Moving Images, Understanding Media

Chapter 2 Inventions and Origins 49

later against Kodak. Th is invention brought live action motion pictures much

closer to becoming a reality.

From Still to Moving Image

A medium as dramatic and viscerally engaging as motion pictures appears

to have been driven by stories that are just as engaging and compelling as

many of those we see on our screens. One of the most memorable stories of

the founding of motions pictures belongs to Eadward Muybridge. In the early

1870s, Leland Stanford, the governor of California, initiated a challenge—and

legend tells of a bet for a large sum—to prove that a horse’s hooves all leave

the ground as it gallops, as he believed. Muybridge took up this challenge

and—with key help from John Isaacs—set up a test on a racetrack with a

series of cameras attached to trip wires. Th e series of photographs not only

proved that a horse does bring all four hooves off the ground while galloping,

but the photographs realized the idea of a series of quickly snapped photos

to capture movement.

By 1880, Muybridge furthered his work in capturing and showing motion

with his invention the zoopraxiscope, which combined elements of the

zoetrope and magic lantern. Th at year, he held a series of well-documented

showings of motion pictures in San Francisco. At these events, viewers

could see motion pictures of diff erent animals and people running, trotting,

jumping, and kicking. Th e Alta California concluded its article on the event

as follows: “Mr. Muybridge has laid the foundation of a new method of

entertaining the people, and we predict that his instantaneous photographic

Figure 2-10 An Eadward

Muybridge study of a horse

in movement from 1887.

(Courtesy Photofest)

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