The Optical Theater
By Christelle Odoux on Saturday, November 6 2010, 08:56 - Inventions - Permalink
Patented by Emile Reynaud in 1888, the Optical Theatre was no longer a simple toy, but a complex machinery for public performance. With it, the action went beyond the cyclic movement of the previous inventions and the story line was developed over more than 10 minutes. More than 500,000 people attended the projections of the « Pantomimes lumineuses » at the Musée Grévin from October 28, 1892 until March 1900. Animated cartoons were born.
Émile Reynaud is the first to use perforated bands for a projector of moving images. For all of his inventions, he obtained a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, 1889.
The Optical Theatre retains the basic of the Praxinoscope, that is the cylinder of mirrors. As for the Praxinoscope-Theatre, characters and sets are separated – the characters are projected by a magic lantern on the cylinder of mirrors that returns to a small mirror, then through several lenses, to an upper movable mirror which positions them onto the screen. The decor is painted on a glass plate and is projected directly by another magic lantern, in a traditional way.
The characters were drawn and hand painted by Emile Reynaud on squares (6 x 6 cm) of gelatin. The characters outline was colored in black and some details were highlighted. Each square was arranged successively on a strip of indefinite length, perforated and synchronized with the mirrored cylinder by a great cog-wheel.
The band contains 300 to 700 drawings and can measure more than 50 meters. It rewinds into two reels, one transmitting and one receiving. The entire device is behind the screen in relation to the public. Émile Reynaud himself was playing. He could slow down, speed up or go back, improve the dynamics of the animation and vary it from one projection to another depending on the public's reactions.
The screenings were accompanied by piano music specially written by composer Gaston Paulin. Silver rods were arranged on the band, using an electromagnet, to produce, for example, the sound of Arlequin striking Pierrot.
There are no more existing models of this invention. Several reconstructions have since been made.
