The Moving Picture World (July 1907)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD. 279 Victor, Colo.—The moving picture film in the Grand [heater on South Third street caught fire from a live ■lectric wire. Some 200 people, mostly women and chil- Iren, were in the house, and a panic ensued, although no m e was injured. Several women fainted, but they were ssctied by firemen. The theater is owned by Lowell, tlarvin & Co. The damage will amount to $200 or $300. * * * • At Torrington, Conn., recently a fire started in the store n the Lilley and Workman block, which is occupied by a noving picture company. The fire is supposed to have ieen caused by the films. There were a dozen people in he store and they were rescued with considerable diffi- :ulty. The band concert in the square had just closed then the alarm was sent in and by the time the firemen id reached the scene fully 5,000 people were on the treet The lantern and all the equipments and the inte- ior of the store were destroyed. The estimated loss to milding, fixtures and stock is between $2,000 and $3,000, rith no insurance on the goods of the moving picture ompany. Paterson, N. J. Fire destroyed the moving picture tent at Market and liurch streets which was owned by Baker and Ross and lso destroyed everything contained therein, including he picture machine, films, chairs and piano. There were ibout 25 people present when the film caught fire and gnited the side wall of the tent, and all beat a hasty :xit The engines were summoned but upon their arrival lothing remained but a smoking mass. There was no in- urance and the loss will be total. [What is the cause of these fires ? They ought not to Is it carelessness, inexperience, or were the machines bsolete and unfurnished with fireproof devices?— Ed.] * * * PICTURES OF BURNS-SQUIRES FIGHT.—Man- ger Jim Coffroth has virtually decided to have moving ictures taken of the Squires-Burns fight at Colma on uly 4. Should the fight be marked by some dramatic ncident the pictures would be worth a lot of money, and f Squires be returned the winner the films would create uch interest in all the English colonies. *, * * In Mexico the general direction of primary instruction as recently purchased a valuable cinematograph outfit R-'hich will be used in connection with the schools of that iranch of education. Evolution of the Moving Picture. The moving-picture machine, under its various names. s still increasing in popularity and is being perfected day >y day, although much still remains to be done before its esults can be called quite satisfactory. It is difficult to *alize that so complex a device, producing so life-like w illusion of animated motion, has been developed within 1 few years. In an article contributed to the Revue Sci- tntifique (Paris, April 13) C. Hemardinquer, of the Fac- % of Sciences of the Sorbonne, gives some of the steps 0 detail. He says in substance: The whole theory of the cinematograph is contained in iese few words: persistence of the impression made by "ght on the retina. What does this mean? Take a natch whose end still glows, and move it quickly about. We see a luminous line. Whence comes this impression? simply from the fact that each luminous impression lasts certain time, fixed by the experiments of the Belgian physicist Plateau at a 14 second. During this time the object in motion has been displaced, so that we still see it in one place after it has moved to the next. This fact of luminous persistence has long been known. It was even mentioned by Lucretius in 65 B. C. In all times and in all countries scientists have noted it, tried to explain it and based toys or amusements upon it, such as the magic top, the thaumatrope, etc. By application of the same principle we show, in lectures on physics, the synthesis of colored lights to form white—the so-called Newton's disk. In this way, also, we may study vibratory movements on the principle of what are called in physics stroboscopic methods. To return to the cinematograph, he takes as its start- ing-point the phenakisticope of Plateau, which may be really regarded as its ancestor. He goes on to say: "Plateau's device received successive modifications of detail, among which may be cited Ross's 'wheel of life' and the zootrope or zoetrope of Desvignes (i860), which may still be found in the toy-shops. This is formed of a vertical cylinder having vertical slits through which the observer looks. In the interior is placed a band of paper bearing designs representing the successive positions or attitudes of a moving object or person. . . . "The zootrope modified by a system of mirrors becomes the praxinoscope of Reynaud (1877). Then came the folioscope, which, reappeared in 1897 with photographs instead of drawings. . "All these devices used drawings, reproductions more or less exact, of the different attitudes of the subjects. It is evident that the reproduction gained much from the substitution of photographs, and it is interesting that this substitution was first made with a scientific purpose. "In 1873 Cornu presented to the Academy of Sciences four photographs, taken on the same plate, of the transit of Venus across the sun's disk. At the same time Janssen invented his photographic revolver. Marey, in his labor- atory in the Pare des Princes, made on a single plate . . . successive images on a dark background, to study the movements of men and animals. "In 1878, at the instigation of a rich American, a San Francisco photographer, Maybridge, constructed twenty- four similar objectives whose shutters were controlled by electromagnets with electric circuits so arranged as to be broken successively by a moving horse, giving twenty- four • successive exposures. This was somewhat compli- cated. . . "We cite merely for the sake of completeness the analogous attempts on fixed plates made by Auschutz of Lissa, by Londe, by Colonel Sebert, and others, and come at once to the chronograph of Marey, who was really the first to think of forming the image on a movable sensitive film, the object being exposed periodically. This was the actual beginning of chronophotography, which then en- tered upon a new phase. One of Marey's collaborators^ Demeny, changed the chronograph to adapt it for pro- jection. . . . Marey had made the analysis of motion, and Demeny its synthesis. "In 1889, at the World's Fair, Marey showed his ap- paratus to Edison, who, seeing its possibilities, devised his kinetoscope, in which the celluloid strip was used for the first time, and which was so successful that Marey's name was almost forgotten beside that of the famous Amer- ican. "But the kinetoscope was not yet a device for project- ing moving pictures on a screen. On February 10, 1893, the Messrs., Lumiere, of Lyons, finally solved the problem and took out their first patent for the cinematograph. Everybody recollects the brilliant success of this inven-