II. THE USE OF CINEMA IN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

Abstract

DESCENDED from the kymograph and odograph, the motion picture camera was conceived by E. J. Marey, whose attempts to study the locomotion of animals led first, in 1882, to his fusil photographique, a device making twelve consecutive exposures on a circular glass photographic plate in one second, and then to the chambre chronophotographique, the prototype of the modern cinema camera, in which a several meter strip of light sensitive paper moved intermittently across the lens of a camera at a controlled rate. This device was used for the further study of the locomotion of animals. During approximately the same period and working on a different tack, E. Muybridge, in association with Leland Stanford, the founder of Stanford University, isolated the components of movement in the gait of a race horse by consecutive photographs taken by a row of several cameras. This led to a studio in which similar multiple exposures, the consecutive rate of which could be controlled, were made of moving humans and animals. While the major activity in motion pictures soon became entertainment, the scientific use continued to be centered on that which had intrigued Marey and Muybridge: the analysis of motion. Gilbreth, in 1913, applied the motion picture to the analysis of the components of work to facilitate industrial management; Frisch, in 1926, investigated the communication of bees through examination of cinema sequences of their dance, and Wassink, in 1928, similarly studied abnormalities of walking. As equipment became more sophisticated, the use of high-speed cameras made analysis of more and more complex and rapidly moving processes practicable.