FS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Santa Barbara City College, Eadweard Muybridge, Optical Illusion
Document Summary
Cinema still exists and has existed in many forms, some slowly dying, others newly emerging. Cinema itself emerged in the late nineteenth century from a diverse world of toys and machines which created the illusion of motion. Christened by perversely scientific names, these phenakistoscopes, Thaumatropes, zoetropes, and praxinoscopes (all variants of spinning motion toys) competed with imaginative lantern projections and panoramas to thrill viewers with dizzying views and steaming locomotives, acrobatic stunts, and intricate tales. The ingenuity and variety of "pre-cinema" are demonstrated by types of magic lanterns gathered at the george eastman house in. Rochester (lampascopes, kodiopticons, moviegraphs, and even a contraction called "le galerie gothique"). Others build, placing larger-than-life pictures from slides on screens and surfaces. Some invite audiences to more intimate viewings, to the theater simulacra or, as with later edison kinetoscopes, to discrete "peep" displays of sequential images indicating movement. Some exploit sequence or series ideas while others focus on the fantastic and imaginary storytelling worlds.
