Moving Images, Understanding Media

50 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

magic-lantern zoetrope [the zoopraxinoscope] will make the rounds of the

civilized world.”

Many inventors and entrepreneurs were working on ideas associated

with photography and movement at this time, and numerous advances fed

the development of cinema. An invention that furthered the possibilities

initiated by the work of Muybridge was a photographic gun developed by

scientist Etienne-Jules Marey. With one camera, he was able to record a

quick series of images by having the shutter open and close quickly in rapid

succession. Using this portable camera, Marey was able to pan to follow the

moving subject, and he recorded the fi rst motion pictures of birds in 1882.

Th ese discoveries fed the developing plans of Th omas Edison, who met with

both Muybridge and Marey in 1888 and 1889.

The Edison Studios

Edison wanted to develop a device that would complement his recent invention

for recording sound. In fact, he simply thought of such an apparatus as a

method to exploit more fully his existing phonograph. He entrusted a man

working at Edison Laboratories, W. K. L. Dickson, with the task of creating

such a device. Documentary evidence tells us that Dickson is responsible for

Figure 2-11 Man looking into the viewer of the

Edison Kinetoscope. (Interior seen in cross-section)

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