How did early animation work?
Reporter researches an unexpected find at the Cambridge Museum, for the latest in our series.
Before movie animation and movie theatres, there were ‘‘magic lanterns’’ and one has been found in the Cambridge Museum’s collection.
The laterna magica was found by museum managers Kathryn Parsons and Karen Payne.
‘‘We still have a lot in the collection to learn about,’’ said Parsons.
‘‘We decided to put it on display, as we try to change the displays regularly.’’
The lantern was made by Ernst Plank in Germany for entertainment purposes and was a type of projector. Candles, whale oil and paraffin were used to illuminate images from slides onto walls. It was the start of animation.
Not only was it a direct ancestor of the motion picture projector for visual storytelling, but it could also be used to project moving images.
Movement was achieved by alternating between pictures of different phases of a motion, but most magic lantern animations used two glass slides projected together.
One had the stationary part of the picture, and the other had part of the picture that could be moved with someone’s hand.
The slides were originally hand painted on glass slides and were figures rendered with black paint, but transparent colours were also used.
Magic lanterns were used for educational purposes during the 1800s and were widely used until a slide projectors (smaller-format versions for photos on film) were marketed and superseded them.
They use a concave mirror in the back of a light source to direct as much light as possible through the thin slide, which the lens adjusted to focus the plane of the slide at the distance of the projection screen or wall. It was donated to the Cambridge Museum by the late Arthur Paton, who was born in 1902.
He attended Leamington School, and suffered Scarlet Fever which affected his hearing and sight. He worked on the family’s Pukekura farm as a share milker from age 14.
Paton met Irene Batkin in 1924, and they were engaged in 1926, marrying at St Matthew’s Church in Auckland in 1932.
The couple bought a farm in Walton in 1941, but as Paton’s vision and hearing became worse they moved back to Cambridge on a farm near Leamington, where he raised poultry from 1943.
Arthur and Irene moved into Resthaven in 1988, where he died in 1990 and she died in 1991.