Society of Motion Picture Engineers : incorporation and by-laws (1919)

The most pretentious of these instruments was the Mutoscope of Herman Castler^ in 1895. The picture cards stood out radically from a drum to which they were attached by their bottom ends, a thousand or more on a single drum, and these slipping from under a detent exhibited the pictures thereon with smoothness and precision. It was a coin operated machine and "picture parlors" equipped with Mutoscopes were established in the large cities, seaside and mountain resorts and pleasure parks, holding the public favor until the advent of the 5c-mOvie theatre. The Mutoscope The Phantascope The Messrs. Lumiere, of France, brought out a similar machine which they named the Kinora. The striking feature of this machine was the curved picture-carrying cards, curved to add resiliency. My own contribution to this line was a Phantascope toy,^*^ in which a flexible band was employed, the cards being attached thereto by their lower ends and having a spaced relation of about five thousandths inch. This close spacing of the cards assured a firm adhesion to the band and to each other when a flexible glue was used. But it is to the persistence of Edward Muybridge that we are indebted for the most scientific research in motion analysis, work which he began in 1879. His animal studies became classics with artists. Wet plates only were then available and he used above half a million of them in a plurality of cameras arranged in order along a track over which his subject was required to pass. He thus obtained consecutive impressions at regular intervals of time and distance during a complete stride. His first work was financed by the ° U. S. Patent No. 549,309, 1895. U. S. Patent No. 779,364, 1905. Franklin Institute Journal, April 1883. 40