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The phenakistiscope (also known by the spellings phénakisticope or phenakistoscope) was the first widespread
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
device that created a fluent illusion of motion. Dubbed and ('stroboscopic discs') by its inventors, it has been known under many other names until the French product name became common (with alternative spellings). The phenakistiscope is regarded as one of the first forms of moving media entertainment that paved the way for the future motion picture and film industry. Like a
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
animation, it can only show a short continuous loop.
Etymology and spelling
When it was introduced in the French newspaper ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
'' in June 1833, the term 'phénakisticope' was explained to be from the root
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word ''phenakistikos'' (or rather from
φενακίζειν ''phenakizein''), meaning "deceiving" or "cheating", and
ὄψ ''óps'', meaning "eye" or "face", so it was probably intended loosely as 'optical deception' or 'optical illusion'.
[
The term phénakisticope was first used by the French company ]Alphonse Giroux François-Simon-Alphonse Giroux (6 April 1776, Paris - 1 May 1848, Paris) was a French art restorer and ébéniste.
Life and work
He studied painting under Jacques-Louis David, and founded an art restoration business near the end of the 18th cent ...
et Compagnie in their application for an import license (29 May 1833) and this name was used on their box sets. Fellow Parisian publisher Junin also used the term 'phenakisticope' (both with and without the accent).
Inventor Joseph Plateau
Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (14 October 1801 – 15 September 1883) was a Belgian physicist and mathematician. He was one of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. To do this, he used counterrotating disks with repea ...
did not give a name for the device when he first published about it in January 1833. Later in 1833 he used 'phénakisticope' in an article to refer to the published versions that he was not involved with. By then, he had an authorized set published first as ''Phantasmascope'' (by Ackermann in London), which some months later was changed into ''Fantascope'' for a new edition and sets by other animators. In many writings and presentations Plateau used both the terms ''phénakisticope'' and ''fantascope'', seemingly accepting ''phénakisticope'' as the better known name and holding on to ''fantascope'' as the name he preferred.[
The spelling 'phenakistiscope' was possibly introduced by lithographers Forrester & Nichol in collaboration with optician John Dunn; they used the title "The Phenakistiscope, or, Magic Disc" for their box sets, as advertised in September 1833. The corrupted part 'scope' was understood to be derived from Greek 'skopos', meaning "aim", "target", "object of attention" or "watcher", "one who watches" (or rather from ''skopein'') and was quite common in the naming of optical devices (e.g. Telescope, Microscope, Kaleidoscope, Fantascope, Bioscope).]
The misspelling 'phenakistoscope' can already be found in 1835 in ''The American Journal of Science and Arts'' and later ended up as a standard name through encyclopedias, for instance in ''A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art'' (London, 1842)''Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art'' (New York, 1852).
Technology
The phénakistiscope usually comes in the form of a spinning cardboard disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed radially around the disc's center is a series of pictures showing sequential phases of the animation. Small rectangular apertures are spaced evenly around the rim of the disc. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the images reflected in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images keeps them from simply blurring together so that the user can see a rapid succession of images that appear to be a single moving picture.[
When there is the same number of images as slots, the images will animate in a fixed position, but will not drift across the disc. Fewer images than slots and the images will drift in the opposite direction to that of the spinning disc. More images than slots and the images will drift in the same direction as the spinning disc.
Unlike the ]zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
and other successors, common versions of the phénakisticope could only practically be viewed by one person at a time.
The pictures of the phénakisticope became distorted when spun fast enough to produce the illusion of movement; they appeared a bit slimmer and were slightly curved. Sometimes animators drew an opposite distortion in their pictures to compensate for this. However, most animations were not intended to give a realistic representation and the distortion isn't very obvious in cartoonish pictures.
The distortion and the flicker caused by the rotating slits are not seen in most phénakisticope animations now found online (for instance the GIF animation on this page). These are usually animations created with software. These do not replicate the actual viewing experience of a phénakisticope, but they can present the work of the animators in an optimized fashion. Some miscalculated modern re-animations also have the slits rotating (which would appear motionless when viewed through an actual phénakisticope) and the figures moving across the discs where they were supposed to stand still (or standing still when they were supposed to move around).
Most commercially produced discs are lithographic
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
prints that were colored by hand, but also multi-color lithography and other printing techniques have been used by some manufacturers.
Invention
The phenakisticope was invented almost simultaneously around December 1832 by the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau
Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (14 October 1801 – 15 September 1883) was a Belgian physicist and mathematician. He was one of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. To do this, he used counterrotating disks with repea ...
and the Austrian professor of practical geometry Simon Stampfer
Simon Ritter von Stampfer (26 October 1792 (according to other sources 1790)), in Windisch-Mattrai, Archbishopric of Salzburg today called Matrei in Osttirol, Tyrol – 10 November 1864 in Vienna) was an Austrian mathematician, surveyor and in ...
.
As a university student Plateau noticed in some early experiments that when looking from a small distance at two concentric cogwheels that turned fast in opposite directions, it produced the optical illusion of a motionless wheel. He later read Peter Mark Roget
Peter Mark Roget ( ; 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869) was a British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer and founding secretary of The Portico Library. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the '' Thesaurus of English Words ...
's 1824 article ''Explanation of an optical deception in the appearance of the spokes of a wheel when seen through vertical apertures'' which addressed the same illusion. Plateau decided to investigate the phenomenon further and later published his findings in ''Correspondance Mathématique et Physique'' in 1828. In a letter to the same scientific periodical dated December 5, 1829 he presented his (still nameless) Anorthoscope An anorthoscope is a device that demonstrates an optical illusion that turns an anamorphic picture on a disc into a normal image through fast rotation behind a counter-rotating disk with four radial slits. It was invented in 1829 by Joseph Plateau, ...
, a disc that turns an anamorphic picture into a normal picture when it is spun fast and seen through the four radial slits of a counter-rotating black disc. This invention was later marketed, for instance by Newton & Co in London.
On 10 December 1830 Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
presented a paper at the Royal Institution of Great Britain
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
called ''On a Peculiar Class of Optical Deceptions'' about the optical illusions that could be found in rotating wheels. He referred to Roget's paper and described his associated new findings. Much was similar to what Plateau had published and Faraday not only acknowledged this publicly but also corresponded with Plateau personally and sent him his paper. Some of Faraday's experiments were new to Plateau and especially the one with a fixed image produced by a turning wheel in front of the mirror inspired Plateau with the idea for new illusions. In July 1832 Plateau sent a letter to Faraday and added an experimental disc with some "anamorphoses" that produced a "completely immobile image of a little perfectly regular horse" when rotated in front of a mirror. After several attempts and many difficulties he constructed a working model of the phénakisticope in November or December 1832. Plateau published his invention in a 20 January 1833 letter to ''Correspondance Mathématique et Physique''. He believed that if the manner of producing the illusions could be somehow modified, they could be put to other uses, "for example, in phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria (, also fantasmagorie, fantasmagoria) was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images, such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts, onto walls, smoke, or semi- ...
".
Stampfer read about Faraday's findings in December 1832 and was inspired to do similar experiments, which soon led to his invention of what he called ''Stroboscopischen Scheiben oder optischen Zauberscheiben'' (stroboscope discs or optical magic discs). Stampfer had thought of placing the sequence of images on either a disc, a cylinder (like the later zoetrope) or, for a greater number of images, on a long, looped strip of paper or canvas stretched around two parallel rollers (much like film reels). He also suggests covering up most of the disc or the mirror with a cut-out sheet of cardboard so that one sees only one of the moving figures and painting theatrical coulisses and backdrops around the cut-out part (somewhat similar to the later Praxinoscope-Theatre).
Stampfer also mentioned a version which has a disc with pictures on one end and a slotted disc on the other side of an axis, but he found spinning the disc in front of a mirror more simple. By February 1833 he had prepared six double-sided discs, which were later published by Trentsensky & Vieweg. Matthias Trentsensky and Stampfer were granted an Austrian patent (Kaiserlichen königlichen Privilegium) for the discs on 7 May 1833.
Publisher and Plateau's doctoral adviser Adolphe Quetelet
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet FRSF or FRSE (; 22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introduc ...
claimed to have received a working model to present to Faraday as early as November 1832. Plateau mentioned in 1836 that he thought it difficult to state the exact time when he got the idea, but he believed he was first able to successfully assemble his invention in December. He stated to trust the assertion of Stampfer to have invented his version at the same time.
Peter Mark Roget claimed in 1834 to have constructed several phénakisticopes and showed them to many friends as early as in the spring of 1831, but as a consequence of more serious occupations he did not get around to publishing any account of his invention.
Commercial production
According to Mathias Trentsensky, of art dealer and publishing company Trentsensky & Vieweg, Stampfer had prepared six double-sided discs as early as February 1833 and had repeatedly demonstrated these to many friends. In April 1833 Trentsensky applied for an Austrian patent (k.k. Privilegium) together with Stampfer, which was granted on 7 May 1833. A first edition of four double-sided discs was soon published, but it sold out within four weeks and left them unable to ship orders. These discs probably had round holes as illustrated in an 1868 article and a 1922 reconstruction by William Day, but no original copies are known to still exist.
Trentsensky & Vieweg published an improved and expanded set of eight double-sided discs with vertical slits in July 1833. English editions were published not much later with James Black and Joseph Myers & Co. A total of 28 different disc designs have been credited to Professor Stampfer.
Joseph Plateau never patented his invention, but he did design his own set of six discs for Ackermann & Co in London. The series was published in July 1833 as ''Phantasmascope''. In October 1833, Ackermann & Co changed the name of the series to ''Fantascope'' and released two more sets of six discs each, one designed by Thomas Talbot Bury
Thomas Talbot Bury (26 November 1809 – 23 February 1877) was a British architect and lithographer. There seems to be some dispute about Bury's date of birth. According to Grace's Guide, the 1877 Institution of Civil Engineers Obituaries gives ...
and one by Thomas Mann Baynes
Thomas Mann Baynes (1794–1876) was an English artist and lithographer. He is known for his drawings and watercolours of landscapes, buildings and outdoor events.
Life
He was London born, and is probably the son of James Baynes, a noted waterco ...
.
In the meantime some other publishers had apparently been inspired by the first edition of Professor Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheiben:
Alphonse Giroux et Compagnie applied for a French import license on 28 May 1833 for 'Le Phénakisticope' and were granted one on 5 August 1833. They had a first set of 12 single sided discs available before the end of June 1833. Before the end of December 1833 they released two more sets.
By 16 June 1833, Joh. Val. Albert published ''Die belebte Wunderscheibe'' in Frankfurt and soon marketed internationally. This version had uncut discs with pictures and a separate larger disc with round holes. The set of ''Die Belebte Wunderscheibe'' in Dick Balzer's collection shows several discs with designs that are very similar to those of Stampfer and about half of them are also very similar to those of Giroux's first set.
It is unclear where these early designs (other than Stampfer's) originated, but many of them would be repeated on many discs of many other publishers. It is unlikely that much of this copying was done with any licensing between companies or artists.
Joseph Plateau and Simon Stampfer both complained around July 1833 that the designs of the discs they had seen around (besides their own) were poorly executed and they did not want to be associated with them.
The phénakisticope became very popular and soon there were very many other publishers releasing discs with numerous names, including:
* Periphanoscop – oder Optisches Zauber-theater / ou Le Spectacle Magique / or The Magical Spectacle (by R.S. Siebenmann, Arau, August 1833)
* Toover-schijf (by A. van Emden, Amsterdam, August 1833)
* Fores's Moving Panorama, or Optical Illusions (London, September 1833)
* The Phenakistiscope or Magic Disc (by Forrester & Nichol & John Dunn, September 1833)
* Motoscope, of wonderschijf (Amsterdam, September 1833)
* McLean's Optical Illusions, or, Magic Panorama (London, November 1833)
* Le Fantascope (by Dero-Becker, Belgium, December 1833)
* The Phenakisticope, or Living Picture (by W. Soffe, December 1833)
* Soffe's Phantascopic Pantomime, or Magic Illusions (December 1834)
* Wallis's Wheel of Wonders (London, December 1834)
* The Laughingatus, or Magic Circle (by G.S. Tregear, circa 1835)
* Le Phenakisticope (by Junin, Paris, 1839?)
* Das Phorolyt oder die magische Doppelscheibe (by Purkyně & Pornatzki, Breslau, 1841)
* Optische Zauber-Scheiben / Disques Magique (unknown origin, one set executed by Frederic Voigtlaender)
* Optische Belustigungen – Optical Amusements – Optic Amusements (unknown origin)
* Fantasmascope. Tooneelen in den spiegel (K. Fuhri, The Hague, 1848)
* Kinesiskop (designed by Purkyně, published by Ferdinand Durst, Prague, 1861)
* The Magic Wheel (by J. Bradburn, US, 1864)
* L'Ékonoscope (by Pellerin & Cie, France, 1868)
* Pantinoscope (with ''Journal des Demoiselles'', France, 1868)
* Magic Circle (by G. Ingram, circa 1870)
* Tableaux Animés – Nouveau Phénakisticope (by Wattilaux, France, circa 1875)
* The Zoopraxiscope
The zoopraxiscope (initially named ''zoographiscope'' and ''zoogyroscope'') is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muy ...
(by Eadward Muybridge, US, 1893)
* Prof. Zimmerman's Ludoscope (by Harbach & Co, Philadelphia, 1904)
After its commercial introduction by the Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company or simply Milton Bradley (MB) was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the ...
, the Zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
(patented in 1867) soon became the more popular animation device and consequently fewer phénakisticopes were produced.
Variations
Many versions of the phénakisticope used smaller illustrated uncut cardboard discs that had to be placed on a larger slotted disc. A common variant had the illustrated disc on one end of a brass axis and the slotted disc on the other end; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror and was claimed to produce clearer images.
Fores offered an ''Exhibitor'': a handle for two slotted discs with the pictures facing each other which allowed two viewers to look at the animations at the same time, without a mirror.
A few discs had a shaped edge on the cardboard to allow for the illusion of figures crawling over the edge. Ackermann & Co published three of those discs in 1833, including one by inventor Joseph Plateau.
Some versions added a wooden stand with a hand-cranked mechanism to spin the disc.
Several phénakisticope projectors with glass discs were produced and marketed since the 1850s.
Joseph Plateau created a combination of his phénakisticope and his Anorthoscope An anorthoscope is a device that demonstrates an optical illusion that turns an anamorphic picture on a disc into a normal image through fast rotation behind a counter-rotating disk with four radial slits. It was invented in 1829 by Joseph Plateau, ...
sometime between 1844 and 1849, resulting in a back-lit transparent disc with a sequence of figures that are animated when it is rotated behind a counter-rotating black disc with four illuminated slits, spinning four times as fast. Unlike the phénakisticope several persons could view the animation at the same time. This system has not been commercialised; the only known two handmade discs are in the Joseph Plateau Collection of the Ghent University. Belgian painter Jean Baptiste Madou
Jean-Baptiste Madou (3 February 1796 – 31 March 1877) was a Belgian painter and lithographer.
Life
Madou was born in Brussels. He studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts and was a pupil of Pierre Joseph Célestin François. While ...
created the first images on these discs and Plateau painted the successive parts.
In 1849 Joseph Plateau discussed the possibilities of combining the phénakisticope with the stereoscope
A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.
A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...
as suggested to him by its inventor Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875), was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope (a device for di ...
.[ In 1852 Duboscq patented such a "Stéréoscope-fantascope, stéréofantscope ou Bïoscope". Of three planned variations only one was actually produced but without much success. Only one extant disc is known, which is in the Plateau collection of Ghent University.][
]
Projection
The first known plan for a phénakisticope projector with a transparent disc was made by Englishman T.W. Naylor in 1843 in the ''Mechanical's Magazine – Volume 38''. His letter was illustrated with a detailed side view of the device. Naylor suggested tracing the pictures of available phenakisticopes onto glass with transparent paint and painting the rest black. Nothing else is known of Naylor or his machine.[
]Franz von Uchatius
Franz von Uchatius (1811–1881) was an Austrian artillery general and inventor. His inventions included both military applications and pioneer work in cinematography.
He invented a motion picture projector in 1853, developing it over the years f ...
possibly read about Naylor's idea in German or Austrian technical journals and started to develop his own version around 1851. Instrument maker Wenzel Prokesch made a first model for him which could only project images of a few inches in diameter. A more successful second model by Prokesch had a stationary disc with transparent pictures with a separate lens for each picture focused on the same spot on a screen. A limelight revolved rapidly behind the disc to project the sequential images one by one in succession. This model was demonstrated to the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1853. Prokesch marketed the machine and sold one to magician Ludwig Döbler who used it in his shows that also included other magic lantern techniques, like dissolving views
Dissolving views were a popular type of 19th century magic lantern show exhibiting the gradual transition from one projected image to another. The effect is similar to a dissolve in modern filmmaking. Typical examples had landscapes that dissolv ...
.[
From around 1853 until the 1890s J. Duboscq in Paris marketed different models of a projection phénakisticope. It had a glass disc with a diameter of 34 centimeters for the pictures and a separate disc with four lenses. The discs rotated at different speeds.][
An "Optical Instrument" was patented in the U.S. in 1869 by O.B. Brown, using a phenakistiscope-like disc with a technique very close to the later cinematograph; with Maltese Cross motion; a star-wheel and pin being used for intermittent motion, and a two-sector shutter.
Thomas Ross developed a small transparent phénakisticope system, called ''Wheel of life'', which fitted inside a standard magic lantern slide. A first version, patented in 1869, had a glass disc with eight phases of a movement and a counter-rotating glass shutter disc with eight apertures. The discs depicted Ice Skaters, Fishes, Giant's Ladder, Bottle Imp and other subjects. An improved version had 13 images and a single slot shutter disc and received British Patent 2685 on 10 October 1871.][
Henry Renno Heyl presented his ''Phasmatrope'' on 5 February 1870 at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. This modified magic lantern had a wheel that could hold 16 photographic slides and a shutter. The wheel was rotated in front of the light source by an intermittent mechanism to project the slides successively (probably with a speed of 3 fps]). The program contained three subjects: All Right (a popular Japanese acrobat), Brother Jonathan and a waltzing couple. Brother Jonathan addressed the audience with a voice actor behind the screen and professed that "this art will rapidly develop into one of the greatest merit for instruction and enjoyment." The pictures of the waltzing couple survived and consist of four shots of costumed dancers (Heyl and a female dancing partner) that were repeated four times in the wheel. The pictures were posed. Capturing movement with "instantaneous photography" would first be established by Eadward Muybridge in 1878.
Eadward Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
created his ''Zoopraxiscope
The zoopraxiscope (initially named ''zoographiscope'' and ''zoogyroscope'') is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muy ...
'' in 1879 and lectured until 1894 with this projector for glass discs on which pictures in transparent paint were derived from his chronophotographic plates.
Scientific use
The phénakisticope was invented through scientific research into optical illusions and published as such, but soon the device was marketed very successfully as an entertaining novelty toy. After the novelty wore off, it was mostly seen as a toy for children. Nonetheless, some scientists still regard it as a useful demonstration tool.[
The Czech physiologist Jan Purkyně used his version, called Phorolyt, in lectures since 1837. In 1861 one of the subjects he illustrated was the beating of a heart.
German physicist ]Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller
Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller (30 April 1809, Kassel, Kingdom of Westphalia – 3 October 1875, Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German physicist.
Biography
From 1829 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bonn, where one of his ...
published a set of 8 discs depicting several wave motions (waves of sound, air, water, etcetera) with J.V. Albert in Frankfurt in 1846.
The famous English pioneer of photographic motion studies Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
built a phenakisticope projector for which he had his photographs rendered as contours on glass discs. The results were not always very scientific; he often edited his photographic sequences for aesthetic reasons and for the glass discs he sometimes even reworked images from multiple photographs into new combinations. An entertaining example is the sequence of a man somersaulting over a bull chased by a dog.[ For only one disc he chose a photographic representation; the sequence of a running horse skeleton, which was probably too detailed to be painted on glass. This disc was most likely the very first time a ]stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
technique was successfully applied. Muybridge first called his apparatus Zoogyroscope, but soon settled on the name Zoöpraxiscope. He used it in countless lectures on human and animal locomotion between 1880 and 1895.
20th and 21st centuries
The Joseph Plateau Award
A Joseph Plateau Award was an accolade presented by the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent, first awarded in 1985. The awards were given in several categories to honor cinematic achievements in the film industry. They were restricted to ...
, a trophy resembling a phénakisticope, was a Belgian movie award given yearly between 1985 and 2006.
Several vinyl music releases have phénakistiscope-like animations on the labels or on the vinyl itself. In 1956 Red Raven Movie Records started a series of 78 RPM 8" singles with animations to be viewed with a device with small mirrors similar to a praxinoscope
The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The ...
to be placed on the center of the disc. Since 2010 audio-visual duo Sculpture has released several picture discs with very elaborate animations to be viewed under a stroboscope
A stroboscope, also known as a strobe, is an instrument used to make a cyclically moving object appear to be slow-moving, or stationary. It consists of either a rotating disk with slots or holes or a lamp such as a flashtube which produces br ...
flashing exactly 25 times per second, or filmed with a video camera shooting progressively at a very high shutter speed with a frame rate of 25fps.
Gallery
File:Phenakistiscope Snakes 16 sections - animated.gif, La Cinémathèque française
br> 1833
File:Optical illusion disc with somersaults and horseback riding-whiteBalance-1000p.gif, Library of Congress
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File:Optical illusion disc with birds, butterflies, and a man jumping-Corrected.gif, Library of Congress
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File:Optical Illusion disc with man and frog-Corrected.gif, Library of Congress
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File:Optical illusion disc with a face catching a ball and a man with blackface taking a bow-corrected.gif, Library of Congress
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File:Optical illusion disc with two men throwing and catching cakes and stars-corrected.gif, Library of Congress
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File:Optical illusion disc with man pumping water-corrected.gif, Library of Congress
br>1833
File:Optical Toy, Phenakistiscope Disc with Distorted Man, 1833 (Animated).gif,
File:Optical Toy, Phenakistiscope Disc with Dancing Man, ca. 1835-Animated.gif,
File:Optical Toy, Phenakistiscope Disc with Cats and Donkey, ca. 1830.gif,
File:The bogle-Corrected.gif, Library of Congress
br>1833
File:Afraid of Nobody-Corrected.gif, Library of Congress
br>1833
File:Optical Toy, Phenakistiscope Disc with Geometric Shapes, ca. 1840 (CH 18607983)-R.gif,
File:Politeness-corrected.gif, Library of Congress
br>1833
File:Optical illusion disc with man jumping rope and a man sticking out his tongue.gif, Library of Congress
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File:The desert-corrected.gif, Library of Congress
br>1833
File:The zoopraxiscope - a horse back somersault-animated.gif, Library of Congress
br>1893
File:Phenakistoscope 3g07692a.gif, Library of Congress
br>1893
File:The zoopraxiscope-Horse galloping-Animated.gif, Library of Congress
br>1893
File:Dragons Animated Optical Illusion Disc 16 frames 12 fps 1000p.gif, alt=, Library of Congress 1834
See also
* Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
* Electrotachyscope
The Elektrischen Schnellseher (literally "Electrical Quick-Viewer") or Electrotachyscope was an early motion picture system developed by chronophotographer Ottomar Anschütz between 1886 and 1894. He made at least seven different versions of the ma ...
* Flip book
A flip book, flipbook, flicker book, or kineograph is a booklet with a series of images that very gradually change from one page to the next, so that when the pages are viewed in quick succession, the images appear to animate by simulating moti ...
* History of animation
While the history of animation began much earlier, this article is concerned with the development of the medium after the emergence of celluloid film in 1888, as produced for theatrical screenings, television and (non-interactive) home entertai ...
* History of film
The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century.
The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scr ...
* List of film formats
This list of motion picture film formats catalogues formats developed for shooting or viewing motion pictures, ranging from the Chronophotographe format from 1888, to mid-20th century Film format, formats such as the 1953 CinemaScope format, to m ...
* List of multiple discoveries
Historians and sociologists have remarked upon the occurrence, in science, of " multiple independent discovery". Robert K. Merton defined such "multiples" as instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of ea ...
* Optical toys Optical toys form a group of devices with some entertainment value combined with a scientific, optical nature. Many of these were also known as "philosophical toys" when they were developed in the 19th century.
People must have experimented with op ...
* Praxinoscope
The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The ...
* Precursors of film
Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema.
Precursors of film are often referred to as precinema, or 'pre-cinema'. Terms like these are disliked by several historians, partly ...
* Strobe light
A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope. The word originated from the Ancient Greek ('), meaning ...
* Thaumatrope
* Zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
* Zoopraxiscope
The zoopraxiscope (initially named ''zoographiscope'' and ''zoogyroscope'') is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muy ...
References
External links
Collection of simulated phenakistiscopes in action
– Museum For The History Of Sciences
The Richard Balzer Collection
(animated gallery)
including the zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...
(Laura Hayes and John Howard Wileman Exhibit of Optical Toys in the NCSSM)
Some pictures
– Example of the phenakistiscope
Magic Wheel optical toy, 1864, in the Staten Island Historical Society Online Collections Database
{{Authority control
1830s toys
Audiovisual introductions in 1832
Austrian inventions
Belgian inventions
History of animation
Optical illusions
Optical toys
Precursors of film