MOTION PICTURES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17170, 13 October 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOTION PICTURES.

WHO WAS THE ORIGINATOR OF THEM? There has been much discussion of late over the originator of motion pictures. The story of how a 25,00 do. wager by two noted horse lovers of Palo Alto, Californian, caused the invention in California of the first motion picture camera in 1877 was revived recently when John D. Isaacs retired from service with the Southern Pacific Company. The credit for the invention of motion pictures, claimed by Thomas A. Edison, actually belongs to one of

two men who (according to the San Francisco Chroincile) in 1577 rigged up a device in Palo Alto to prove that a trotting horse has all of his hoofs off the ground in one period of his stride. This is borne out by records in the archives of Leland Stanford Tunior University. Early San Franciscans, whose interest was aroused at the time of the famous test, declare that Isaacs, then a young engineer with the Southern Pacific, hired Edward Muybridge, a photographer. to make pictures, and himself superintended the work that resulted in the invention of the motion picture. Whether it was the invention of Muybridge or Isaacs has been a controversy for years. The test, however, was made at the Palo Alto race-track. Twenty-four cameras were placed side by side. The shutters, closing much faster than any that had previously been made, were shut by an electric current which was formed by pressure of the sulky wheels on a metallic button in a groove made on the track to hold the wheels. It was planned so that the weight of the sulky drawn by the horse would complete a circuit in front of each camera, snapping off the series in passing, thus photographing the horse in every position. The films showed the horse with all his feet clear of the ground. The test was reproduced in newspapers throiighout the country—and Frederick Remington made himself famous by painting horse pictures inspired by the