Again, Garrison Keillor has posted a pertinent reminder in his Writers Almanac. On this date in 1891, Thomas Edison filed patents for the first motion picture camera and viewer. He called the camera the Kinetograph, and dubbed the viewer the Kinetoscope. The camera contained a spool that held a 50-foot-long continuous roll of 35-millimeter film. The image was recorded by means of a revolving cylinder with a narrow slit that allowed light in to expose the film at regular intervals. Viewing these early movies followed a similar process: the viewer would look through a peephole and the cylinder would revolve, illuminating individual photographs in rapid succession. A perceptual phenomenon called persistence of vision tricks the brain into thinking youre seeing a seamless depiction of movement, when youre really looking at a series of still photographs.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 11:13:06 +0000