A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DWordsworth Donisthorpe : 1847(8) - 1914Wordsworth Donisthorpe, an English barrister who spent over twenty years developing experimental motion picture apparatus. His first (provisional) patent of 9 November 1876 described a camera in which photographic plates could be exposed in rapid succession. The resulting pictures were to be printed on a continuous strip which, when viewed intermittently, would give an animated picture. On 24 January 1878 in Nature, he proposed a combination of this Kinesigraph apparatus with Thomas Edison's newly invented Phonograph as a means of recording and reproducing dramatic performances. On 12 August 1889, with W. C. Crofts (a draftsman who made the working drawings), he patented an ingenious new design using roll film for sequence pictures. The film was moved at a constant speed from reel to reel on an oscillating carriage. During the upward movement the carriage speed matched that of the downward-moving film keeping it stationary in relation to the lens and an exposure was made. During the downward movement of the carriage, the film moved on sufficiently to clear the previous exposure. The apparatus, both a camera and projector, gave quite good results, which is demonstrated by Charl Lucassen in his animation of a few frames of surviving celluloid film of Trafalgar square, London, exposed in 1890. Donisthorpe was, however, unable to find a sponsor to develop the idea, a committee of experts appointed by Sir George Newnes having turned down the concept of moving pictures as impractical, and it was never commercially exploited. (BC) References: Brian Coe William Friese-Greene and the Origins of Photography., Screen, July/October 1969. Brian Coe: The History of Movie Photography (1981) Stephen Herbert, Pioneers of Victorian Cinema
Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph In 1876, English barrister Wordsworth Donisthorpe patented and had made a plate-changing camera for recording moving pictures. In 1878, in a letter to 'Nature' he suggested that his Kinesigraph and Edison's recently-invented phonograph could be combined to produce talking pictures on the screen. In 1889, Donisthorpe and his associate William Carr Crofts patented a novel camera and projector for taking and showing moving pictures on 'film' (initially paper). In 1890, they shot a film of Trafalgar Square, London, of which ten celluloid frames survive. They were unable to obtain funding to perfect their projector. That's the story as told in those few film history books that mention Wordsworth Donisthorpe and Crofts. New research provides evidence for their motivation, and a link with the technology of the industrial revolution. Donisthorpe, and Crofts (his cousin) were both political activists, passionate Individualists fervent in their anti-socialist crusade. Both men were born into a linked dynasty of technologists; Donisthorpe's father had been an inventor of wool-combing machines, and it was the technology of the textile industry that provided the inspiration for the cameras. By 1890, only three or four people in the world had managed to obtain sequence pictures on sensitised bands (paper or celluloid film). Could it really be just a coincidence that two of those people, Donisthorpe and Louis Le Prince, came from the same industrial community in the same English city, Leeds? A new book by Stephen Herbert, Industry, Liberty and a Vision: Wordsworth Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph proves that Edison was discussing Donisthorpe's suggestion of talking, moving pictures in 1878, ten years before the meeting with Eadweard Muybridge that film history books suggest sparked his interest. also... In 1876, Wordsworth Donisthorpe applied for a patent for a camera for exposing glass plates in sequence. Two years later, he proposed using the device, his Kinesigraph, in conjunction with the newly-announced phonograph. In 1889, in association with William Carr Crofts, he patented another camera - this time for taking paper, and eventually celluloid, film. Surviving frames of Trafalgar Square indicate that the camera worked - but the result was never successfully projected. Until now, not much more than the above bare outline has been known to film historians however, in a new publication Industry, Liberty and a Vision: Wordsworth Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph, Stephen Herbert (with Mo Heard) tells for the first time the intriguing story of the enigmatic collaborators including details of the probable source of inspiration for the unique technology used, and a possible motivation for their moving picture work - political activism. For further information contact Stephen Herbert at the The Projection Box, 66 Culberden Road, London SW12 9LS, United Kingdom.
Some time back, I wrote in admiration of the publications of the English-based The Projection Box, which specializes in early cinema. Its most recent effort to reach these shores is Stephen Herbert's Industry, Liberty, and a Vision: Wordsworth Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph. Donisthorpe, a very distant relative of the poet with a passion for daffodils, was, along with his associate W. C. Crofts, a lesser known but important British film pioneer. In 1890, Donisthorpe filmed traffic in London's Trafalgar Square, arguably the first motion picture of London. Ten frames of that film survive and are reproduced here as a sort of flip book. The author, with great ingenuity, identified the exact location of Donisthorpe's camera and photographed the scene today. Donisthorpe is quite a fascinating character, not only as a technological expert but also as a socialist and chess enthusiast. Author Stephen Herbert, with assistance from Mo Heard, has undertaken extensive research in an area and into a subject on which there is little accessible documentation. The end result is a small book -- only 120 pages -- but one so heavily clogged with documentation that at times there appear an inadequate number of words to make the story a little more palatable to a general reader. Along with other titles from The Projection Box, "Industry, Liberty, and a Vision" is available in the U.S. from George Hall, P.O. Box 64246, Tucson, AZ 85728, at $22.00 (including postage). I would strongly recommend that interested parties acquire the full catalog of publications from George Hall/The Projection Box, which also includes a couple of other new titles: Randall Williams: King of Showmen by Vanessa Toulmin ($14.00), and Theodore Brown's Magic Pictures by Stephen Herbert ($58.00). The latter is expensive, but it is hardcover and comes with 3-D and moving picture viewers.
The popular perception is that film sound burst on the scene with Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer staring Al Jolson in 1927. In truth, The Jazz Singer represents the beginning of real commercial acceptance of the transition to sound films. It didn't just happen out of the blue. Actually, sound with film as an idea seems to have started fourteen years before the invention of the motion picture, during the phonograph's infancy. The December 22, 1877, issue of Scientific American contains the earliest printed report of Edison's new tin foil phonograph, just days old, commenting:
"It is already possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices, and it would be difficult to carry the illusion of real presence much further."Responding to this article the next month in Nature, January 24, 1878, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, an English inventor lets loose with:
"Ingenious as this suggested combination is, I believe I am in the position to cap it. By combining the phonograph with the Kinesigraph I will undertake not only to produce a talking picture of Mr. Gladstone which, with motionless lips and unchanged expression shall positively recite his latest anti-Turkish speech in his own voice and tone. Not only this, but the life-size photograph itself shall move and gesticulate precisely as he did when making the speech, the words and gestures corresponding as in real life. Surely this is an advance upon the conception of the Scientific American!...Although not wrong about the eventual result, the world waited about fifty-seven years for sync sound, three-color Technicolor films (Becky Sharp 1935). Nonetheless, Wordsworth Donisthorpe helped define the path of the future. Never mind that there was no such thing as moving pictures or even celluloid roll film for that matter. Nor that his Kinesigraph would remain Vaporware until 1889 at which time it didn't work anyway. What counted was that the public desirability of such a device created the inevitability of its ultimate invention. Although no one really knew where it would lead, the sporadic race was on. http://hem.passagen.se/filmljud - June 1998 also... The invention of the phonograph, the ability to fix and record the ephemeral quality of sound, followed the telephone by one year. And like the telephone, the "liveness" of the phonograph sparked the imagination of those interested in extending the quality to images. In 1878, for example, Wordsworth Donisthorpe wrote to Nature describing a sound motion picture device - 8 frames per second on a flexible, spooled ribbon with phonographic accompaniment.
Technologies of Time by William Uricchio - DRAFT VERSION also see some wonderful re-animations of Donisthorpe's work by Charl Lucassen
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