P3D 1st 3-D Movie

[Ray Zone <r3dzone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Hutchison wrote:

>Sorry I'm just catching up on this discussion, been out of town.

>The Friese-Greene camera uses a beater bar mechanism for the intermittent
>pulldown.  It's slow and clumsy of course, especially in the large format he
>was using for the side-by-side stereo pairs; I don't think he could achieve a
>frame rate faster than around five frames a second.

Ray Zone responds:

Thanks for responding to this post.  You can provide a significant voice in
this ongoing (e)dialogue regarding the first projected stereoscopic motion
picture.

In your (excellent) May 1977 "Starlog" Magazine history of 3-D (page 20)
you reproduced a photo of the Friese-Greene stereo camera as well as the
large format negative film it shot.  Brian Coe in his book "The History of
Movie Photography" (Eastview Editions, 1981) on page 59 shows a photo of
Frederick Varley's stereo movie camera designed and patented in 1890.  The
photo caption states: "A virtually identical design was patented by Friese
Greene in 1893.  This camera could operate at only two or three frames a
second."

Page 60 of Coe's book reproduces a part of a film exposed by Friese-Greene
in Varley's camera in 1890.  It is obvious looking at the strip that, as
the caption states "Since the successive pictures were taken at quite long
intervals, there is considerable difference between the frames."

On the same page of Coe's book a drawing from Varley's patent of 1890 for
the sequence stereo camera is reproduced side-by-side with Friese Greene's
patent of 1893.  The two drawings are virtually identical and there is a
striking similarity between the photo of Friese-Greene's camera in your
Starlog article compared to Varley's camera as shown in Coe's book.

Is there any document or record proving that Friese-Greene successfully
projected stereoscopic motion pictures publicly?

Brian Coe (page 60) states that "Friese-Greene used and demonstrated
Varley's camera in 1890 but once again there is no record of a successful
projection demonstration."

We also have the following personal account from C.H. Bothamley in his
article "Early Stages of Kinematography" from the "Photographic Red Book"
Magazine (1931, p. 38) reprinted in March 1933 issue of SMPE Journal:
"Friese-Greene, on June 26, 1890, at a meeting of the Photographic
Convention of the United Kingdom at Chester, over which I presided as
president for the year, read a paper on 'A Magazine Camera and Lantern.'
He exhibited and described a long series of successive exposures on a
sensitive film, which was moved by means of perforations in the film
itself, instead of by perforations on a bobbin. He likewise exhibited and
described a lantern that he had devised for projecting the images so
obtained.  Unfortunately, on the journey from London, the projection
apparatus had been damaged so that it could not be used, and the films that
Greene had brought with him for exhibition could not be projected."

Mark H. Gosser's "Selected Attempts at Stereoscopic Moving Pictures and
Their Relationship to the Development of Motion Picture Technology,
1852-1903," (Arno Press: 1975) provides a detailed discussion of the
Varley/Friese-Greene collaboration.  Gosser estimates (page 193) that the
speed of the the frame rate "could not, given the limitations of human
strength, have exceeded five frames a second."  And when Varley and
Friese-Greene made an appearance before a photographic group (described in
the "Photographic Journal" of November 21, 1890) Gosser states (page 190)
that "There was no attempt at projecting a positive at this meeting and
neither of the two men claimed such a projection had ever taken place."

When Friese-Greene subsequently made his patent of 1893 with minor
refinements to Varley's Stereo Camera there was no improvement to the
mechanism for the frame rate and, according to Gosser (page 194) "There
were other problems that would have had to be solved in order that the
Varley machine might project stereo pictures."

And, even after filing his Stereo Camera Patent of 1893, Friese-Greene may
still have had an incomplete understanding of intermittent motion and
minimal frame rates necessary for projection.  Gosser states ( page 194-5)
that "even at this late date, it does not appear that Friese-Greene grasped
the necessities of a motion picture system...that he was still occupied
with the production of lantern slides for projection in a lantern at speeds
far less than are required for a successful motion picture projection."

Some of the misinformation regarding Friese-Greene's priority  for
projection of stereoscopic motion pictures may stem from a series of
articles that John Norling wrote, the first of which was"Three-dimensional
motion pictures" for the SMPTE Journal (December, 1939) and the Ray
Allister biography "Friese-Greene: Close-up of an Inventor (London: 1951)
which was the basis for the 1951 film "The Magic Box." Allister's biography
does present a rather romantic (and possibly apocryphal) view of
Friese-Greene's contribution to the stereoscopic cinema.

Respectfully,

Ray '3-D' Zone


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