P3D Re First 3-D Movie

[Peter Homer <P.J.Homer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

><<William Friese-Greene may well have photographed stereoscopic motion
>pictures in 1893 as Arthur Judge in his "Stereoscopic Photography" and
>Michael Starks (in a recent post here) has stated but the reservations that
>Al Razutis has expressed about his priority are well founded:
>
>"1. Was this a 'motion picture' in the sense that we know it today (it does
>not appear to contain sprocket holes, intermittent pull-down motion, or is
>even clearly a 'projected' film)?  What was its subject matter, title, and
>when was it first publicly projected?>>

According to Dates and Sources Franz Paul Liesegang translated into English
and edited by Hermann Hecht, Hopwood in Living Pictures 1899, p 65 seems to
be responsible for the idea that Friese Greene projected his films saying"
suitable for subsequent reproduction of a moving figure". The British
patent 10,131 of 21 June 1889 describes "an aproximately wide 63mm wide
unperforated film-band" the camera is meant to provide 300 pictures at ten
per second . He appears to have been the first to produce chronophotographs
on celluloid film. But in early reports only the term film is used Thomas
Bedding in the British Journal Almanac (1898, P 647) and at that time
editor of the British Journal of Photography, speaks of pictures having
been taken on celluloid film.
During the Edison lawsuit it was stated that Friese Green had used
perforated celluloid film in 1889 (The moving picture news 1910,vol3 no 49
p 7) and even that as early as 1886 he had worked with negative paper bands
which were perforated on both edges,(ibid. 1910 vol 3, no 31, pp 3-4 and
1912, vol 5 no 20, p 5) although documented with illustrations this was
regarded as "Completely incredible and contradicts all previously published
reports (see aslo below): it was also denied by Bedding ( The moving
picture world 1910 , vol 4, p 341) The statements seem to have been made to
try to invalid Edisons claims.

"Will Day , published an illustration of a piece of paper film, perforated
on both sides which Friese Green is supposed to have used ,made transparent
by imersion in castor oil. (photographic Journal (1924, vol 64, new ser .,
vol 48, p 57)."

"Dates and Sources" then goes on to state that Friese green's apparatus
could not be used for projection and that Hopwoods remark is not correct
and that as Hopwood himself states later on , Friese Green constructed
special apparatus meant soley for projection. Assisted by the instrument
maker Rudge one of whose devices is ilustrated but not described although
it is described in "Muybridge and the Chronophotographers". According to
this book Rudges work was the inspiration to Friese Green to try sequence
photography,
 Rudges lantern had seven lantern slides in a band around it with a shutter
mechanism to block of the image when it was moving. This could only produce
a very short loop of movement and not stereo. They also tried three
projectors in combination with "an exchange mechanism" intended to project
twenty or more transparencies in quick succesion. He then asked Rudge to
construct a double-lens lantern with two picture discs which functioned
alternately. His projection-demonstation before the Bath photographic
society was a failure (Phot news 1890 vol 34 p 421) and at the Chester
meeting it proved impossible to get the apparatus to work(Brit Journal Of
Photography 1890 vol 37 p 423). Dates and sources states that they know of
only one device built by Rudge for Friese Green which had four
transparencies and four objectives with a rotating shutter to show them in
quick succession.

However both books have an illustration of the camera opened up showing a
celluoid film band without sprocket holes  the image is positive and of an
adult walking and holding the hand of a child , it is definetly stereo. The
pair in the gate can be clearly seen because they are against a white
background and even seem to be backlit . This is not from the lenses which
are in the other half . The negative of this image is reprinted in Lenny
Liptons book "The Foundation of the Stereoscopic Cinema". "Muybridge and
the Chronophotographers" illustrates another example of 3 stereo pair
frames which are vignetted circularily. They show a woman carrying a
parasol walking with a much smaller person or a child but they are less
than one frame a second.  P.J.Homer



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