Cranks and Motors - Text 3
The Lumière brothers tackled the problem of the energy necessary to set the camera in motion from a perspective radically different from that of Dickson and Edison. In that regard, it is important to remember that the primary market of the Société anonyme des plaques et papiers photographiques A. Lumière et ses fils was made up of the numerous professional and amateur photographers who, inspired by the new fast emulsions developed in the late nineteenth century, set out to show “nature caught in the act.” It was consequently of the utmost importance to the Lumières that the camera designed by Louis and Jules Carpentier be sufficiently light, portable and autonomous to be sent out to meet life in its natural habitat. Since this evidently precluded the use of electric motors and batteries, Lumière and Carpentier resorted instead to an extremely simple device: a crank. To film – or project – with their Cinématographe, one simply had to turn a crank pulling eight frames per revolution. The sales brochure issued by the Lumières when they decided to market their Cinématographe in 1897 instructed users to shoot at a rate of two revolutions, or 16 frames, per second.