Chronophotography was developed, at the end of the nineteenth century by Marey, Demenÿ and later Gilbreth and used as a tool for investigating movement. At the beginning of the twentieth century chronophotography’s potential as a research tool was ignored as aspects of chronophotography were developed into cinema. Now, in what many call the post-cinematic era¹, artists and researchers are beginning to return to chronophotography to continue some of its unfinished stories. A chronophotograph contains information about interval, duration, speed and other derivatives of space and time. This information can and has been used to answer questions about motion and mechanical efficiency. In this paper I want to demonstrate how chronophotography can be used to better understand two of its descendents: animation and cinema.

We are familiar with the evidence. In the cinema, we know that a sequence of still images is projected one after another onto a viewing screen. We also know that the differences between any two consecutive images must be small and that the sequence of images must be shown quite quickly. We might even know that this system works whether the images are recorded photographically, as in cinema, or hand-made by drawing or some other method, as in animation. What we do not know is how the system works. We can guess or use trial and error to determine how small the differences between consecutive images should be and how quickly the sequence of images must be shown. But, why does a sequence of still images appear to be a continuous moving image?

Read more… »