FIRST MOVING PICTURE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 65, 12 March 1912, Page 3

FIRST MOVING PICTURE.

Considerable discussion liras been going on for some considerable time past as to who originated cinema. Many claimants of the distinction have come forward, but after careful investigation it would appear that the honour really belongs to an Englishman, Edward Muybridge, who emigrated from Kingston-upon-Thames in the forties, and settled in California, where later on he obtained an appointment as photographic surveyor of the Pacific Coast. The first moving picture which he produced was really the outcome of a wager between the Governor of Cnliiornia (Lcland Stanford) and a friend as to whether a horse ever has four legs off the ground at the same moment while running. Muybridge war. asked to settle the point. Ho placed twenty-four cameras in a line to cover each movement of the horse, and the rider, the camera shutters being moved by connecting pieces of string which the animal broke as it passed. Pile result was a series of pictures showing each movement of the horse. It settled the argument, for Muybridge was able to show that except while jumping the horse never had all its feet off the ground at one time. The experiment caused Muybridge to think what an interesting thing it would be to present the photos in motion. To do this he copied' the method made familiar to many in the zoetrope. This toy was a pasteboard cylinder with slits in the upper section, and when it revolved rapidly it reproduced drawings apparently in moJ o reproduce the effect upon a screen, using photographs was a mechanical feat which was firtaly conquered, the movements of the horse being shown, hut no background. This was before the introduction of the flexible film for the camera, and before rapid photography had been developed. Muybridge lived to see the wonderfull living picture of to-day, and he died in 1904 at his home in England. Ho left with officials of the community and his friends the photographs and much of the apparatus used in his experiments.