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The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video, by creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892. Dickson and his team at the Edison lab also devised the Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture camera with rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go, film movement, to photograph movies for in-house experiments and, eventually, commercial Kinetoscope presentations. A prototype for the Kinetoscope was shown to a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs on May 20, 1891.〔http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhist.html〕 The first public demonstration of the Kinetoscope was held at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on May 9, 1893.〔 Instrumental to the birth of American movie culture, the Kinetoscope also had a major impact in Europe; its influence abroad was magnified by Edison's decision not to seek international patents on the device, facilitating numerous imitations of and improvements on the technology. In 1895, Edison introduced the Kinetophone, which joined the Kinetoscope with a cylinder phonograph. Film projection, which Edison initially disdained as financially nonviable, soon superseded the Kinetoscope's individual exhibition model. Many of the projection systems developed by Edison's firm in later years would use the Kinetoscope name. ==Development== An encounter with the work and ideas of photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge appears to have spurred Edison to pursue the development of a motion picture system. On February 25, 1888, in Orange, New Jersey, Muybridge gave a lecture that may have included a demonstration of his zoopraxiscope, a device that projected sequential images drawn around the edge of a glass disc, producing the illusion of motion. The Edison facility was very close by, and the lecture was possibly attended by both Edison and his company's official photographer, William Dickson. Two days later, Muybridge and Edison met at Edison's laboratory in West Orange; Muybridge later described how he proposed a collaboration to join his device with the Edison phonograph—a combination system that would play sound and images concurrently.〔See Hendricks (1961), pp. 11–12, for support of Muybridge's description, particularly the reference to statements by Edison that appeared in the ''New York World'', June 3, 1888.〕 No such collaboration was undertaken, but in October 1888, Edison filed a preliminary claim, known as a caveat, with the U.S. Patent Office announcing his plans to create a device that would do "for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear". It is clear that it was intended as part of a complete audiovisual system: "we may see & hear a whole Opera as perfectly as if actually present".〔Quoted in Robinson (1997), who gives the date of the filing as October 17 (p. 23). Braun (1992) reports it as October 8 (p. 188).〕 In March 1889, a second caveat was filed, in which the proposed motion picture device was given a name, Kinetoscope, derived from the Greek roots ''kineto-'' ("movement") and ''scopos'' ("to view").〔Musser (2004), p. 63.〕 Edison assigned Dickson, one of his most talented employees, to the job of making the Kinetoscope a reality. Edison would take full credit for the invention, but the historiographical consensus is that the title of creator can hardly go to one man:
Dickson and his then lead assistant, Charles Brown, made halting progress at first. Edison's original idea involved recording pinpoint photographs, 1/32 of an inch wide, directly on to a cylinder (also referred to as a "drum"); the cylinder, made of an opaque material for positive images or of glass for negatives, was coated in collodion to provide a photographic base.〔Braun (1992), pp. 188, 404 n. 44.〕 An audio cylinder would provide synchronized sound, while the rotating images, hardly operatic in scale, were viewed through a microscope-like tube. When tests were made with images expanded to a mere 1/8 of an inch in width, the coarseness of the silver bromide emulsion used on the cylinder became unacceptably apparent. Around June 1889, the lab began working with sensitized celluloid sheets, supplied by John Carbutt, that could be wrapped around the cylinder, providing a far superior base for the recording of photographs.〔Rossell (1998), pp. 63–64; Braun (1992), pp. 189, 404 n. 47. Robinson (1997) says the lab ordered the Carbutt sheets on June 25, 1889, and that they were "marketed in 20" x 50"" size. (p. 27). Spehr (2000) says (a) the lab received them on that date, (b) they were "11 by 14" inches in size (a figure with which Braun, op. cit., agrees), (c) sheets from another supplier, Allen & Rowell, arrived on the same date, and (d) sheets from yet another source had been received in May. It was Carbutt's sheets, according to Spehr's report of Dickson's recollections, that were used in the cylinder experiments (p. 23 n. 22).〕 The first film made for the Kinetoscope, and apparently the first motion picture ever produced on photographic film in the United States, may have been shot at this time (there is an unresolved debate over whether it was made in June 1889 or November 1890); known as ''Monkeyshines, No. 1'', it shows an employee of the lab in an apparently tongue-in-cheek display of physical dexterity.〔There is also a question about which Edison employee appears in the film. If the earlier date is correct, it is John Ott; if the latter, G. Sacco Albanese. See (Edison: The Invention of the Movies ) introduction to ''Monkeyshines, No. 1'' for the Kino Video DVD release.〕 Attempts at synchronizing sound were soon left behind, while Dickson would also experiment with disc-based exhibition designs.〔Dickson (1907), part 2.〕 The project would soon head off in more productive directions, largely impelled by a trip of Edison's to Europe and the Exposition Universelle in Paris, for which he departed August 2 or 3, 1889.〔Robinson (1997) gives August 2 (p. 27). Hendricks (1961) gives August 3 (p. 48).〕 During his two months abroad, Edison visited with scientist-photographer Étienne-Jules Marey, who had devised a "chronophotographic gun"—the first portable motion picture camera—which used a strip of flexible film designed to capture sequential images at twelve frames per second.〔Baldwin (2001), pp. 208–209. Baldwin describes the meeting as taking place in mid-September (p. 209); Burns (1998) says it was August (p. 73). See also Braun (1992), p. 189.〕 Upon his return to the United States, Edison filed another patent caveat, on November 2, which described a Kinetoscope based not just on a flexible filmstrip, but one in which the film was perforated to allow for its engagement by sprockets, making its mechanical conveyance much more smooth and reliable.〔Musser (1994), p. 66; Spehr (2000), p. 8.〕 The first motion picture system to employ a perforated image band was apparently the Théâtre Optique, patented by French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1888. Reynaud's system did not use photographic film, but images painted on gelatine frames.〔Rossell (1998), p. 21; (Charles-Émile Reynaud ) biographical essay by Stephen Herbert, part of the ''Who's Who of Victorian Cinema'' website. Retrieved 10/23/06.〕 At the Exposition Universelle, Edison would have seen both the Théâtre Optique and the electrical tachyscope of German inventor Ottamar Anschütz.〔Braun (1992), p. 189.〕 This disc-based projection device is often referred to as an important conceptual source for the development of the Kinetoscope. Its crucial innovation was to take advantage of the persistence of vision theory by using an intermittent light source to momentarily "freeze" the projection of each image; the goal was to facilitate the viewer's retention of many minutely different stages of a photographed activity, thus producing a highly effective illusion of constant motion. By late 1890, intermittent visibility would be integral to the Kinetoscope's design.〔Burns (1998) claims that "in a patent dated 20 May 1889 Edison and Dickson used the same general arrangement (Anschütz ) of continuous movement and momentary light flashes in their viewing device, the kinetoscope" (p. 73). It is clear that Burns's dating is wildly incorrect and that he likely acquired the May 20 date from the first public demonstration of the Kinetoscope in 1891.〕 The question of when the Edison lab began working on a filmstrip device is a matter of historical debate. According to Dickson, in the summer of 1889, he began cutting the stiff celluloid sheets supplied by Carbutt into strips for use in such a prototype machine; in August, by his description, he attended a demonstration of George Eastman's new flexible film and was given a roll by an Eastman representative, which was immediately applied to experiments with the prototype.〔Spehr (2000), pp. 7, 23 n. 21–22.〕 As described by historian Marta Braun, Eastman's product
Some scholars—in particular, Gordon Hendricks, in ''The Edison Motion Picture Myth'' (1961)—have argued that the lab began working on a filmstrip machine much later and that Dickson and Edison misrepresented the date to establish priority for reasons of both patent protection and intellectual status. In any event, though film historian David Robinson claims that "the cylinder experiments seem to have been carried on to the bitter end" (meaning the final months of 1890), as far back as September 1889—while Edison was still in Europe, but corresponding regularly with Dickson—the lab definitely placed its first order with the Eastman company for roll film. Three more orders for roll film were placed over the next five months.〔Robinson (1997), p. 29; Spehr (2000), pp. 7–8, 23 n. 24.〕 Only sporadic work was done on the Kinetoscope for much of 1890 as Dickson concentrated on Edison's unsuccessful venture into ore milling—between May and November, no expenses at all were billed to the lab's Kinetoscope account.〔Robinson (1997), p. 28.〕 By early 1891, however, Dickson, his new chief assistant, William Heise, and another lab employee, Charles Kayser, had succeeded in devising a functional strip-based film viewing system. In the new design, whose mechanics were housed in a wooden cabinet, a loop of horizontally configured 19 mm (3/4 inch) film ran around a series of spindles. The film, with a single row of perforations engaged by an electrically powered sprocket wheel, was drawn continuously beneath a magnifying lens.〔For discussion and photographic evidence of single row of perforations: Robinson (1997), p. 31.〕 An electric lamp shone up from beneath the film, casting its circular-format images onto the lens and thence through a peephole atop the cabinet. As described by Robinson, a rapidly spinning shutter "permitted a flash of light so brief that () frame appeared to be frozen. This rapid series of apparently still frames appeared, thanks to the persistence of vision phenomenon, as a moving image."〔Robinson (1997), p. 34.〕 The lab also developed a motor-powered camera, the Kinetograph, capable of shooting with the new sprocketed film. To govern the intermittent movement of the film in the camera, allowing the strip to stop long enough so each frame could be fully exposed and then advancing it quickly (in about 1/460 of a second) to the next frame, the sprocket wheel that engaged the strip was driven by an escapement disc mechanism—the first practical system for the high-speed stop-and-go film movement that would be the foundation for the next century of cinematography.〔Gosser (1977), pp. 206–207; Dickson (1907), part 3.〕 On May 20, 1891, the first public demonstration of a prototype Kinetoscope was given at the laboratory for approximately 150 members of the National Federation of Women's Clubs. The New York ''Sun'' described what the club women saw in the "small pine box" they encountered:
The man was Dickson; the little movie, approximately three seconds long, is now referred to as ''Dickson Greeting''. On August 24, three detailed patent applications were filed: the first for a "Kinetographic Camera",〔 the second for the camera as well, and the third for an "Apparatus for Exhibiting Photographs of Moving Objects".〔(Letters Patent No. 493,426 ), issued March 14, 1893. Application filed August 24, 1891 (Serial No. 403,536). (Signed and witnessed in July 31, 1891 ). United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Retrieved 11/25/2013.〕〔Edison (1891a), p. 1 (333 in ''Light and Movement'' ); Edison (1891b), p. 1 (339 in ''Light and Movement'' ); Hendricks (1961), p. 130.〕 In the first Kinetograph application, Edison stated, "I have been able to take with a single camera and a tape-film as many as forty-six photographs per second...but I do not wish to limit the scope of my invention to this high rate of speed...since with some subjects a speed as low as thirty pictures per second or even lower is sufficient."〔Edison (1891a), p. 1 (333 in ''Light and Movement'' ).〕 Indeed, according to the Library of Congress archive, based on data from a study by historian Charles Musser, ''Dickson Greeting'' and at least two other films made with the Kinetograph in 1891 were shot at 30 frames per second or even slower.〔(''Dickson Greeting'' ); (Newark athlete. Fragment 1 ); (Newark athlete. Fragment 2 ); (Men boxing ). Part of the Library of Congress/''Inventing Entertainment'' website. Retrieved 12/14/06. The referenced work by Charles Musser is ''Edison Motion Pictures, 1890–1900: An Annotated Filmography'' (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998).〕 The Kinetoscope application also included a plan for a stereoscopic film projection system that was apparently abandoned.〔Edison (1891b), pp. 2–3, diagram 4 (340–341, 345 in ''Light and Movement'' ).〕 In the spring of the following year, steps began to make coin operation, via a nickel slot, part of the mechanics of the viewing system.〔Spehr (2000), p. 13.〕 By autumn 1892, the design of the Kinetoscope was essentially complete. The filmstrip, based on stock manufactured first by Eastman, and then, from April 1893 onward, by New York's Blair Camera Co., was 35 mm (1 3/8 inches) wide; each vertically sequenced frame bore a rectangular image and four perforations on each side.〔Spehr (2000), pp. 11–14. The filmstock sent by the manufacturers was actually 1 9/16 inches wide; it was trimmed and perforated at the lab. Reports that either Eastman or Blair provided 70 mm stock that was cut in half and spliced at the lab are incorrect. One recent book that makes this mistaken claim (along with other poorly sourced descriptions of the Kinetoscope's development) is A. Michael Noll's ''Principles of Modern Communications Technology'' (Boston and London: Artech House, 2001; p. 88). Braun (1992) makes the same error (p. 190). See Spehr (2000), pp. 7–8, 12, for details on the width of the film supplied by Eastman to Edison.〕 Within a few years, this basic format would be adopted globally as the standard for motion picture film, which it remains to this day. The publication in the October 1892 ''Phonogram'' of cinematographic sequences shot in the format demonstrates that the Kinetograph had already been reconfigured to produce movies with the new film.〔Musser (1994), p. 72.〕 As for the Kinetoscope itself, there is a significant disagreement over the location of the shutter providing the crucial intermittent visibility effect. According to a report by inventor Herman Casler described as "authoritative" by Hendricks, who personally examined five of the six still-extant first-generation devices, "Just above the film,...a shutter wheel having five spokes and a very small rectangular opening in the rim () directly over the film. An incandescent lamp...is placed below the film...and the light passes up through the film, shutter opening, and magnifying lens...to the eye of the observer placed at the opening in the top of the case."〔Quoted in Hendricks (1966), p. 14. See p. 11 for a description of Hendricks's direct examinations.〕 Robinson, on the other hand, says the shutter—which he agrees has only a single slit—is positioned lower, "between the lamp and film".〔 The Casler–Hendricks description is supported by the diagrams of the Kinetoscope that accompany the 1891 patent application, in particular, diagram 2. A side view, it does not illustrate the shutter, but it shows the impossibility of it fitting between the lamp and the film without a major redesign and indicates a space that seems suitable for it between the film and the lens.〔Edison (1891b), diagrams 1, 2 (342, 343 in ''Light and Movement'' ). Diagram 1, an overhead view of the apparatus looking down on the horizontally running filmstrip, also indicates that the shutter passes over the film—whether directly above it or over the lens as well is unclear. A fourth diagram (345 in ''Light and Movement'' ) shows Edison's proposed stereoscopic film projection system: here the shutter is definitively placed between the projection lens and the screen; in an alternate configuration, depicted in an insert diagram, the shutter may run through "a slit in the body of the lens" itself (p. 2 (340 in ''Light and Movement'' )). A simplified version of Edison (1891b), diagram 1—lacking both diagram key numbers and patent application data—is available (online ) as part of the ''Who's Who in Victorian Cinema'' website. The large dotted circle represents the shutter.〕 Robinson's description, however, is supported by a photograph of a Kinetoscope interior that appears in Hendricks's own book.〔Hendricks (1966), illustration 2. Patent historian Stephen van Dulken (2004) appears to err twice, describing a shutter with "slits" that is located between the lens and the peephole (p. 64).〕 On February 21, 1893, a patent was issued for the system that governed the intermittent movement of film in the Kinetograph. However, Robinson (1997) misleadingly stated that "patents for the Kinetograph camera and the Kinetoscope viewer were finally issued" in early 1893 (p. 38). As explained by Braun (1992), "except for the device used to stop and start the moving film, which was granted a patent in 1893, all the parts of the application describing the camera were ultimately disallowed because of previous inventors' claims" (p. 191). Also, Hendricks (1961) described the outcome of the camera patent similarly to Braun (pp. 136–137). The facts in sum are: (a) a patent solely for the intermittent movement apparatus was issued in February 1893; (b) all the other elements of the original Kinetograph patent applications were successfully challenged; and (c) a patent, number 589,168,〔(Letters Patent No. 589,168 ), issued August 31, 1897. Application filed August 24, 1891 (Serial No. 403,534). (Signed and witnessed in July 31, 1891 ). United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Retrieved 11/25/2013.〕 for a complete Kinetograph camera, one substantially different from that described in the original applications, was issued on August 31, 1897.〔See also Spehr (2000), p. 18; Van Dulken (2004), p. 64; Musser (1994) p. 239; Hendricks (1961), pp. 133–134; (Kinetograph Patent Diagram ) part of the ''Who's Who in Victorian Cinema'' website. Retrieved 10/29/06. (Note that van Dulken makes a total botch of describing the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph patent history in his earlier ''Inventing the 19th Century: 100 Inventions that Shaped the Victorian Age from Aspirin to the Zeppelin'' (York: New York University Press, 2001; p. 126 ).)〕 The escapement-based mechanism would be superseded within a few years by competing systems, in particular those based on the so-called Geneva drive or "Maltese cross" that would become the norm for both movie cameras and projectors.〔Salt (1992), p. 32. As Salt describes, subsequent, post-Kinetoscope models of the Edison camera incorporated the Maltese cross.〕 The exhibition device itself—which, despite erroneous accounts to the contrary, never employed intermittent film movement, only intermittent lighting or viewing—was finally awarded its patent, number 493,426, on March 14.〔Edison (1891b), p. 1 (339 in ''Light and Movement'' ); Münsterberg (2004), p. 7; Robinson (1997), pp. 38–39, 54–55; Musser (1994), p. 93; Hendricks (1961), pp. 127–133. Note that at one point Robinson mistakenly gives the patent issue date as March 4 (p. 38), though he states it correctly on the next page (p. 39). Bizarrely, Hendricks does almost precisely the same thing—giving the correct March 14 (p. 127), then the incorrect March 4 (p. 133). The correct date of March 14 may be verified by reference to the patent document; see also Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, ''Edison, His Life and Inventions'' (Boston and London: Kessinger, 2004 ()), p. 370.〕 The Kinetoscope was ready to be unveiled. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kinetoscope」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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