Name: 1936 Len Lye - Rainbow Dance (highlights) @magicalmotionmuseum
Uploaded: 2026-09-20T08:17:00-05:00
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: 1936 Len Lye - Rainbow Dance (highlights)

1936 Len Lye - Rainbow Dance (highlights)

magical media museum 2026-09-20 | 1936 Len Lye - Rainbow Dance (highlights)

1852 Jules Duboscq - Stéréoscope-fantascope ou Bïoscope (anamorphic 3D version) (first movie ever)

magical media museum 2022-06-21 | footage courtesy of GUM, Ghent University Museum
video adaptation by Denis Pellerin (London Stereoscopic Company)

In 1849, Joseph Plateau published an article about improvements on the Fantascope, which he had introduced in 1833. Sometime since then, Charles Wheatstone had communicated to Plateau the idea that a combination with his Stereoscope might be interesting. Plateau was probably inspired by a set of stereoscopic photographs that Wheatstone had sent to Plateau's friend and mentor Adolphe Quetelet in 1841 (presumably depicting a statue). Plateau suggested to make 16 plaster sculptures of the successive phases of a motion and photograph them stereoscopically (from the two angles that correspond with the eyes). He had no hope of ever seeing the result himself, because he had turned almost completely blind around 1844.

When inventor David Brewster and the well-known Parisian instrument maker Jules Duboscq's introduced a new lenticular stereoscope in 1851, it soon became extremely popular. Plateau's article was then republished in English, and Wheatstone regained interest in the idea. In May 1852, Duboscq (who also sold Plateau's Fantascope and Wheatstone's mirror Stereoscope) registered a stereoscopic fantascope as an addition to his stereoscope patent. He advertised the instrument a few times, but was never fully satisfied with the result. It is unclear how many copies may have been produced, but all the extant material that has yet been located is one cardboard disc containing 12 albumen stereo pairs, depicting the movements of a machine. The original disc is from Joseph Plateau's collection (now held by the Ghent University Museum).

The subject choice was very clever; it didn't require the elaborate production suggested by Plateau, and it was one of very few forms of motion that were regular and adjustable enough to register step by step. The long exposure times necessary for photographs of the time made it almost impossible to properly photograph any object in motion; only Antoine Claudet and Henry Fox Talbot had yet claimed to have made "instantaneous photographs". It isn't clear how fast Claudet's subjects moved and how sharp and clear the results really were, while Fox Talbot's picture had just been made in 1851 and had required a laboratorium of the Royal Institution. He used the discharge of a strong battery providing a very short but bright flash to take a picture of a text that was spun very fast (which has not yet been located).

It must be admitted that the choice to depict all of the machine with its base limited the area with movement considerably and made the picture less dynamic than it could have been. Pictorial traditions seem to have dictated that shapes of subjects were rarely cut off at the edge of the frame (except busts and a half length format in portraiture).

Wheatstone and Claudet both announced their own animated photographic systems around the time that Duboscq patented his, but Claudet's viewer could only process 2 to 8 non-stereoscopic photographs and the results that Wheatstone eventually obtained (and never seems to have presented publicly) were from a much later date.

Although the pictures of the machine must have been made through a stop-motion method rather than a cinematographic one, it is quite certain that this is the oldest extant photographic motion picture. However, stroboscopic animation was already well-known for almost two decades, projection of moving images had been a popular feature of magic lantern shows since circa 1659, and automata had been regarded as a much more impressive medium for artificial motion for centuries.

May 1833 Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe (cogwheels)

magical media museum 2022-01-12 | Around July 1833 Simon Stampfer claimed that he had read Faraday's article about remarkable optical illusions in December 1832 and soon after discovered the variations of Faraday's experiment with perforated discs in front of a mirror. Faraday had noted how the inner circles of perforations resembled turning cogwheels, and although this animation design is much more complicated, it's clearly inspired by Faraday's original idea. As a professor of practical geometry and with his love for mechanics, Stampfer probably enjoyed the meticulous work of drawing the details of the interlocking gears.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 8 (blue side)

magical media museum 2021-12-22 | This is arguably not the best of the interesting black/blue series that may be from a Periphanoscop set, probably the very first commercially available stroboscopic animations. There are zoetrope strips with a similar subject released in the late 1860s, but this older variation seems to be animated with greater skills.

1900 Kobelkoff (excerpt)

magical media museum 2021-12-01 | The 19th century theatrical exploitation of people with remarkable disabilities is a very uncomfortable subject, but the short film "Kobelkoff" has quite a happy background.

Николай Васильевич Кобельков (Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Kobelkoff) (1851 Troizk - 1933 Vienna) was born with little stumps instead of limbs. He learned many skills that seemed quite difficult in this condition, like dressing and feeding himself, writing, drawing, painting and threading a needle. He worked as a clerk when he was 18 years old.

Kobelkoff had a positive outlook on life and usually came across as a happy and chivalrous person.
With his abilities and an aristocratic background, he had plenty of other career options, but from around 1870 he started performing as a kind of "freak show" attraction. He became rich and famous and learned several languages while touring through Europe and the United States. In 1901, he bought a plot of land in Vienna’s Wurstelprater amusement park, where he had some attractions built, including a "Toboggan" slide. He continued to tour, until his wife Anna died in 1912, after which he retired in Vienna with his six surviving children (of the eleven Anna had given birth to).

The makers of the 1900 film are unknown. Other segments demonstrate Kobelkoff's abilities to drink from a glass, shoot a rifle, lift weights, et cetera, but this simple shot is the most appealing one.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 5 (blue side)

magical media museum 2021-11-17 | There's only so much that can be told in an animation loop consisting of no more than 10 frames. It remains unclear whether this one depicts a rescue attempt, a peculiar bathing method for children that hate baths, some type of waterboarding punishment or something else. Is there even water in that barrel (was dripping water too hard to animate)? Was such a crane a standard tool to load and unload the contents of barrels? Regardless of the exact meaning, the unknown animator of this series of black/blue monochrome disks once again shows remarkable proficiency in depicting human motion.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 5 (black side)

magical media museum 2021-11-03 | This is the only animation from the 8 known black/blue monochrome series in which a figure appears to move through a three dimensional space (all the others feature simple linear motion through a two-dimensional plane). Plateau had done something similar with his pirouetting "petit danseur", but the figure in this animation seems much less stiff and performs a more complicated movement. The hairdo (or hat?) and clothes look rather exotic; the figure probably represents a acrobat in costume. The animation may have been based on an actual circus act, which is probably more impressive at a faster speed (the speed in this video is optimized for smooth animation). The same figure (or a very similar one) is also seen balancing on a rolling ball on the blue side of disc No. 8 of this series.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Peripanoscop? No. 3 (blue side)

magical media museum 2021-10-12 | Another relatively complicated early animation from the black/blue monochrome series that is kept in a Periphanoscop-folio and with a R.S. Siebenmann Periphanoscop shutter disc in the Binetruy collection. The geometrical pattern in the center doesn't result in a proper, smooth animation and must have only been designed as decoration to fill the empty circle beneath the animation of the guys passing a bucket. The view of all the frames of the animation at once time seems a bit of a drawback of the stroboscopic disc technique, but inobody really bothered to try and isolate one part of the disc to reveal just one frame at the time (although Simon Stampfer would suggest a method a few months after he released his first set).
However, this design uses the view of the full to represent a bucket brigade; a long line of different people delivering water to extinguish a fire. It may still come across as a circle consisting of ten times the same two guys, but it's interesting to see different approaches to what could be expressed with the specific medium.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Peripanoscop? No. 3 (black side)

magical media museum 2021-08-17 | Whether this animation was actually part of the very first commercial set of animations or not, it's a rather ambitious piece for an animator who had to figure out how certain movements could be reconstructed in drawings. Maybe the wooden legs were a good excuse for the awkwardness of the shuffle. The more natural steps of the guy at the back could in be partly obscured to avoid a difficult change, but all things considered the motion of two people passing each other was a relatively complex animation project.

If the disc truly belongs to the folio holder in which it is kept in the Collection François Binétruy, it was published by R.S. Siebenmann as the Periphanoscop and may be a copy from the first commercially available set of stroboscopic discs, advertised as the Periphanoscop by Joseph Franubaum on 23 April 1833 (the day before Simon Stampfer patented stroboscopic discs in the same city).

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 8 (black side)

magical media museum 2021-08-03 | Was this one of the very first commercially available animations?

Viennese professor Simon Stampfer is usually credited as the inventor of stroboscopic animation, presumably developing the very same device at the same time as Joseph Plateau's invention of the Fantascope (or Phénakisticope) around December 1832 (and published in a scientific magazine in January 1833). The oldest proof of Stampfer's version is his patent application from 24 April 1833. It turns out that this was the day after someone in the same city had advertised the very same type of animation discs for sale in the Wiener Zeitung.

WoodturnerJoseph Fraunbaum called his device the Periphanoscop and sold it in his shop. None of his discs have yet been located, but there's a slight chance that he licensed his designs to the Swiss lithographer R.S. Siebenmann, who at least published his discs under the same product name.

An incomplete set of four double-sided monochrome discs (No. 1, 3 5, and 8) is in the Collection François Binétruy, in a Periphanoscop folio holder and with instructions and R.S. Siebenmann's information printed on a shutter disc. Maybe the otherwise unidentifiable discs just ended up in a spare folio holder that originally contained other discs, because there are some identical extant folio holders that each contain the same set of colourful discs with designs that can also be found in sets by Friedrich Voigtländer, Alphonse Giroux, and several others.

This design has more in common with Plateau's animated dancer than with Stampfer's abstract geometrical figures (which his publisher claimed were pirated by people who had seen them before they were published), but moves much more freely in a more humorous scene than the stiff pirouette.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 1 (blue side)

magical media museum 2021-07-20 | It's difficult to give much detail to the leaves in a tree in handmade animation, because the structure of the canopy has to be coherent over the consecutive frames. So, maybe the animator didn't plan to make it look as if there was stormy weather, but that might also be interpreted as a reason for the weird shuffling way that the man walks with the mysterious item held in front of him. The steps of the man with the wheelbarrow look more natural, which is quite a feat for an animator who has to analyse such a complicated motion by eye and then find out how to reconstruct it in 10 drawings.

1833? R.S. Siebenmann? - Periphanoscop? No. 1 (black side)

magical media museum 2021-07-06 | The unknown maker of this animation somehow knew how to design rather complex motions that look pretty smooth and natural, while he possibly only had Joseph Plateau's very stiffly pirouetting dancer as an example. The animator probably wanted to make better use of the full canvas of the disc than in the example. The lines that the depicted workers lean on, delineate the triangular frames around the sections to be used for each consecutive image, so a vertically directed motion made much sense.

Due to the endless repetition of the 10 frames, the amount of rocks at the bottom never diminishes, so it's slightly awkward how the rock that is grabbed seems to get magically replaced with an identical one. When it is lifted to the top the of the disc, the rock just disappears. These minor problems prove how difficult it actually is to design a totally convincing animation loop.

This animation is from an incomplete set of four numbered double-sided discs in the Collection François Binétruy. It is kept in a Periphanoscop folio holder, with a shutter disc on which Swiss lithographer R.S. Siebenmann is mentioned as its publisher, together with R. Leuppi (whose name is crossed out with a pen on most of the known copies of similar discs). They advertised sets with 12 and with 24 subjects in the Schweitzer Bode on 29 August 1833. The designs me be copied from an earlier Periphanoscop, but there's also a chance that the animation discs originally didn't belong to the folio holder and shutter disc, and could as well be made years later.

1886 Edward Muybridge - Animal Locomotion 663: Mule - A Retractory Animal (Denver)

magical media museum 2020-05-20 | This is an animated video of Eadweard Muybridge's chronophotographic sequence as shot around 1886 in Pennsylvania and published in his 1887 "Animal Locomotion" collotype plates collection (2x 12 frames). That collection of 720 plates may contain more sequences that nowadays seem a bit weird or comical, but this is probably the only one that's intentionally funny. Jackass avant la lettre?

1880 (circa) English mechanical lantern slide (shipwreck)

magical media museum 2018-10-20 | This is an interesting mechanical slide from an unknown English maker. It has two glass parts with the waves moving independently over the steady glass slide with the rest of the scene. When this slide was painted around 1880, the effect of projected moving waves had been in use for over a hundred years. Other slides with this theme often have one or more ships that could be tossed around, but the ship in this image was obviously stranded. As in many other mechanical slides of the time, some elements in the image are totally still while in real life these subjects would move quite lively. It would be very hard to convincingly animate the group of men in this picture and most audiences would not pay attention to such shortcomings. Most magic lantern slides did not show motion and the quality of the narration was usually more important than special effects.

In 1770 Edmé-Gilles Guyot described a method of using two slides for the depiction of a storm at sea, with waves on one slide and ships and a few clouds on another. Lanternists could project the illusion of mild waves turning into a wild sea tossing the ships around by increasing the movement of the separate slides.

1900 (circa) Ernst Plank - 54. Waldidylle, mit trinkendem Hirsch (forest idyll with drinking deer)

magical media museum 2018-10-19 | Mechanical magic lantern slides have probably been around since Christiaan Huygens created his magic lantern (in or before 1659).The magic lantern may have become less popular after film was introduced, but initially lantern slides offered something that the movies could not yet produce: colour.
Around 1900 the magic lantern was mainly marketed as a toy for children by German and French manufacturers. Among them was Ernst Plank in Nürnberg, active since 1866. The company also sold praxinoscope variations (the kinematofor), toy steam engines, toy trains, etcetera.
The slide in this video is listed in a 1902 catalog as No. 54 of 66 movable image slides. No. 54 is one of 12 slides that is operated by means of a simple lever, while 48 others are simple slipping slides and the remaining six use a rackwork.

June 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe № III

magical media museum 2018-07-13 | This is a rather psychedelic design with some illusions of depth perception that are mainly caused by the animated motion. As a still image the elements in the design aremostly perceived as flat geometrical patterns. When animated the brain tends to believe the outer ring consists of cylinders turning in opposite directions and the spiral pattern seems to have some depth and a smooth rounded edge.

After 22 june 1833 a series of 10 double-sided discs by Trentsensky & Vieweg was advertised in newspapers in Prague, Troppau and Laibach. This design was one of circa five new geometrical animations in the series that were probably created personally by Simon Stampfer.

1853 Josef Bermann - Neue stroboscopische Scheiben (cats + donkey)

magical media museum 2018-06-29 | Art dealer Josef Bermann from Vienna advertised his Neue stroboscopische Scheiben just before christmas 1853, more than 20 years after Mathias Trentsensky first published Simon Stampfer's original stroboscopic discs from his art shop further down the very same road (Graben) in Vienna. Although the advertisement claimed the discs were made from original drawings, this design had already been published by William Spooner in London and K. Fuhri in The Hague, probably in the 1840s. However, the mouse in the cat's mouth seems to be a new addition.

May 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe (mill)

magical media museum 2018-06-22 | Simon Stampfer was very interested in machinery and most of his animation designs show either geometric patterns or machines, or both. As a professor in practical geometry he had no trouble analyzing and recreating the regular movements and shapes of machines. He wrote how the irregular movements of people, animals, smoke, streaming water and twigs in the wind were much harder to capture. Nonetheless he claimed these could still be at least reasonably well animated if the original movements were carefully studied and divided into a proper amount of phases when drawing the sequence.

This design was probably part of the first series that Trentsensky & Vieweg released on 2 May 1833 and presumably had round holes. The design has been preserved in the series released by James Black in England around August 1833. It wasn't repeated in later Trentsensky series, possibly because of the pirated variations that circulated by that time.

The video shows a reconstruction of the holes as they presumably would have looked in the original series, based on an 1868 illustration of a different example (see: youtu.be/L1XEGkyxry8).

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 47 (water well)

magical media museum 2018-06-15 | The idea for Les Images Vivantes 47 is very interesting and has much potential for some drama, horror or comedy: a woman is drawing water from a well, but the devil is hidden in the bucket. Or did she somehow capture the devil and is she trying to drown him? Or is she hiding him from others?
The yanking on the rope is possibly one of the best depictions of human locomotion in animation of the period. The little jump of the woman's feet may not be very realistic, but does convey a bit of extra effort, or possibly fright. Unfortunately the pulling on the rope does not correspond with the rising of the devil. Maybe he is not in the bucket, but simply climbs or levitates? The relatively slow rising of the devil does not deliver the big shock effect that could have been and is not timed very well, but it does provide a good look on the features of the funny-looking creature. Although it may have been nice if at least his tongue would show some motion, the way the devil just shows his hoof without moving much makes the situation more comical. From the goofy expression on the devil's face, it is probably safe to conclude that the animator's intention was indeed to create comedy rather than horror.

June 1833 Friedrich Voigtländer - Optische Zauber-Scheiben (leap frog)

magical media museum 2018-06-08 | On 1 June 1833 Friedrich Voigtländer advertised a second series of "12 optischen Zauberscheiben" in the ''Wiener Zeitung''. Voigtländer was an optician/mechanic in Vienna, which was also the hometown of Stampfer and his publishers. It is remarkable that Voigtländer already had 24 different animation discs available by 1 June 1833, while Trentsensky & Vieweg were struggling with a shortage of copies of their 4 double-sided discs. Voigtländer's pace can in part be explained by relatively sloppy animation designs and a cheaper production method. He offered a separate cardboard disc with the viewing slits, so the smaller picture discs didn't need to be produced with slits and could be made of thinner, cheaper pasteboard. Voigtländer distributed his product internationally, with bi-lingual labels and instructions available in German, French, English, Italian and Spanish.
Versions of the same designs as in what is probably the advertised second set, appeared in the first set by Alph. Giroux & Cie. of Paris, released around 19 June 1833. It is hard to tell who copied from whom and whether this was done as part of an agreement or as illegal bootlegging. In general the drawings on the discs by Giroux are slightly better than Voigtländer's. However, it must be noted that Giroux had a "brevet d'importation" (imported patent) - without stating the origin of the invention - and used a very similar separate shutter disc.
The quality of animation is rather poor; the arms of the jumping person barely touch the standing person's shoulders, making it unlikely that he's able to jump this high. More importantly: he magically jumps right through the standing person's head!

May 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe (Räder)

magical media museum 2018-06-01 | This is probably the very first animation design that Stampfer developed between December 1832 and February 1833. He originally wanted to repeat Michael Faraday's earlier experiments with cardboard cogwheels rotating in front of a mirror that showed how the wheels appeared completely still when viewed through the openings between the teeth. Stampfer made variations by perforating holes in various zones of his discs and noticed how certain zones with holes appeared to move in different directions when he looked through the holes in another zone. Several holes in a circle would resemble a cogwheel and this would inspire several of the designs that Stampfer would create next. Apart from holes around the edge he started drawing wheels, patterns and figures, instead of perforations.
On 2 May 1833 Stampfer released his first set of 6 double-sided discs with publisher Trentsensky & Vieweg. It probably had round viewing holes, as reconstructed for this video that is animated from a later edition of the design.

May 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe (wheels and hoops)

magical media museum 2018-05-25 | Stampfer most likely published this design in May 1833 in the elusive first set of four double-sided stroboscopic discs, presumably with round viewing holes. The design is relatively complex, although it probably was among the first 12 designs that Stampfer created between December 1832 and February 1833.

Plateau's "petit danseur" already pirouetted around its axis as if moving through three-dimensional space, rather than moving across the surface of the disc. Stampfer designed a similar movement in the hoops on this disc and took the geometrical suggestion of 3D space a little further with the dots that appear from the center and seem to move towards the viewer (or away when the disc is rotated in the other direction). Another disc by Stampfer is basically an elaborate version of the same idea (see youtu.be/Pe9ctIglQXY).

The zone in the middle does not suggest three-dimensionality as strongly as the other two zones, but the thinner wheel definitely seems to move BEHIND the bolder wheel.

The design by Stampfer has been preserved on an English copy distributed by James Black around August 1833. Unlike other designs, Trentsensky & Vieweg chose not to repeat it in later series. At that stage, the basic elements had already been pirated by Voigtländer, Giroux and others to create very similar discs.

June 1833? J.V. Albert - Die belebte Wunderscheibe (donkey)

magical media museum 2018-05-18 | Johann Valentin Albert from Frankfurt am Main was among the very first who published stroboscopic discs. On 16 June 1833 he advertised "Die belebte Wunderscheibe" with 12 images in two different qualities in a local newspaper, soon followed by advertisements elsewhere in Germany and even in Holland.
Extant sets of "Die belebte Wunderscheibe - Planétaire Magique - The magic planisphere" have a shutter disc with round viewing holes. This was probably inspired by the elusive first edition of Prof. Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheiben, although the idea of a separate shutter disc must have come from Voigtländer. Several animation designs were clearly copied from Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheiben, while others are versions of discs published by Voigtländer. Giroux & Cie would advertise their first set only days later as "Phénakisticope" and it would include several designs that are similar to those by Stampfer, Voigtländer and Albert. For instance: the center of this disc - a dancing hussar - appeared in combination with the animation of a man in a bicorne hat playing an upright bass in the first set by Giroux, which was almost identical to a set by Voigtländer - probably the second set by Voigtländer as advertised on 1 June 1833. The poorer quality of drawings on the Giroux and Voigtländer discs suggests they may have copied it from Albert, but maybe Albert's animator was simply a better draughtsman. At least the drawings of the teacher on the donkey show that this animator was more skilled than some of his early colleagues.

The disc seen in this animation is preserved in the collection Francois Binetruy.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 46 (gardenhose)

magical media museum 2018-05-11 | Les Images Vivantes 46 is another animation in black that is drawn pretty well and depicts a interesting scene, but is not animated very skillfully. The phases are not evenly spaced, so the image moves forward and backward. In some cases Magical Motion Museum corrects the spacing in videos so the center image looks more steady, but in this case the images on the sides would move too much, and the original artist may have actually intended the gardener to move back and forth a bit.

June 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe № XVIII

magical media museum 2018-05-03 | Stampfer was a professor of practical geometry and most of his own animation designs show abstract geometrical shapes or stylized machines. For the more figurative animations he worked with publisher and lithographer Mathias Trentsensky, but it was probably Joseph Schmutzer (1806-1837) who made most of the drawings for Trentsensky's company. Advertisements for the stroboscopic discs stated that all animations were made under supervision of Simon Stampfer, according to the principles that he had discovered.
This animation of a monk stands out from all the other motions in the stroboscopic disc series because of its visual effect with the squashing and stretching of the head. This seems like a rather fantastic idea to be developed under the supervision of the professor, but anamorphic principles and the effect of distorting mirrors are serious subjects in the fields of geometry and optics.

The original imprint of the publisher has been digitally removed from the disc. Just like with the distortion, flicker and dark veil that is seen when a real stroboscopic disc is viewed in front of a mirror through the slots in the disc, Magical Motion Museum prefers to present the animation in optimal form rather than the most authentic form. This is probably closer to how animators would have liked to present their work if the technology of the time would allow it.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 48 (knife grinder)

magical media museum 2018-04-28 | Les Images Vivantes 48 depicts only 11 images of a man working with a grinding machine. M.D.'s zoetrope drums had 12 or 15 viewing slits, so the the man and the machine do not stay in place as would logically be expected from the depicted scene. Instead, the moving machine's movement at first glance suggests a moving bike or car (going backward or forward, depending on the direction in which the drum rotates).
Possibly the animator just ended up with too little space to draw a twelfth picture; even the eleventh picture is cut off a bit (in a weird angled way, while at least on the printed result on paper there is enough space for a complete figure). If the image would not move around spatially, as if viewed through eleven slits, the movement in the animation would be very limited: the man moves the pedal up and down a bit with his foot and moves a small object over the grinding wheel. It is unclear whether this was animated before or after the cinématographe was introduced and some tracking shots were made from trains, but it is very unlikely that the animator intended to create a similar effect. Intentional or not: the "tracking" along what now appears like an endless line of men and machines makes the animation a bit less boring.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 45 (pick-axe)

magical media museum 2018-04-27 | Les Images Vivantes 45 has 14 phases of a man working with a pick-axe. Most of the other strips published by M.D. seem to be designed for a zoetrope drum with 12 slits. This video replicates the motion as for 12 slits, resulting in what looks like a camera moving past a row of workers.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 44 (molar)

magical media museum 2018-04-26 | Les Images Vivantes 44 is another awkward animation published by M.D. in their black style. A molar is pulled with a fork-like instrument, but strangely gets put back in the patient's mouth. The animator probably saw no other logical solution to create a repeating motion.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 43 (wheelchair)

magical media museum 2018-04-26 | About half of Les Images Vivantes were drawn as black contours with details in fine white lines. The jump of the man behind the wheelchair is a bit awkward, but as incorrect as some of the motions of other animations published by M.D.
Possibly the animator found some malicious pleasure by causing the man with the bandaged foot some pain with this rough handling of the wheelchair, but his movements can either be interpreted as cursing gestures or as joyful cheering.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 42 (shoe)

magical media museum 2018-04-26 | The action in this animation is a little less clear than in most of Les Images Vivantes. The woman never seems to actually put the old shoe in the basket on her back, but suddenly puts it back in the pile of rubbish very fast (using only 2 or 3 of the 12 frames). Or if the zoetrope drum is turned in the other direction: she very quickly puts away the shoe, only put it back in the pile relatively slowly. Anyhow, it's not a series of shoes she keeps finding and putting away, but only one shoe. Possibly the idea is that she keeps changing her mind about whether she wants it or not, or that she does not realise that the shoe did not end up in her basket (thinking she is finding shoe after shoe)? Or maybe the animator was only interested in showing this action and decided the shoe needed to go back and forth, because if she would keep putting away shoes they wouldn't all fit in the basket?

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 41 (cavalry)

magical media museum 2018-04-25 | Les Images Vivantes 41 is a rather confusing animation. On the strip are 11 images of a soldier on a prancing horse. Presumably this is meant to be viewed in a zoetrope drum with 12 viewing slits, causing the image to move spatially (as simulated in this video animation). However, the back legs of the horse don't take any steps and appear as if they are strangely slid forwards. A similar fault is found in Les Images Vivantes 40 with a very similar soldier.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 40 (chicken)

magical media museum 2018-04-25 | This is very nice slapstick animation avant la lettre that makes quite an effective use of the repetition that is inherent to the zoetrope medium.
As with many M.D. strips, the animation is relatively poor: the soldier does not really run, but he sort of slides on his right leg. The shortcomings are somewhat compensated by the nice hand-coloured drawings and the comical effect.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 39 (baby)

magical media museum 2018-04-23 | The baby in this animation was probably not intended to look as weird as it does to modern eyes. It is rendered in black, possibly just as a style choice that relates to many of Les Images Vivantes that are fully rendered in black contours. That style is somewhat similar to that of the shadow theatre plays that were very popular in France at the time.
The baby's legs are not discernible since they are wrapped in clothing which give it a bit of a deformed appearance, but it's probably just the type of clothing that some small babies wear (like Maggie Simpson).
It is interesting to note that the proportions of the head and arms of the baby are more natural than that of the caricature features of the woman.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 38 (pancake)

magical media museum 2018-04-22 | Most of "Les Images Vivantes" seem to have been designed for a zoetrope drum with 12 viewing slits. But this design has 13 phases of the chef standing next to his stove and tossing the pancake, so the complete image would turn across the inside of the zoetrope drum when viewed through 12 slits. Apparently M.D. also produced a 13 slit zoetrope which would more or less show the image as presented in this video (but adding the flicker, dark haze and some distortion that is typical for the device). Probably M.D. or the animator did not really care too much about a proper display for the animations or just liked it when the image would move around; there are also designs with 11 or 14 phases of elements that would logically stay still and their most common zoetrope drum has 15 slits.

1890s (circa) - M.D. - Paris - Les Images Vivantes - 37

magical media museum 2018-04-19 | M.D.'s zoetrope strips usually had designs on one side that were rendered in multiple colours, while the other side had images in black silhouettes. This was not just a means to cut printing costs; it was a popular style in France at the time that was influenced by shadow plays known as "Ombres chinoises". Like several other companies, M.D. also produced cardboard Ombres chinoises toy theatres. Coloured animation No. 37 happens to incorporate black silhouette figures in a coloured environment and even the little umbrella is coloured. In many M.D. zoetrope strips the quality of the illustrations is pretty good, but the animation is somewhat limited. This particular animation shows hardly any movement in the water, although the oar would definitely cause splashing and dripping while it moves in and out of the water. Despite this lack of realism, it''s still a very charming little animation.

Mauclair-Dacier, a toys and games company from Paris, released at least 72 animations on double-sided zoetrope strips. The company was created by Lucien Maucler in 1887, a former employee of Charles Watilliaux (who had produced phénakisticopes and presumably also zoetropes). Over the years the zoetrope drums were apparently made in several versions: with either 12 or 15 slits (possibly also with 13 slits), different colours (maroon or blue) and different labels (at least 5 different illustrations, some depicting children with a zoetrope, others with imagery that was related to child's play but without any clear relation to this specific toy). The name for the product also varied: the golden letters on the lid could read "Les Images Vivantes", sometimes with the addition of either "Petits Tableaux Animés" or just "Tableaux Animés, while other versions were called "Cinématographe Enfantin". That last name must have been introduced after Lumière's breakthrough introduction of film in 1895 with their cinématographe camera and projector system. The title "Les Images Vivantes" remained on a description label on the inside of the lid for almost every version, even after M.D. was taken over by J.J.F in 1904.

The strips came in at least two variations: numbered or unnumbered. The numbered versions seem to have been coloured by hand and the unnumbered versions may have been chromolithographed, sometimes with colour schemes that were quite different than the numbered versions.

May 1833 - Prof. Stampfers Stroboscopische Scheibe (asterisk)

magical media museum 2018-04-01 | This design was possibly among the first 12 designs that Stampfer reportedly made between December 1832 and February 1833. The idea is rather close to Faraday's 1831 experiments with several zones of perforations in rotating discs, to look through at the reflection in the mirror that inspired both Plateau and Stampfer to use pictures instead. The holes in the outer rim as they would have featured in the original design (here carefully reconstructed from an 1868 illustration of a disc that may have been part of the original series) seem very similar to the dots in the printed pattern.

The design presumably covered one side of the four double-sided discs that Stampfer published with Trentsensky & Vieweg on 2 May 1833, but not a single extant copy of those first discs has yet been located. This version of the design is known from a later edition with rectangular slits, distributed in England by James Black around August 1833. It was repeated without the asterisks and printed in blue, red and black variations for Trentsensky & Vieweg's second series.

May 1833 Simon Stampfer - Räder, Hammerwerke und herabfallenden Münzen

magical media museum 2018-03-30 | This is a reconstruction of a disc from the elusive first edition of Professor Stampfer's stroboscopic discs with round viewing holes, based on the illustration in a 1868 book.

The first series of four double-sided discs of "Stroboscopische Scheiben (optische Zauberscheiben") was advertised in the Wiener Zeitung on 2 May 1833 and according to publishers Trentsensky & Vieweg it sold out within four weeks. No extant original copies are known, but this disc was illustrated in the 1868 book ''The student and intellectual observer of science, literature and art''. William Day made a copy in 1922 that ended in the collection of the Cinematheque Française. The round viewing holes in these examples are different from the rectangular slits of the later editions (and of most other phénakisticopes).

This design was repeated in the second, improved and expanded edition of Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheiben, but in that version the cogwheels were changed into smooth toothless wheels.

This Magical Motion Museum animation uses the graphic design of the English edition as published by James Black in August 1833, which is identical to the 1868 book illustration. The viewing holes (seen as black dots in the animation) are recreated in the same size and in the same positions as in the 1868 illustration.

1833-1834 Voigtländer - Magic Disk / Disques Magiques (later series)

magical media museum 2018-03-29 | Found in the same series as some pirate copies of Stampfer and Trentsensky & Vieweg's designs (see previous video). The copies indicate that this series was published relatively late for Voigtländer (at the earliest in July 1833, but probably some months later). There are still some obvious unnatural movements in the animations, for instance in the jumping of the bear and the horse. There are also mistakes in the movements of the cogwheels and other subjects, but the overall impression is that these animations show some progress in animation skills in comparison with earlier series. It must have helped to study (and copy) Trentsensky & Vieweg's superior animation examples. The influence of their discs can mostly be found in the cogwheels (a theme Stampfer explored in his earliest experiments), especially in the last animation in this video that is obviously inspired by a Stampfer original, but adds several frivolous elements. In general Voigtländer compensated the poorer animation a bit by choosing more imaginative and fanciful subjects than Stampfer's many abstract geometrical designs.

1833 Friedrich Voigtländer - Magic Disk / Disques Magiques (pirating Stampfer)

magical media museum 2018-03-28 | Voigtländer copied the basic idea of Simon Stampfer's stroboscopic disc and seems to have released a first series of his own ''Optische Zauber-Scheiben" before Stampfer published his own discs with Trentsensky & Vieweg. Voigtländer's earliest animation designs series were quite poorly made and often showed many faults. Soon after Trentsensky's superior discs were published, Voigtländer started copying their designs. Some designs were quite faithful copies, like the design of the juggler shown in this video which even copied the same colours and looks just slightly rougher than the original. Because Voigtlander used a system with smaller and flimsier picture discs to place on top of a separate shutter disc with 10 slits, Voigtländer had to make changes to Trentsensky's larger designs that did not always feature 10 phases. While they were at it, Voigtländer's graphic designers made more alterations: dots became bars in the inner circle of the disc with the dandy horse, some abstract special effects were added to the woman at the waterpump and the cavalryman got a different uniform and this time he was added to the abstract cone shapes from another disc by Stampfer, the fiddler lost his hat and the dancing couple look very different and even perform a different dance.

November 1833 McLean’s Optical Illusions; or, Magic Panorama (man pumping water)

magical media museum 2017-11-08 | The way the water comes out of the pump may look a bit strange to modern eyes and the movement of his arm is a bit awkward. However, this disc was created less than a year after animation was invented. Photography would not be introduced to the world until six years later and it would take many decades before the details of something moving this quick could be properly studied with anything else than the naked eye.

Thomas McLean was one of many publishers who created their own series of stroboscopic (phénakisticope) discs within the first year after Plateau had published about the invention. A portfolio with six ''McLean's Optical Illusions, or Magic Panorama" discs was advertised in November 1833.

McLean would publish at least 16 different hand-coloured lithograph 24cm discs.

This is a re-animation of an untitled disc with "Pub.d 1833 by T. McLean, Haymarket" scribbled along the edge of the disc (removed here for a clearer view of the animation).

Re-animations do not provide the same viewing experience as original stroboscopic devices, but they can highlight the quality of the animation design.

November 1833 McLean’s Optical Illusions; or, Magic Panorama (horse with jockey + satyr)

magical media museum 2017-06-10 | Thomas McLean was one of many publishers who created a series of phénakisticope discs after Plateau's invention became popular. These animations are not always executed as well as those of Joseph Plateau (a physicist) and Simon Stampfer (a mathematician), they are among the more imaginative phénakisticope animations. Although not all phénakisticopes feature amazing animations, it is quite remarkable that animators developed their skills so soon after the invention of animation.

McLean published at least 16 hand-coloured lithograph 24cm discs. This is a re-animation of an untitled disc with "Pub.d 1833 by T. McLean, Haymarket" scribbled along the edge of the disc (removed here for a clearer view of the animation).

Re-animations do not offer the same viewing experience of the original stroboscopic devices, but the quality of the animation design can be highlighted in this kind of presentation.

November 1833 McLean’s Optical Illusions; or, Magic Panorama (man feeding balls to a frog)

January 1833 - Joseph Plateau - Phantasmascope - Un petit danseur faisant une pirouette

magical media museum 2017-06-10 | This is the oldest known animation based on the stroboscopic principle that decades later would also allow the creation of cinematographic movies. The design of a little dancer performing a pirouette was published in January 1833 as a black and white illustration in the Belgian small press scientific journal ''Correspondance Mathématique et Physique'', to announce the new type of optical illusions that Plateau had invented.

In July 1833 it was published commercially by Ackermann & Co. in London as one of six hand-coloured lithographed discs in a set titled ''Phantasmascope'' (later reissued as ''Fantascope'').

This first animation depicts a rather stiff motion. If it weren't for the shadow on the ground this could as well be a 360° spatial registration of a still 3D object. Later animations by Plateau were much livelier and explored other possibilities of the medium, including the illusion of zombie heads spiraling towards the viewer from a vortex, snakes crawling over the edge of the disc and a young woman morphing into a witch and then into a demon. See the Magical Motion Museum channel for more examples (some coming soon).

1835 (circa) - Joseph Plateau - Fantascope (morphing animation disc)

magical media museum 2017-06-10 | While some early animation discs featured more sophisticated animations than others, this one is unique in its quality and it was far ahead of its time by creating a detailed morphing effect. The disc has 16 slits, but the artist found a way to animate many more stages of the transformation by putting the circa 60 faces into a spiraling range. The idea of morphing would stay an occasional rarity in animation and only became more common in cinema in the early 1990s when computer techniques made realistic morphing much easier.

Joseph Plateau invented the very first true animation device around December 1832, which would be dubbed ''phénakisticope'' by French publishers.
The original hand-painted disc of the shown animation is in the Joseph Plateau Collection of the Ghent University Science Museum, among several others that also have been published by Ackermann & Co in July 1833 in London as ''Phantasmascope'' and later as ''Fantascope''.

The disc in the video has sometimes been attributed to Belgian painter and lithographer Jean-Baptiste Madou and shows similarities to some of his works. He was a friend of Plateau and is known to have painted a figure on a fantascope-anorthoscope disc for Plateau. Other reasons for the attribution are unknown. Plateau was a skillful artist himself and it seems more likely he created the design personally, possibly partly inspired by Madou's work.

The published lithograph disc seems to be very rare. Apart from the Science Museum copy, it is also seen in German filmmaker Werner Nekes ''Media Magica'' compilations, but further copies have not been documented.

This re-animation of the disc's artwork does not replicate the actual viewing experience of a stroboscopic disc, but presents the work of the animator in a fashion that's optimized for the online video medium.

1835 (circa?) Joseph Plateau & Jean-Baptiste Madou? - Fantascope morphing animation

magical media museum 2016-08-03 | an improved version can be seen at youtu.be/wQZBqt0oZUw

1898 Aleksandr Mişon - Bibiheybatda neft fontani yangini

magical media museum 2014-09-07 | This ominous looking little film of an oil gush fire was distributed in France as "Puits de pétrole à Bakou. Vue de près" by Lumiere (catalogue number 1035).

Mişon was a Russian photographer born to a french family in Kharkiv (now Ukraine). He started his career as a photographer and owned a photo studio in his hometown. He later settled in Baku (nowadays capital of Azerbaijan) and lived there for 25 years. Here, in 1898, he shot his first films using a Lumiere cinematograph. Mişon is widely regarded as the pioneer of Azerbaijani cinema. (source: wikipedia)

1895 Birt Acres Performing Animals; or, Skipping Dogs (serpentine dance excerpt)

magical media museum 2014-02-26 | This is obviously not Loie Fuller performing her popular serpentine dance, but probably the most original imitation available.

Birt Acres was one of the earliest film pioneers in Britain and is credited as the first travelling newsreel reporter in international film history and the first European film maker who had his films shown in the United States in public performances.

2002 P.T. Anderson - Punch-Drunk Love (two pretty weird/pretty excerpts)

magical media museum 2014-02-22 | "Punch-Drunk Love" is quite an unusual film. P.T. Anderson seems to have put in a lot of little "experimental" elements that may or may not have much meaning, but they certainly aren't there to please the crowds. Adam Sandler was known for his roles in the type of comedies that fans of P.T. Anderson's work would most likely hate with a passion. Then there are these many weird inexplicable noises in the soundtrack and lens flares in the cinematography. Much seems part of a scheme to irritate the audience, but might actually be enjoyed as surrealism, or as a peculiar and quirky type of humor in a pastiche of romantic comedies (or in some scenes even of Hollywood musicals), and above all as illustrations of the social anxiety of the main character.

Presented here is a scene where the main characters meet in a hotel. It starts with a shot reverse shot sequence, on a dolly and with some "Vertigo" effect. The framing and the camera movements are meticulous, while the timing in the editing and in Sandler's motions is purposely off. The main shot plays with the cliché of contours of a couple embracing with the beach as a backdrop. But now a bunch of extras suddenly crowd the screen, disturbing the continuity of the previous shots in which at least some of these persons should have been visible.

The second excerpt in this video contains what's probably the weirdest of the many flares and flashes in the movie, as well as a cheesy iris out at the end of the scene.

1928 Edward Sedgwick - The Cameraman (elevator crane excerpt)

magical media museum 2013-09-03 | While Buster Keaton and director Edward Sedgwick may have gotten the idea for an elevator crane shot from F.W. Murnau's "Der Letzte Mann" (1924), they sure came up with an exceptional choreography for actor and camera in this interesting scene.

1910 Joker-Film. - Narren-Grappen. (choreography excerpt)

magical media museum 2013-08-18 | A nice piece of choreographed clownerie. For some visual effects from the same movie: http://youtu.be/pJ2bgexnO9A

1910 Joker-Film. - Narren-Grappen. (transformation excerpt)

magical media museum 2013-08-18 | A decent dissolve transformation of clothing. For other special effects from the same movie: http://youtu.be/pJ2bgexnO9A