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  3. The Early History of Motion Pictures P1: The technology that made possible the projection and exhibition of photographed moving

The Early History of Motion Pictures P1: The technology that made possible the projection and exhibition of photographed moving

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问题 The Early History of Motion Pictures
P1: The technology that made possible the projection and exhibition of photographed moving images is just 100 years old. In 1895, in Europe and North America, the moment was ripe for a diverse group of engineers, scientists, eccentrics and inventors to nearly simultaneously create cameras and projectors capable of photographing and displaying motion pictures.
P2: The illusion of motion pictures is based on the optical phenomena known as the phi phenomenon and persistence of vision. The first of these refers to what happens when a person sees one light source go out while another one close to the original is illuminated, whereas the latter creates apparent movement between images when they succeed one another rapidly. Together these phenomena permit the succession of still frames on a motion-picture film strip to represent continuous movement when projected at the proper speed. First observed by the ancient Greeks, persistence of vision became more widely known in 1824 when Peter Roget (who also developed the thesaurus) demonstrated that human begins retain an image of an object for about one-tenth of a second after the object is taken from view. Following Roget’s pronouncement, a host of toys that depended on this principle sprang up in Victorian Europe. Bearing fanciful names (the Thaumatrope, the Praxinoscope), these devices basically involve a disk or card with a picture on each side attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.
P3: Before long, several people realized that a series of still photographs could be used instead of hand drawing. This illusion of motion from a series of still images on celluloid film was originally conceptualized as based on "persistence of vision" —that images passively accumulate on the retina. Then in 1878 a colorful Englishman-turned-American, Edward Muybridge, attempted to settle a $25,000 bet over whether the four feet of a galloping horse ever simultaneously left the ground. He arranged a series of 24 cameras alongside a racetrack to capture motion, then projected the findings with his creation of the zoopraxiscope — a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip. Muybirdge’s technique not only settled the bet (the feet did leave the ground simultaneously at certain instances) but also led to a huge advancement in modern photography. Built upon the work of Muybridge, Thomas Alva Edison commissioned Dickson to provide a visual counterpart to his recently invented phonograph. When his early efforts did not work out, he turned the project over his assistant. Using flexible film. Dickson solved the vexing problem of how to move the film rapidly through the camera by perforating its edge with tiny holes and pulling it along by means of sprockets, projections on a wheel that fit into the holes of the film.
Paragraph 4: Because Edison had originally conceived of motion pictures as an adjunct to his phonograph, he did not commission the invention of a projector to accompany the Kinetograph. Rather, he had Dickson design a type of peep-show viewing device called the Kinetoscope. Still influenced by the success of his phonograph, Edison built a special studio to produce films for his new invention, and by 1894, Kinetoscope parlors began to spring up in major cities. Edison was slow to develop a projection system at this time, since the single-user Kinetoscopes were very profitable. However, films projected for large audiences could generate more profits because fewer machines were needed in proportion to the number of viewers. Thus, others sought to develop their own projection systems. Faced with competition, Edison perfected the Vitascope and unveiled it in New York City in 1896.
P5: Early movies were simple snippets of action—acrobats tumbling, horses running, jugglers juggling, and so on. Eventually, the novelty wore off and films became less of an attraction. Public interest was soon rekindled when the shift in consciousness away from films as animated photographs to films as stories, or narratives, began to take place at about the turn of the century. In France, Alice Guy-Blache produced The Cabbage Fairy, a one-minute film about a fairy who produces children in a Cabbage patch, and exhibited it at the Paris International Exhibition in 1896. Better known is the work of a fellow French filmmaker Georges Melies, a professional magician who had become interested in the illusionist possibilities of cinematography. In 1902 Melies produced a science-fiction film called A Trip to the Moon. The cinema production was an enormous popular success, and it helped to make his company one of the world’s largest producers and to establish the fiction film as the cinema’s mainstream product.
P5: Early movies were simple snippets of action—acrobats tumbling, horses running, jugglers juggling, and so on. ■ Eventually, the novelty wore off and films became less of an attraction. Public interest was soon rekindled when the shift in consciousness away from films as animated photographs to films as stories, or narratives, began to take place at about the turn of the century. ■ In France, Alice Guy-Blache produced The Cabbage Fairy, a one-minute film about a fairy who produces children in a Cabbage patch, and exhibited it at the Paris International Exhibition in 1896. ■ Better known is the work of a fellow French filmmaker Georges Melies, a professional magician who had become interested in the illusionist possibilities of cinematography. In 1902 Melies produced a science-fiction film called A Trip to the Moon.■ The cinema production was an enormous popular success, and it helped to make his company one of the world’s largest producers and to establish the fiction film as the cinema’s mainstream product.
Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 4 about the vitascope?
选项 A、It was widely used in Europe before being adopted in the United States.
B、It never made as much money as the equivalent European projection device.
C、It was a larger version of the original Kinetoscope.
D、It was designed to show motion pictures to large groups of people.
答案D
解析 【推断题】文中提到“However,films projected for large audiences could generate more profits because fewer machines were needed in proportion to the number of viewers．”，从上句可知竞争是要为大群体观众服务，答案为D。
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