Emily Reynard (Pioneer)

Charles-Émile Reynaud

Charles-Émile Reynaud was a famous stop-motion pioneer. He created the Praxinoscope in 1877 -  It was animation device, and the successor to the zoetrope. The Praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered.

In 1889, Reynaud developed the Théâtre Optique, an improved version of his previous device, capable of projecting images on a screen from a longer roll of pictures - allowed him to show hand-drawn animated cartoons to larger audiences.

On 28 October 1892 he projected the first animated film in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the Musée Grévin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used.







 

Praxinoscope (left) and Théâtre Optique (right)