During his visit in Paris Muybridge not only obtained scientific knowledge from Marey and his associates but took up a practical projection device, even to the extent of appropriating the name from Charles Reynaud, a French inventor who was later to be the first great motion picture showman, even though he preferred using hand-drawn films to photographs.
Charles Emile Reynaud (1844–1918) in 1877 developed the Praxinoscope which was an ingenious arrangement of the Plateau magic disk device. The several pictures were mounted on the inside of a horizontal wheel and were viewed on a polygonal-mirror in the center. In this device a number of spectators could watch the moving figures. Light was reflected from a lamp mounted above. Photographs were also used in various of the Praxinoscope models. It was useful for color research. In an article in La Nature of February 1, 1879, it was stated that Mr. Reynaud had already planned a projection model which would throw life-size figures from the Praxinoscope onto a screen before a large audience. In 1880 the French Society of Photographers was asked to interest itself in this problem.
In 1881, or in the following year, Reynaud achieved success with the Projection Praxinoscope or Lamposcope described by Gaston Tissandier, in the November 4, 1882, issue of La Nature. One lantern threw the background and the moving device projected the motion pictures. The designs were colored on glass slides which were joined in a band. A special advantage of the Reynaud Projection Praxinoscope or Lamposcope was that no special light source was required. A common table lamp was suitable. Of course, only one scene at a time could be shown in the device for it had no reels to handle the band of glass slides.
One evening, early in 1882, Marey had Muybridge present at a large gathering. Helmholtz, Bjerknes, Govi, Crookes and others of the French Academy of Science also were present. The projector fitted with Muybridge’s photos of action was given its debut. Marey, years later, commented that those scientists never had seen anything that went so far in the reproduction of nature as Muybridge-type photographs mounted in his Zoopraxinographoscope disk and projector.
In March of 1882 Muybridge was in his native England and presented two showings of his photographs, illustrated with a projector which he called the Zoopraxiscope, borrowing the name almost entirely from Reynaud and the scientific data from Marey. Muybridge gave a lecture, “Attitudes of Animals in Motion, illustrated with the Zoopraxiscope,” at a special meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, held on March 13, 1882, with His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, honorary member, presiding. The material was previously presented in a paper read before the Royal Society. Muybridge said, “The analyses of some of the movements investigated by the aid of electro-photographic exposures ... are rendered more perfectly intelligible by the reproduction of the actual motion projection on a screen through the zoopraxiscope.”
The walk, trot, amble, rack, canter, run and gallop—which are the several gaits of a horse—were discussed at length with much emphasis on the physiological aspects. Figuratively, Marey must have been standing beside Muybridge as he talked. The lecture, virtually word for word, was given by Muybridge in February, 1833, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. But it is significant to note that then there was no mention of the Zoopraxiscope. Muybridge evidently was not a good operator and there seems to have been difficulty with the projector. Operation of the projector was a problem then because there had to be a relation between the number of pictures and the slits in the projection shutter. Muybridge seems to have found it all too much trouble and turned to the task of taking successive stills which could then be made up into handsome illustrated books.
Meanwhile, Marey in the Spring of 1882 finally finished work on his Photographical Gun which he had conceived several years previously. By this time Marey had a large open air studio set up in the Bois de Boulogne. (Illustrations facing [page 121].)
Marey said that he had worked twelve years on the general subject of movement, thereby placing his first efforts back in 1870. The “beautiful instantaneous photographs of Muybridge proved his work,” he declared. He continued, saying that in 1878 he had the idea of a photographic gun somewhat analogous to the astronomical revolver of Janssen. Finally, he resolved to devote the Winter of 1882 to the realization of the project.
Marey used his gun to study his favorite project of birds in flight. Marey’s photographic gun was the first practical motion picture camera, primitive and limited though it was. In this sense it was the original of all newsreel and other portable motion picture cameras. It is worth noting that in our own time cameras are mounted as “photographic guns” in airplanes as a substitute for gunnery in peacetime and as a check on results during war.
About this time, Georges Demeny (1850–1917) became associated with Marey in this work. Marey always gave credit to his pupil, aide and collaborator. Eventually, however, they parted company because Demeny was interested in commercializing the work and Marey wished to continue with pure science. Later Demeny asserted that his motion picture ideas were superior to Marey’s and that he was responsible for the actual execution of all the plans. Demeny at thirteen had begun inventing at his home, but his father, a musician, wanted him to be a university professor. In 1874 he went to Paris and at the Sorbonne was a pupil of Marey in physiology and of Mathias Duval—who also worked with Marey—in anatomy. He did some medical studies and opened one of the first physical education establishments called, Le Cercle de Gymnastique Rationnelle. From 1880 on he supervised many of the studies at Marey’s Physiological Park.