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Movement capture to Motion picture The Influential work of Eadweard Muybrigde Charmaine Kelly B00574078

Movement capture to motion picture

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Page 1: Movement capture to motion picture

Movement capture to Motion picture

The Influential work of Eadweard Muybrigde

Charmaine Kelly B00574078

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Eadweard Muybridge was a man of many things, a father, a husband, a murderer to name a few, but most importantly Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer. He was the man whose work would inspire a new generation of photographers, chronographers, cinematographers and would eventually lead to motion picture as we know it. What I would like to explore the life events that contributed in their own way to his work as well as describe the important work itself and then briefly discuss the men who would follow in Eadweard Muybridge’s footsteps to leave their own contributions to the creation of moving image.

Edward James Muggeridge was born in Kingston-upon-Thames on April 9th 1830. Although British born, Edward spent most of his career living, working and travelling all over America. When first in America he worked as a bookbinder’s agent in New York City, but it wasn’t until he moved to San Francisco in 1855 that he realised his interest in photography, it was around the same time that Edward changed his last name to Muygridge.

In 1860 Muygridge suffered a terrible stage coach accident, leaving him suffering from double vision, head trauma, confused thinking and senses. Unbeknown to him at the time, but the accident and recovery was about to put Muybridge on a completely new path. At the time of the accident he was travelling to England, but it took a year of treatment in New York before he was able to return home. Once back home he was still receiving on going treatment for his injuries. It was at the request of his physician Sir William Gull, that Muygridge changed his vocation to photography. His name changed once again, becoming Muybridge, and this is what it would stay until the end of his career. It’s said that around this time in England, he learnt the wet collodion process (early photography process in the 1850’s that eventually replaced the first practical process-daguerreotype) and acquired the best photography equipment available.

He returned to America in 1867 as a professional photographer and quickly established his reputation for his work photographing landscape, particularly Yosemite Valley and the San Francisco bay. His technical skill and artistic eye began to net him a fortune and as his fame quickly spread. He spent the next few years travelling in with his portable light room he created using a light carriage vehicle. He signed and published his work under Pseudonym Helios which was also his studio name. His Stereographs (illusion of depth in a 2-d image) were sold to various galleries and photographic entrepreneurs.

Soon Muybridge attracted the attention of former governor and President of the Central Pacific Railroad, Leland Stanford. In 1972 Stanford commissioned Muybridge to study and capture the movements of a horse in trot to settle a popular debate of the day – did all four hooves of horse leave the ground during trot? In the same year he married Flora Shallcross Stone, a beautiful young lady at less than half his age. In 1873 Muybridge answered the Stanford’s question with a single negative showing a silhouette of standard bred trotting horse Occident trotting with all four hooves of the ground. The negative itself has been lost over the years but the woodcutting still remains. Although keen to continue his work for Stanford other unforeseeable events would not allow it just yet.

In 1874 on his return from a photography trip, Muybridge became aware of his wife’s infidelities. Whilst away, she had an affair with Major Harry Larkyns, Flora was pregnant and unsure who the father was. On hearing this Muybridge paid the man a visit. He calmly introduced himself and shot the Major at point blank range, killing him. He was later arrested without protest. His lawyer argued

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that as a result of the stage coach accident in 1860, Muybridge was left with erratic and unstable behaviour. Several close friends testified that his personality was never the same after the accident. The jury dismissed the insanity plea but acquitted him any how on the grounds ‘justifiable homicide’. Although acquitted Muybridge was now treated like an exile in society and decided to leave on a nine month expedition to Central America.

The whole scenario interrupted Muybridge’s studies of the horse in motion but not his relationship with Stanford. On his return to America he was encouraged to continue his studies of the horse. He resumed his work in 1877 and he now had his own creation of a new shutter that operated as slow as 1/1000th of a second, so more detailed photos could be obtained that would not have been possible in 1872. The project was sponsored by Stanford and Muybridge was given Stanford’s farm at Palo Alto to work from.

Muybridge had a fifty foot long shed constructed, along one wall was a row of 12 cameras and facing them was a white wall with vertical numbered lines. Each camera was fitted with Muybridge’s new high speed shutter and released by an electromagnetic catch. A series of thin threads connected to the camera shutter were stretched across the track and cloths were placed on the floor to reflect as much light as possible. The movement of the horse released the thread, closing the shutter and instant exposure was taken. Within half a second a series of 12 photos were produced. Although these photos were still nothing more than silhouettes, they were sharp and clearly showed each phase of movement. Later Muybridge repeated the experiment using 24 cameras. The photos attracted a lot of attention and were published all over the world in scientific and photographic journals. By replacing the threads with an electronic commutator device, releasing the shutters at precise intervals, Muybridge was able to photograph other animals in motion and eventually humans.

Muybridge then went on to copy the photos onto a disc that would be viewed though a machine he invented called the Zoopraxiscope. This device was regarded as an early movie projector and was an intermediate step towards motion picture or cinematography. The zoopraxiscope was a glass disc with images on it that created the illusion of motion when spinning. The stop – motion style images were initially hand painted as silhouettes but in 1892-94 a series of discs were made with the image outline photographically printed and then the detail added by hand. Some of the animated images were complex, featuring multiple combinations of sequences of human and animal movement. The device was a huge step in the direction of motion picture and seems to have been the primary influence for Thomas Edison and William Kenney Dickinson’s kinetoscope.

In 1882 Muybridge change the spelling of his first name from Edward to the old English version Eadweard. In the same year he lectured in the Royal institute and ended his working relationship with Stanford. The two men had a major falling over the book that was to be published called ‘The Horse in Motion’(1882 Dr J.B.D Stillman). Stillman’s book used Muybridge’s photography but gave him no credit. Instead it as implied that Muybridge was nothing more than an employee of Stanford. Not only was Muybridge not receiving the credit he deserved for his work but the Royal Society of Arts refused to publish his papers accusing him of plagiarism and withdrew their offer to fund his work. He filed a law suit against Stanford but was the case was thrown out of court. Stillman’s book did not sell as well as expected but Muybridge on the other hand looked elsewhere for funding, and

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received $40,000 from the University of Pennsylvania and later the Royal Society would eventually invite him back.

Now funded Muybridge worked obsessively in Philadelphia producing a total of 100,000 photographs between 1883 and 87. He photographed animals at the zoo and people in a studio to study their movements. His models were usual nude or wearing thin clothing to give a more accurate representation, and Eadweard himself posed nude showing the motion of swinging a mining pick. The photos were taking against a grid background and showed a variety of motions, including wrestling, boxing, walking up and down stairs and even throwing water around each other. A lot of time was spent editing and selecting the photos for a portfolio consisting of 20,000 photo and 781 plates. It was published with the title Animal Locomotion, it is the work that most of us are familiar with.

In 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair the Animal Locomotion collection was projected through the zoopraxiscope to a paying audience, making the exhibition the first commercial movie theatre in the world. The following year he left for England where he lived and worked until he died in 1904 in his home town of Kingston Upon Thames. During this time he published two additional books, ‘Animals in Motion’ (1899) and ‘The Human figure in Motion’ (1901). Even today animators use these images as accurate reference to movements when animating characters.

Eaweard Muybridge left a legacy behind when he passed away. His work inspired artists and photographers to think differently. Artists such as Thomas Eakins continued the study of motion with photography, but whereas Muybridge used a series of cameras to produce a sequence of photos, Thomas liked to produce a series of exposures on one negative. Etienne-Jules Marey was another photographer who was inspired by Muybridge, but it could also be argued that without Marey, Muybridge may never have produced the famous horse sequence that sparked his career.

It was originally Marey’s work that led Stanford and Muybridge to pursue their own studies of the horse in movement. Originally it was his sound recording instruments that Marey used to record movement, such as the sphygmograph to measure pulse. Inspired by Muybridge’s findings but dissatisfied by the lack of precision in the bird images, Marey began his own findings. This led to the creation of his chronophotographic gun. Built in 1882, this piece of equipment was capable of taking 12 consecutive frames a second. The result was a succession of images of a single movement printed onto a single canvas much like the work of Eakins. Marey went on to produce movies, they were at a high speed (60 images per second) and of excellent image quality: in slow-motion cinematography, he had come close to perfection. His research on how to capture and display moving images helped the emerging field of cinematography.

Marey has been named the founding father of cinematography, and in his time, his work was widely reported in the media. This sparked the likes of Thomas Edison and Louis Lumiere to follow on and continue the development of film. Without Marey this would not have been possible but without Muybridge, Marey may never have changed from recording the circulation and respiratory system of the human body to recording movement. I believe the real father of cinematography is Eadweard Muybridge. His misfortune in life may have been the greatest thing to happen in the world of movement capture and study. He formed the ground work that eventually led to better work being produced in an age were better technology was available.

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Bibliography

Eadweard Muybridge of Kingston upon Thames [exhibition guide] (Kingston; Museum and Heritage Centre, 1984) http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/leisure/museum/collections/muybridge.htm

Phillip Brookman by Eadweard Muybridge (Ed.) (1 Sep 2010)

Brian Coe, Muybridge and the Chronophotographers (1992)

Robert Bartlett Haas, Muybridge: Man in Motion (Feb 1976)

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Kingston Upon Thames exhibition guide is a website

The last three are books

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