By Andrew Stretton By EE NN TT UU RR YY NN II MM AA TT II OO NN CC The Thaumatrope The Phenakistoscope The Zoetrope The Praxinoscope The Flip Book Georges MéLiès

Thaumatrope The The invention of the thaumatrope is usually credited to either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget. Paris demonstrated persistence of vision to the Royal College of Physicians in London in 1824.

The Phenakistoscope Invented by Joseph Plateau in 1832 Plateau’sDesign

Zoetrope A modern replica of a Victorian zoetrope. The First created in China around 180 AD by the inventorDingHuan.

The Praxinoscope Invented in 1877 by the Frenchman, Emile Reynaud ( )

The Flip Book The first flip book appeared in September 1868, by John Barnes Linnett named “kineograph moving picture.”

Georges Born on 8 December 1861, in Paris, France and died on: 21 January 1938 and his birth name was MarieGeorgesJeanMéliès MéLiès

The Thaumatrope A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian times. A disc or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision. Examples of common thaumatrope pictures include a bare tree on one side of the disc and its leaves on the other, or a bird on one side and a cage on the other. They often also included riddles or short poems with one line on each side. Thaumatropes were one of a number of simple, mechanical optical toys that used persistence of vision. They are recognised as important antecedents of cinematography and in particular of animation.

The Phenakistoscope A phenakistoscope disc by Eadweard Muybridge (1893) Although this principle had been recognised by the Greek mathematician Euclid and later in experiments by Newton, it was not until 1829 that this principle became firmly established by the Belgian Joseph Plateau. Plateau planned it in 1829 and invented it in Later the same year the Austrian Simon von Stampfer invented the stroboscopic disc, a similar machine.

The Zoetrope The Zoetrope Ding Huan's device hung over a lamp and was called "The pipe which makes fantasies appear.” The rising air turned vanes at the top from which were hung translucent paper or mica panels. Pictures painted on the panels would appear to move if the device is spun at the right speed. The modern zoetrope was invented in 1834 by British mathematician William George Horner. He called it the "Daedalum," popularly translated as “The wheel of the devil" though there is no evidence of this etymology. More likely it was a reference to the Greek myth of Daedalus.

The Praxinoscope Here, a band of pictures, each slightly different from its neighbour are placed inside a rotating drum quite similar to the arrangement of pictures in the zoetrope. In Reynaud's design the pictures were viewed in succession by reflection from a series of narrow vertical mirrors placed at the centre of the drum. The drum is spun by hand and the pictures would appear to move.

The Flip Book Flip books are essentially a primitive form of animation. Like motion pictures, they rely on persistence of vision to create the illusion that continuous motion is being seen rather than a series of discontinuous images being exchanged in succession. Rather than “Reading" left to right, a viewer simply stares at the same location of the pictures in the flip book as the pages turn.

Georges MéLiès Georges Méliès, a professional magician by training, first saw the new “Moving pictures" in Little over a year later, Méliès was filming and projecting his own creations. By accident, he discovered that he could use stop- motion photography to render trick visual effects. Méliès was also the first to use techniques such as the fade-in, the fade-out and the dissolve to create the first real narrative films. Méliès made over 500 films, but his most famous was “A Trip to the Moon” in 1902 and “Voyage to the Moon”. Still, Méliès trained in classic eighteenth century theatre, conceived all of his films in terms of fully played-out scenes. Unable to keep up with the changing industry, the end of his life was wrought with poverty, yet his films would be a monumental stepping stone for a great such as D W Griffith.