography Series photography
records the phases of an action. In a series of still
photographs, we see, for example, a man or a horse
in changing positions that suggest movement,
though the images themselves are static. Within a
few years, three men—Pierre-Jules-César Janssen,
Eadweard Muybridge, and Étienne-Jules Marey—
contributed to its development.
In 1874, Janssen, a French astronomer, developed
the revolver photographique, or chronophoto-
graphic gun, a cylinder-shaped camera that creates
exposures automatically, at short intervals, on
different segments of a revolving plate. In 1877,
Muybridge, an English photographer working in
California, used a group of electrically operated
cameras (first twelve, then twenty-four) to produce
the first series of photographs of continuous
motion. On May 4, 1880, using an early projector436 CHAPTER 10FILM HISTORY
FIGURE 10.1 Camera ObscuraBefore the advent of
photosensitive film, the
camera obscura was used
to facilitate lifelike
drawing. In this simple
schematic, for example,
the interior “wall” upon
which the upside-down
image is projected was
usually whitened; an artist
could place a piece of
drawing paper on the
wall and trace the image
onto it.