Moving Pictures-part 1

Now I think I will start writing about how cinema evolved...

Leland Stanford was the governor of California. He was fond of horse race and one day he found out a strange thing- during the race, horses ran with out touching the ground. He told this to his friends but they didn’t believe him and some even made fun of him.
He thought of methods to prove his theory and asked the help of a photographer, Edward Mybridge. Mybridge agreed to help him out by taking the pictures of horses while racing. But how to do it? That was the problem he faced. In those days there were no high speed cameras. Even photography was a new field open to experiments and revisions. He solved it by keeping many cameras along the length of the race course and taking pictures while the horses run.
Any way, it worked and proved Stanford’s theory. John Isaacs, an engineer, also helped Mybride in this task. It was in 1872.

Supraccinoscope - not anything related to stethoscope
Mybridge’s next aim was to give life to the images he had taken. For this he pasted the pictures on a cylindrical glass structure and rotated it infront of a lamp. He presented this horse race before people and called his instrument ‘Supraccinoscope’.

I will come with remaining story soon...

Did you notice this?

Chariots to which four horses are bound are racing by. There are about 15 or 20 such chariots. A chariot that has got four silvery white horses is advancing and in it sits our hero. During the race two chariots got into accident before our hero’s chariot. If you have guessed which film I am talking about then you might have guessed what follows. Yes, hero’s chariot does a fantastic show by jumping over.

You guessed it.. I am talking of ‘Benhur’. Charlton Huston became Benhur in the movie. The movie was a great success and had won 11 Oscars.

Many of us have watched this film not once but many times. But still I am sure you haven’t noticed this. When the chariot did its fantastic show Charlton Huston was not there in the chariot! Instead Yakima Kanot’s (Action Director of the film) son, Jo Kanot, did this act.

In this jump, Jo Kanot fell off the chariot and had a very serious injury. But viewers being unaware (of course they shouldn’t be aware!) of this praised Benhur.

Want to know more about Benhur? Check out the following links:

www.filmsite.org/benh.html

movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800034299/info

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/benhur/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur_(1959_film)