WHO INVENTED THE MOVIES?

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13275, 2 September 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHO INVENTED THE MOVIES?

what did the inve-iition <>j iin, modern nioving-pieture consist!- This empemls on wiii-tlier an invention is the oi igiua..ion of an idea or ilto pe'i'leet ion of something that' enables lis to put thatidea into practice. If tin- hitler is I'm fact, ho who eioviseel the' e'olitinuous to I ot e'elluloid film is io bo thanked for tile "niovics ' that we now witness am: < Hjoy. I his is the view of all e'elitoI'ial . writer in The' Christian Si.-i.-in-' -Monitor, who coinim-nta on tlio claim, uuulo in a current periodical bv W . j' riese-f iteeile, oi 1 one ion. ihai- he i. I lie inventor oi' the cinematograph. Titer" is ox(i> 11 r 11 1 ground, the writer thinks, : " 1 ' 1 "e claim i ii.ii tho niovin .: pictniv i- - i British origin, but lo i-stahlidi the i°!of litis particular , homani would necessitate hxing the i,me am! I'oini ai whie-li ibe invention look form: "As in many («.•»• iiisl-an-'e, where devices making lor the a'-ro'iipbslime-nl of a certain i ml j.receded im en: ion, properly sjieaking, j: .-aire aUiii; t h .: mot inn lit aniniat.'d pa : ur.'s v, . re made ait'l I'xliihitcd in Gr. ai Jiritain In.-fori' the key to eilleniatogl a | by, ihi'.a -h the- photogra phie- process was eli-c ( n eMed . Tne so-callei! 'wheel of life,' a mechanical (h'vie-e, represented the niove-ment of a galloping horse as early as 18;i3. "ihv machine* is de'scribed by \V. G. Horner as one consisting of a hollow cylinder turning on a vertical axis ami having its surface pierced with a number of slots. Around the interior was arrangeel a series of pictures representing parts of the figure intemh'd to be sevn in motion, and when the cylinder was iota ted the observer. looking through the slots, oxperienceel the illusion of seeing the' object in motion. This was finally reduced to a toy that was in common use at a verv recent date.

I'ifty-two yt-ars later, Mr Friese(■re'ohe* was engaged in Ins experiments. These were- of quite a different character from the 'wheel of life' figures, for his pictures were- projected on a screen. The first exhibition of his work took place at AI Gays Street, Rath, being the 'great novelty of a sort of pennyreading Imld their one evening. The picture showed a girl moving her eyes from side to side, and so sceptical of its genuineness was one lady present, according to our claimant-,' that she walked up to the sheet and insisted on touching the moving eyes. She thought some confederate must he* behind the sheet.

Rut tlm invention of the cinematograph was not yet, nor can it be traced to improvements which Mr Friese- (» re*eiie>! made subsequently in his apparatus. There had been telegraphs before Morse; there hat I been reaping-machines hot ore M ( oriuick; there had been sowing machines before Howe: there had been printing presses before Walter, and there had unquestionably been motionpict tires before Marcy; but, just as certain as the- perfecting-press was made possible' by the continuous roll of white paper, the cinematograph w as made possiblel. in 1890, by the invention of the ci'lluloiel roll film. This, in fact, was tlm invention, just as the eye in the point of the* nee*dh- was the be-guitiing and end, the length anel breadth, of Mias Howes discovery. When if was tolinei that photographs could be taken on a continuous roll as well as on separate* shee-is, the same' possibility that the eonf imiotts paper roll, or 'web,' presented to Kdison and to others.

Mr 1' riesc-(ireeiie had lailli in his invention. patented it, and spent about L'MIIMI in its promotion. ]f,'> invented in two improved cameras at L'tO each in 1N V !), in which year lie succeeded in getting an animated picture of traffic passing Hyde Park corner, and it ran io 'about twenty feel of film." Kven in so such a short roll, as ft,, would call it now. the task of obtaining the piciurcs in consecutive order must have been extremely laborious.' 'Von will smile,' sa\s this pioneer, 'at the idea of a moving picture only twenty feet long, bur it was a great triumph and created quite a sensation twenty-five years aL r o, I assure von.'

■Wp would 1.0 inclined In at tln.s performance now were it not. for ilie sequel_ to ;>II of Mr labors. 'Tin- American.-. ;itid Hermans.' ho says, 'pari ieularly the Geriii.tti-', soiz-

od upon my iu\ciiiion, and. forking ou it for all they could, sou |e|'( mil n it]) little but the satislaction ot knowing that 1 had discovered sonielliing wlrch niaiked an epoch. \ n more satisfaction than this (aml there is more solace in it than the world imagines! nas been left io countless discoverers and inventors before and since this man's time. Material reward goes more seldom to the person who conceives an idea than to the person who picks it up in the first stages of development and puts it to practical u.se.''