The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope . It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud . Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered.
20-588: Charles-Émile Reynaud (8 December 1844 – 9 January 1918) was a French inventor, responsible for the praxinoscope (an animation device patented in 1877 that improved on the zoetrope ) and was responsible for the first projected animated films . His Pantomimes Lumineuses premiered on 28 October 1892 in Paris. His Théâtre Optique film system, patented in 1888, is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. The performances predated Auguste and Louis Lumière 's first paid public screening of
40-584: A doctor in the area. He was a nurse during the Franco-Prussian War . Reynaud started holding free magic lantern shows similar to Moigno's in December 1873. He created the praxinoscope out of a cookie box after reading a series of 1876 articles in La Nature about optical illusion devices. He patented it in 1877, and received a honourable mention at the 1878 Exposition Universelle . He started production on
60-700: A patent on 1 December 1888, and it was issued on 14 January 1889. He received a patent for it in the United Kingdom on 8 February. He signed a contract with the Musée Grévin on 11 October 1892, and its first regular public screenings started on 28 October. The first showing included screenings of Un bon bock , Le Clown et ses chiens , and Pauvre Pierrot . Un Rêve au coin du feu was shown from December 1894 to July 1897, and Autour d'une cabine from December 1894 to March 1900. Reynaud received 500 francs (equivalent to $ 1,465,911 in 2022) per month and 10% of
80-458: A photographer in Paris. Reynaud constructed steam engines at age 13. He worked as an apprentice for Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon . At age 19 he met François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno at one of Moigno's lectures and became his assistant. Brutus died in 1865, and the Reynaud family moved to Le Puy-en-Velay. Reynaud was taught Latin, Greek, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and natural sciences by his uncle,
100-684: The Cinémathèque Française in the 1930s. Langlois reconstructed the théâtre optique for the opening of the Musée de la Cinémathèque in 1972. Julien Pappé restored Pauvre Pierrot in 1981, and Autour d'une cabine was transferred to 35mm film in 1985. The 5 Pantomimes Lumineuses were painted directly onto a transparent strip of images of shellac protected gelatin and manipulated by hand to create an approximately 15 minute show comprising approximately 500 images per title. The three Photo-peintures animées (animated photo-paintings) were directed with
120-546: The cinematographe on 26 December 1895, often seen as the birth of cinema. Charles-Émile Reynaud was born in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis , on 8 December 1844, to Brutus Reynaud, an engineer who moved to Paris from Le Puy-en-Velay in 1842, and Marie-Caroline Bellanger, a former schoolteacher who educated Émile at home. Marie-Caroline was trained in watercolor painting by Pierre-Joseph Redouté and taught her son drawing and painting techniques. By 1862 he started his own career as
140-600: The Photo-Scénographe, a camera inspired by the Chronophotographe à bande mobile of Étienne-Jules Marey . Praxinoscope Reynaud introduced the Praxinoscope-Théâtre in 1879. This was basically the same device, but it was hidden inside a box to show only the moving figures within added theatrical scenery. When the set was assembled inside the unfolded box, the viewer looked through a rectangular slot in
160-571: The US in 1956, was a 20th-century adaptation of the praxinoscope. The Magic Mirror was a sixteen-sided praxinoscopic reflector with angled facets. It was placed over the record player's spindle and rotated along with the 78 rpm record, which had a very large label with a sequence of sixteen interwoven animation frames arrayed around its center. As the record played, the user gazed into the Magic Mirror and saw an endlessly repeating animated scene that illustrated
180-478: The box office. The contract disadvantaged Reynaud as he paid for the maintenance of the system and was required to oversee all of the daily showings. He closed the theatre from 28 February 1894 to 1 January 1895, and instead had a magician perform so that he could improve his equipment. In 1895, Arthur Meyer , the owner of the Musée Grévin, demanded that Reynaud produce more films, which he painted himself. He created
200-484: The clown duo, Foottit & Chocolat (Rafael Padilla) was formed. The two played together for twenty years. After retiring, he ran a bar and restaurant near the Rond Point des Champs-Élysées . He died from cancer in Paris on 21 September 1921. Several skits by the duo Foottit and Chocolat were filmed by Auguste and Louis Lumière . Later Foottit appeared in short films. In the 2016 biopic Chocolat , George Foottit
220-544: The device and was able to quit his teaching job after its financial success. The device was initially offered at Le Bon Marché stores. Ernest Meissonier displayed Eadweard Muybridge 's The Horse in Motion using a praxinoscope in 1882. Reynaud's son Paul stated that his father's inspiration for the Théâtre Optique came after seeing a penny-farthing . The system was displayed at the 1889 Exposition Universelle . He filed
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#1732854747871240-522: The frames and showed the film from August 1896 to March 1900. A film using Félix Galipaux was shown from July 1897 to December 1898. However, the success of other filmmakers reduced the popularity of Reynaud's showings and they ended on 1 March 1900. He destroyed the théâtre optique during a fit of despair and years later he threw most of his films into the Siene. However, his son preserved Autour d'une cabine and Pauvre Pierrot . Léon Gaumont wanted to purchase
260-400: The front, onto a plate with a transparent mirror surrounded by a printed proscenium . The mirror reflected a background and a floor that were printed on interchangeable cards placed on the inside of the folded lid of the box, below the viewing slot. The animated figures were printed on black strips, so they were all that was visible through the transparent mirror and appeared to be moving within
280-463: The images in his 1877 patent. He presented a praxinoscope projection device at the Société française de photographie on 4 June 1880, but did not market his praxinoscope a projection before 1882. Only a handful of examples are known to still exist. In 1888 Reynaud developed the Théâtre Optique , an improved version capable of projecting images on a screen from a longer roll of pictures. From 1892 he used
300-493: The photo-scénographe, a version of the théâtre optique that could take photographs, in 1895, but it was overshadowed by the cinematograph of Auguste and Louis Lumière . Reynaud estimated that the 12,000 showings were attended by a total of 500,000 people. Reynaud hired George Foottit and Chocolat to perform a William Tell routine at Parc de Saint-Cloud and recorded them using the photo-scénographe in April 1896. He hand-colored
320-706: The recorded song. In the 1960s, versions of the Red Raven system were introduced in Europe and Japan under various names—Teddy in France and the Netherlands, Mamil Moviton in Italy, etc. The word praxinoscope translates roughly as "action viewer", from the Greek roots πραξι- (confer πρᾶξις "action") and scop- (confer σκοπός "watcher"). George Foottit George Foottit (1864 –1921)
340-426: The suggested space that was reflected from the background and floor cards. The set appeared with 20 strips (all based on previous standard praxinoscope strips), 12 backgrounds and a mirror intended for background effects for the swimming figure. This set also sold very well and appeared in slight variations, including a deluxe version made of thuja-wood with ebony inlays. Reynaud mentioned the possibility of projecting
360-544: The system for his Pantomimes lumineuses : a show with hand-drawn animated stories for larger audiences. It was very successful for several years, until it was eclipsed in popularity by the photographic film projector of the Lumière brothers . The praxinoscope was copied by several other companies. Ernst Plank offered several variations, including one that was automated by a small hot air engine. The Red Raven Magic Mirror and its special children's phonograph records , introduced in
380-558: The théâtre optique from Reynaud and donate it to a museum, but it was already destroyed. Reynaud patented the stéréo-cinéma, a stereo camera that could take 3D film , on 16 October 1902. He made several films with the camera, but was unable to find financial backing. Reynaud married Marguerite Rémiatte, with whom he had two sons, on 21 October 1879. During World War I he lived in hospitals and nursing homes before dying on 9 January 1918. Henri Langlois convinced Reynaud's son to donate surviving praxinoscopes and Autour d'une cabine to
400-455: Was an English clown who found fame on the Paris circus scene. He is famous for being part of the clown duo "Foottit and Chocolat ". He was born in Manchester, England on April 24, 1864 and his parents were George Foottit and Sarah Crockett, both circus performers. He began his career at the age of twelve. He went into exile in France where he quickly established himself as a clown. In 1895,
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