International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

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750 The principle of cinematography consists, as is well known, in decomposing or analysing a movement by means of photographs in a great succession of pictures of the animated object. By this method, the impression of isolated images or pictures builds up over again in our brain which is the seat of our visual sensations the movement which corresponds to the real movement. In order that the movement may appear in this natural and perceptible rhythm, the release of the photograms must take place at a rate of between 1 6 and 1 8 a second, both for making and reproducing the picture. Thanks to this principle and its application, it is possible to reproduce in pictures which faithfully mirror nature the movements and modifications of shape of an animated object and project them in a room capable of containing a certain number of spectators. When a phenomenon takes place in too short a period of time for it to be understood in all its particulars by the spectator in one projection, its becomes possible to make several copies of the film, each one of which has the same value. In this way, the same phenomenon manifesting itself rapidly on the film can, when repeated, appear again and again before the spectators' eyes in any way that is desired, so that the spectator can fix the images in his mind and recognize the smallest details of a complicated process. Again, cinematography gives us the possibility of registering like a document to be shown at any time and containing every detail of every movement, observations which could otherwise only be rarely made, either for some defect or fault in the object itself, or in the necessary material or the preparations. When the development of a phenomenon has been registered at the rate of 1 6 or 18 photograms a second, and the film is projected at the same speed, the rapidity of the succession of the pictures corresponds to the rapidity animating the object under examination. The movement on the screen appears quite natural, and, from this point of view, the cinema is not in a position to register or show more than an attentive observer can see with the microscope. It is however, true that phenomena appear much more distinctly in projections, which for one thing is due to the enlargement that comes from the optical means used. The objects so seen are infinitely more easily recognizable. Nevertheless, cinematography and micro-cinematography especially cannot develop so as to become a precious aid for biology until their technique is able to supply automatic installations capable of multiplying or reducing at will the registrations of pictures. For example, certain phenomenon take place among bacteria and infusoria so rapidly that the eye cannot follow all the movements, but the new cinema technique which can make 100 photograms a second comes in .most useful here. When the film is projected