Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |
Subject: Dead Media Working Note 01.6
Dead Medium: the Magic Lantern
From: bruces_AT_well.com (Bruce Sterling)
Magic Lanternware: Slide mechanisms
Sources:
THE HISTORY OF MOVIE PHOTOGRAPHY by Brian Coe,
Eastview Editions, Westfield NJ, 1981, ISBN 0-89860-067-0
Peck and Snyder's Catalog (aka "Price List of
Out & Indoor Sports and Pastimes") 1886, reprinted 1971
by Pyne Press (LC# 75-24886, ISBN 0-87861-094-4)
ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE CINEMA by C. W. Ceram,
Harcourt Brace and World (1955?), LC # 65-19106
To the modern eye a magic lantern most resembles a kerosene-fired slide
projector. This preconception overlooks the slides themselves, however.
Lantern slides were large, bulky, complex objects of glass, paint, wood
and metal. Many had built-in mechanical features. So the lantern's
projected images were not necessarily static, but could be graced with
limited animation. Some slides could even create complex, constantly
moving screen displays.
Lantern slides came in several physical formats. Peck and Snyder's
proprietary slides were 4 1/2 by 7 inches. The "usual English pattern"
was 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 and the "French pattern" was 3 1/4 by 4 inches. (Brian
Coe describes the standard European size as 3 1/4 by 3 1/4 inches.) But
specialized slides could be over a foot long, containing gears, cranks,
cogs, or even belts and pulleys.
Slides were attached in front of the condensing lenses, outside the body of
the lantern itself. They slid into place horizontally through metal
runners at top and bottom.
The following describes some of the mechanical variants of the lantern
slide.
Lever Action Slides. A lever protruded from one corner of the slide,
attached to a second, overlapping pane of painted glass. When the lever
was depressed or lifted the second glass rotated through a brief arc,
resulting in a single animated movement on the lantern's screen.
The Peck and Snyder catalog enthuses: "The moving effects produced
on the screen are very life-like. (...) The horse is put in motion by the
lever, and appears to be cantering. (...) The children go up and down as
natural as can be, and the audience can hardly believe that they are not
alive. The No. 2 Electro Radiant Magic Lantern reproduces these pictures 8
to 12 feet in diameter. We conside the Lever one of the very best
mechanical effects." Peck and Snyder sold lever-action slides for
between $1.75 and $2.25.
Brian Coe's History of Movie Photography describes double and even
triple lever-action slides, but the truly elaborate ones were apparently
rare. Peck and Snyder does not offer any doubles or triples.
Slip slides. Slip slides had two panes of glass, with a thumb-and-finger
notch cut into one corner of the wooden frame. The moving pane of glass
was gripped and pulled by hand, a very simple operation. Slip slides often
used black patches to obscure and reveal details of the background slide.
Coe describes sub-varieties of "slipping slides" that were pulled with
tabs.
Peck and Snyder: "Part of the picture is painted on one glass and the
other on part on another glass. The two are arranged in a frame so that
one glass slips over the other, and very comical effects are produced. It is
a great mystery to the uninitiated, and they cannot understand how the
transformations are made." Peck and Snyder retailed these for a thrifty
seventy-five cents each.
Mechanical Slides: Rackwork and Pulley Slides. Early rotary slides
sometimes used a belt-and-pulley drive, with two brass disks turned in
contrary directions by belt drives and a little hand-crank. This technique
was rivalled and eventually replaced by the neater and more accurate
rack-and-pinion system. A single round disk of glass with a toothed brass
rim could be cranked and rotated indefinitely. This caused repeated
rotary animation on the screen. Rackwork slides cost $4.25 to $5.00 in
Peck and Snyder's catalog. The catalog offers no pulley slides circa 1886.
Chromatropes. Says Peck and Snyder: "These are handsomely painted
geometrical or other figures on two glasses, which, by an ingenious
arrangement of crank pinion and gear wheels, are made to revolve in
opposite directions, producing an endless variety of changes, almost equal
to a grand display of fire-works."
Chromatrope cranks could produce single rackwork rotation against
a fixed background, or double counter-rotation of both disks of glass.
Peck and Snyder's chromatropes could project various brightly colored
psychedelic moire' patterns up to twelve feet across. Professional
chromatrope displays in large urban theaters must have been quite mind-
boggling.
The Eidotrope was a chromotrope variant using counter-rotating disks of
perforated metal, showing a swirling pattern of brilliant white dots on
the screen. "Tinters" or colored translucent sheets could be added to tint
the display. Coe describes Eidotropes, but Peck and Snyder does not offer
any Eidotropes for sale circa 1886. C. W. Ceram's ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
CINEMA states that Eidotropes were powered by pulleys and "superseded"
by Chromatropes.
The Cycloidotrope (see Coe p 19) was a truly remarkable variant, a kind of
lantern spirograph. A black disk of smoked glass rotated within the slide
frame, and a stylus on a pivoted arm traced a pattern in the soot against
the moving glass. This appeared on the screen as a brilliant white line
tracing a regular geometric design, an increasingly complex animated
display. The stylus could be re-set as the cycloidotrope rotated,
producing interlocking rosettes and similar mechanical geometries. Peck
and Snyder do not sell or mention this impressive but labor-intensive
graphic device. Images very similar to those generated by the Eidotrope
and Cycloidotrope are now quite popular in computer screen-savers.
Dioramic Slides. These very elongated slides were twice as wide as
normal slides, 4 1/2 by 12 or 14 inches. Peck and Snyder: "These slides
are exceedingly beautiful. The painting is artistic and elaborate, and the
wonder is they can be sold so cheaply. A scene is painted on fixed glass,
and over this is made to pass a long procession of figures -- soldiers,
vessels, trains of cars, caravans, as the case may be -- with the most
pleasing and wonderful effects." The colored background image was small
and square, but the pane with little figures was over a foot long. The
figures slid along in front of the painted background. Peck and Snyder sold
dioramic slides for $3 each.
Panorama slides. These landscape-style slides were over a foot long and
could be gently drawn past the condensing lenses, "panning" across the
picture. Like diorama slides, they often had a procession of moving
figures as well. They cost $3.35 to $4.50 from Peck and Snyder.
Coe states that a London optician named J. Darker succeeded in
attaching a kaleidoscope to the lens of a magic lantern in the 1860s. Says
Coe: "His projection Kaleidoscope produced a remarkable effect when used
to fill a large screen with a colorful, constantly changing pattern." (The
Kaleidoscope itself, an optical toy which is very much alive, was invented
by Sir David Brewster and patented in 1817.)
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |