World's first recorded sneeze!

An animation I made from frames of Fred Ott's Sneeze, a film made in 1894 by Thomas Edison. The original lasted two seconds and had no musical accompaniment. I've been experimenting with putting some of my animation experiments on YouTube so they will be easier to post here.

The Sneeze Animations

OK, so this might just look like a whole lot of jerky animations of a guy sneezing. And it is. But if you look at each of them, they're not the same: the frames are combined and recombined in slightly different ways. 

It started off as something like this - a contact sheet, with five frames per row endlessly repeating.

These are still frames from a very short (like, three seconds) film that Edison made in 1894. It's sometimes called Fred Ott's Sneeze, maybe because it depicts Fred Ott sneezing. Stuck a feather up his nose, or huffed that sneezing powder the fetishists use on YouTube. 

When I see something like this, I have a mad desire to make it move again, to resuscitate the guy who's been dead for a hundred years, and turn his frame-frozen sneeze back into motion. To do that, I had to cut the frames in the contact sheet into little squares, re-assemble them into some semblance of film, then run them through my gif program.

As you can see, it worked fairly well. Blown up like this, Fred looks eerily realistic, even though I was working with only five frames:

Meanwhile, I found a Library of Congress video of the original, three-seconds-long masterpiece of cinema. Frankly, I think my animations look better.

Monkeyshines: more creepy than Halloween

It's All Saints Day, the bellybutton of the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration which lasts from October 31 to November 2. In celebration of which, I'm going to post something totally irrelevant: something I came across years ago and which fascinated me. As usual, it's attached to the idea of obsolete technology which was cutting-edge and even astonishing in its day.

YouTube has graciously provided me with many clips of early gizmos which were meant to create the illusion of motion. I'm not sure if Eadweard Muybridge invented the idea or not, but his studies of horses and buffalo and giraffes in motion were groundbreaking. Somehow (I can't find out how because I have to get out of here in a minute), he had rigged it up to take a lot of photos of a moving object over a few seconds. Trip-wires, or something, except that then the horse might trip! (haha). However he did it, when the photos were shown in rapid succession, the horse or buffalo or Thompson's gazelle or whatever-it-was seemed to be running. (Until then, people were so ignorant that they claimed a horse always had one foot on the ground when it ran. Reminds me of what Ann Landers told teenage girls they should do when making out.)

It's really just the old flip-book idea in more sophisticated form, leading to the mutoscope - you know, the crank job with its 20-second-long, supposedly titillating scenarios.

Meantime, Edison was experimenting with the kinetoscope, which used a kind of film - a quantum leap beyond these rapidly-shuffling leaves of paper - but still pretty primitive. Only one person could look at it at a time, creating the strange and steamy intimacy that made the church thunder against its wicked graven images. An experimental Edison film called Monkeyshines (in two parts) is especially strange and seems to reach out to us from some eerie dimension in the deep past. In the first part there are just flickers of what might be a human form. Part Two is a little more recognizable, but still weirdly primitive and low-tech.

(Wikipedia entry)

Monkeyshines (1889 or 1890), an experimental film made to test the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope, is believed to be the first film shot in the United States.

Monkeyshines, No. 1 was shot by William K.L. Dickson and William Heise for the Edison labs. Scholars have differing opinions on whether the first was shot in June 1889 starring John Ott or sometime between November 21–27, 1890 starring G. Sacco Albanese. Both men were fellow lab workers at the company; contradictory evidence exists for each claim. Monkeyshines, No. 2 and Monkeyshines, No. 3 quickly followed to test further conditions.

These films were intended to be internal tests of the new camera system, and were not created for commercial use; their rise to prominence resulted much later due to work by film historians. All three films show a blurry figure in white standing in one place making large gestures and are only a few seconds long.

(NOT Wikipedia entry): I REALLY have to get out of here, I'm late for whatever it is I'm going to, which is none of your business anyway, but here are some bizarro Muybridge things I found along the way. And his name really was spelled Eadweard. Maybe his mother couldn't spell? (Oprah's real name is Orpah, did you know that? Now you do.)

POST-LEAPFROG OBSERVATIONS. This Muybridge guy was some character. His real name was Edward Muggeridge, by the way, but he didn't think that was colourful enough, so he kept changing it until he thought it was back to its original medieval form. It wasn't - just very hard to spell. And just how would you pronounce EADWEARD anyway?

I present this blog the way I dig out my facts: in jigsaw fashion, finding a chunk of valuable information, but later finding something else that seems to fit or, more often, just changes the whole picture. That is why I am so given to post-blog observations: it's to represent the process of discovery, the nosy eagerness and ferreting-out. Research is never a straight line, is it? (unless it's very dull research). Or maybe I'm just too lazy to write formal essays with all the loose ends neatly woven in. But such watertightness is, I've always thought, a great way NOT to learn, because everything is already neatly sealed. Much scientific discovery has been effectively choked off and died due to this approach.

So! Here is another nice nugget about Muybridge, whom I did NOT set out to talk about! At all! I was going to talk about Monkeyshines, and got sidetracked, but Muybridge is much more interesting than Edison because he murdered somebody:

His most famous work began in 1872, when he was hired by Leland Stanford (later the founder of Stanford University) to photograph horses. Stanford reputedly had made a bet that for a moment, all four of a racehorse's hooves are off the ground simultaneously, and he hired Muybridge to take the pictures to prove him right. This was difficult to do with the cameras of the time, and the initial experiments produced only indistinct images. The photographer then became distracted when he discovered that his young wife had taken a lover and may even have had their child by him. Muybridge tracked down the lover and shot and killed him. When Muybridge stood trial, he did not deny the killing, but he was nonetheless acquitted. Muybridge left San Francisco and spent two years in Guatemala. On his return, Muybridge resumed his photography of horses in motion, this time far more successfully. He set up a row of cameras with tripwires, each of which would trigger a picture for a split second as the horse ran by. The results settled the debate once and for all: all four hooves do leave the ground at once, as the top middle image in this sequence demonstrates.

". . . For which I will gladly pay you Tuesday."

*DISCOVERY!* I have made a discovery! More Muybridge dirty pictures, hitherto unknown to anyone, even Muybridge! (Taken from the Muybridge Institute for Pornography, Stagreel, Minnesota).

Time travel: theory or fact? Here's the proof

Could it be? Or have I been watching too much of the Big Bang Theory and Sheldon's endless theorizing about the possibility of time travel?

I have - maybe you've noticed - this little habit of making gifs out of YouTube videos - the shorter the better (which is why some of the gorgeous ones I made tonight wouldn't post - they were probably way too long). I found some stunning footage taken in London around 1900, in an era where the horse was the main mode of transportation, women wore corsets and skirts to the ground, and men were always properly attired in dark suits, overcoats and bowler hats (top hats for more formal occasions).

The uniformity of dress is one of the more remarkable aspects of these tiny visual time machines (along with the eerie three-dimensional quality of the ancient film: how did they ever achieve such an effect, or was it somehow pulled out of the depths of the antique silver nitrate by digital restoration and HD?). The aspect of the people, their facial expressions and formal bodily postures, reveal how very different these times were. Again and again I see women wearing a sort of uniform: a white blouse, often with puffy sleeves,which they called a shirtwaist, and a long dark skirt. The waist is so small that it's plain it didn't get that way on its own. Hair is piled atop the head with pins, and going without a hat is simply unthinkable.

Men are similarly hatted. Even poor blokes could afford an old battered one. A straw boater didn't cost you much, did it? To go about hatless - well, it was simply disrespectful, almost criminal. At the very least, it was suspicious.

As this three-second snippet of time on Blackfriars Bridge (first gif) endlessly repeats itself, we see carriages going by in a kind of dreamy haze, and people walking along the bridge - a woman all in black, a widow perhaps, walking in that stiff-spined way corseted women were forced to walk. Behind her is a couple so properly attired that they could have been cut out of a magazine.

 But who's this out front? Who's this bloke, not very visible at first because he's walking beside the carriage (wagon?) - the one pulling his left hand out of his pocket and looking right at the camera (bloody sauce!)? He's wearing a fine enough coat, and he walks as if he owns the bridge, with a sort of swaggering stride.

Where's he going, then, that he should be walking (hatless!) with such an important air? Who does he think he is?

I'll tell you who *I* think he is.

He is not of his time.

He's from Somewhere Else. More specifically, he's from Now. Whether he projected himself into the past (meaning he's in two places at once: hey, quantum physics tells us it's a cinch, and the saints have been managing it for centuries) or just jumped, bodily, with his whole being, I KNOW this guy did not belong in Edwardian England striding, bareheaded and insouciant, across Blackfriars bloody Bridge back in 1896.

Looking more closely - and it's too bad I can't get a tight closeup of such a grainy figure - it may be that he isn't even wearing a tie. No one went without a tie unless they were in hospital - in a lunatic asylum, I mean. He just sort of flaps along without a care, so informal as to alarm the passersby.

If you plucked out any of the other figures and plunked them down in modern society, we'd think, oh, how lovely, there must be an Edwardian exhibition at the museum. Or something. If you plunked HIM down,  no one would pay him any notice.

BECAUSE HE IS NOT OF HIS TIME. 

He is not of 1896, he is of "now", which means that he knows things. Why do you think progress accelerated so wildly in the 20th century? Was it seeded by these blokes from the future (their future, I mean - this time shit is full of slippery concepts and paradox).

What shall we call him? Roger? How did he get back there? Is he from OUR future, when time travel  really does exist? Why don't we see time travellers walking around in the here and now? The only ones I've ever met believe in conspiracy theories and wear hats made of tin foil.

Roger will ever remain a mystery, breezing along the bridge 117 years ago. Not one atom of him would remain - not in a normal time-line, I mean. In truth, Roger may be walking around right now. The other Roger, the parallel one? My brain aches - a drowsy numbness pains my sense - and it's definitely time to go to bed.

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

His face at first just ghostly (or, the unknown Harold Lloyd)

In HER PAINTED HERO, Lloyd plays a minister who arrives at a mansion (in reality A.G. Schlosser’s Castle San Souci, the same location used in TILLIE’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE and several other Sennett films) to preside over a wedding. This was actually the second time Lloyd had played a minister at Keystone—the first time had been in THEIR SOCIAL SPLASH, made the previous month.

From Mack Sennett: A Celebration of the King of Comedy and his Studio, Films and Comedians

Whew.

I never in a million years thought I'd find anything like this. Goes to show that no matter how many times I go to the well, I always seem to dredge up something of interest about the elusive, enigmatic Harold Lloyd.

And this time, it's a bucket of gold.

I'd heard the story - heard Harold tell it in an archival clip on the bonus disc in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD set - but never thought I'd find any evidence. Back in 1915 - 1915! - Lloyd had a little disagreement with his director Hal Roach about pay. He was getting paid something like $5.00 a week to run around and play any and ever part necessary, but when he found out this other guy (who? Who cares) was getting $10.00 a week, he "walked". I don't for a minute think this is true - he was probably butting heads with Roach in his typical temperamental (some say childish) way, and went stomping off to Mack Sennett for spite.

I don't think Sennett had to think very hard about hiring Harold Lloyd. He had talent shooting out of his fingertips and charisma oozing out of his pores. So for a year Harold went to comedy boot camp, and probably learned a lot of skills (the pratfall being one of them) that he would take back with him when he and Roach kissed and made up.

This is one of many examples of how and why Lloyd became so famous: he made gravy out of everything, squeezed advantage out of disadvantage, learned like crazy, and had the kind of determination it was impossible to knock down. And there was another factor: Fate just kissed him on the forehead and said, "Mein boy." The rest is history.

But look at this! There are actual photos here from one of his Sennett films. He plays a minister in this, which is weird because Muriel in The Glass Character describes him as being "more like a minister than a comedian". I think he may have been slotted into straight-man roles mainly because he just wasn't funny-looking enough for Keystone, though he did an inevitable stint as a cop running frantically around and waving a nightstick.

These photos are ghostly, out of focus, dreamlike, almost unreal - and Lloyd was only 21 or 22, a mere stripling. But take a look at these and tell me they AREN'T Harold Lloyd. Stripling he may be (or strip loin, whichever), but in some ways he is full-blown, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. (I try to work that phrase in whenever I can.) His body posture, his face, even the way he wears the costume - all are Lloyd in embryo, a man who had no idea how famous he was going to be, or what it would cost him.

(But can you tell me, please - is he wearing glasses here? There are so many conflicting stories of the provenance of the glasses that one wonders. Too blurry to tell, but I'd say not. Wait a couple more years for the lightning-stroke.)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Time traveller on Blackfriars Bridge: Director's Cut

I've posted the entire video of Blackfriars Bridge, filmed in 1896.  Pay attention to the man who walks in to the right edge of the frame at 11 seconds, just to the right of the lamp post, pulls his hand out of his pocket at 22 seconds, then walks off at the left side of the frame at 25 seconds.

Note his insouciance, his open coat flapping, his hatlessness and bold staring into the camera. Just a fleeting image of a young bounder, a ne'er-do-well walking across a bridge? Or a man mysteriously transported in a time machine?

You decide.





Special bonus footage: here is the complete Edwardian sequence, most of which consists of everyday activities of the era. But pay attention to people's facial expressions as they went about their day. I don't know how this film was restored, but it came out eerily three-dimensional and surreal, probably from converting the frames-per-second (i. e. there would be frames missing that would have to be filled in). This is nothing but sheer cinematic magic.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

I think I'm going out of my head

Ah yes, Georges Melies. I keep encountering him, this odd little Frenchie/genius. The other night (I still have a hangover from it), Turner Classics had a special on him. Sixteen short films. Sixteen. Ay-ay-ay. These are hallucinatory otherworlds, the strangest things I've ever seen.

He started in France, a hotbed of early film, around 1896, when the medium was so new it was mostly seen as a form of amusement, a toy. No one saw the potential in it. An accomplished magician and visual artist extraordinaire, Melies began to film some of his more potent stunts. Audiences loved it: and to this day, more than 110 years later, they still ask themselves, "How did he do that?"

This weird and funny business with the heads, technically remarkable for its day, was made (incredibly) in 1898, back when a sneeze or an unromantic kiss was considered filmworthy. The unbelievable split-exposure film in his one-man band was later ripped off by no less a personage than Buster Keaton, who was credited with inventing it. Much, much later, Oscar Levant tried the same thing in An American in Paris. Ho, hum.

The Melies experience last night wasn't entirely pleasant. Those early, quick, magical stunts were fun, though filmed in a static manner, with one camera in long shot pointing at a stage. (Please forgive the horrible cropping and truncated music in this clip: it wasn't me.) This seemed to indicate that Melies' imagination sometimes ran ahead of his skills as a cinematographer/director, so that he never attained the revered status of a Fritz Lang or a Murnau.

As his films evolved, florid sets made of cardboard and papier-mache seethed and quivered visibly in the background. Leaping devils (a Melies favorite) appeared and disappeared, and lovely maidens in white gauze tiptoed in and out (or flew through the air in a way which seems to explain the inspired lunacy of Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. I don't know how much Melies Gilliam watched, but maybe he was infected with the same moonstruck folly.)

Or folie. These little weirdies had little or no discernable plot, to the point that a man with a French accent thicker than mayonnaise had to narrate the incomprehensible action. While we listened to his bizarre Clousea-esque pronunciation, with the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble, we (or I) became more and more disoriented. Things were blowing up. People were winking out, or jumping out of things. Man went to the moon in a giant bullet, landing in the eye of a nasty-looking guy with white icing all over his face.

I didn't last the full sixteen films, but kept fast-forwarding my PVR recording, skipping over some florid hand-colored things in which the color wavered and strobed like some sort of acid-inspired hallucination.

Obviously, this fellow colored outside the lines of reality.

I don't know a lot about Melies, and right now I'm too exhausted to find out. Robert Osborne, who must be very ill because he is 50 pounds lighter and could barely speak, told us something I had already read somewhere.

Most of Melies' 500-or-so films were destroyed, and for a very practical reason. His studio went bankrupt in 1913 (for Melies had lost his audience, too baffled to sit through all that escalating strangeness), and his movies were stashed away, only to be confiscated by the French government when World War I broke out.

His films were made of celluloid (or -lose, can't remember which), a substance that had real value to the army: they were melted down to make boot heels for the soldiers. So all those men, dying in the trenches and singing "inky binky polly voo" (just kidding - that was the Americans) were literally walking all over him.

A sad and ignominious end for a unique and very strange artist, who seemed to want to do Spielberg-esque effects with cardboard and smoke bombs. But these two little gems are enjoyable and, in true Melies style, a little bit creepy.

And no, I don't know how he did that.

L´homme orchestre George Melies