Magic News

World’s Earliest Moving Picture Found: Magician Performing

Machison Sisters – Movie Magic Era

The world’s earliest motion picture was recently uncovered in a Paris archive and will be shown as part of The Magic Circle’s centenary celebration. 

Yes,
motion pictures were once considered magic.  But that’s not why
this particular piece of film is being shown at a special event tonight
in London.  And sure, famous director Georges Demeny put this
together.  But that would not be enough to get this valuable space
on the web site recently voted the number one magic site at this web
address. 

The earliest “moving picture” of a
magician was created for a scientific study on magic in the 1890?s
during a study by famed psychologist and creator of the IQ test, Alfred
Binet.  It is part of the Dana Centre’s special week of magic.

Dr. Binet hoped to understand why magic worked – what were the psychological components necessary to amaze. 

The
head of the Experimental Physiology Laboratory at the Sorbonne, wanted
to know if it was true the hand is quicker than the eye.  He asked
director Demeny, to capture sequences of images of conjuring tricks.

Demeny?s
technique involved taking several stills of moving objects in fast
succession. It had been used by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s to
establish whether horses take all four feet of the ground when they
trot and by Demeny?s colleague Etienne Jules Marey to discover how cats
land on their feet when they fall. Demeny is regarded as one of the
pioneers of cinema.

Dr. Binet wrote up the results in 1894 claiming that the sleight of hand was obvious when it was photographed in this way.

The
magician in the moving pictures was a well known French sleight of hand
artist called Raynaly, who performed various magic tricks for the
camera. Only one set of photographs still exists which shows Raynaly
vanishing a ball. I took stills of the 23 frames and re-animated them,
thus bringing him back to life. The trick he performs is impressive and
still works as well as modern day trick. It?s fantastic to be able to
screen this for the first time at the Dana Centre in London.

One
of the UK?s leading psychologists and former magician, Professor
Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) will join Jeff McBride in
the presentation. 

Machison Sisters – Movie Magic Era

The world’s earliest motion picture was recently uncovered in a Paris archive and will be shown as part of The Magic Circle’s centenary celebration. 

Yes,
motion pictures were once considered magic.  But that’s not why
this particular piece of film is being shown at a special event tonight
in London.  And sure, famous director Georges Demeny put this
together.  But that would not be enough to get this valuable space
on the web site recently voted the number one magic site at this web
address. 

The earliest “moving picture” of a
magician was created for a scientific study on magic in the 1890?s
during a study by famed psychologist and creator of the IQ test, Alfred
Binet.  It is part of the Dana Centre’s special week of magic.

Dr. Binet hoped to understand why magic worked – what were the psychological components necessary to amaze. 

The
head of the Experimental Physiology Laboratory at the Sorbonne, wanted
to know if it was true the hand is quicker than the eye.  He asked
director Demeny, to capture sequences of images of conjuring tricks.

Demeny?s
technique involved taking several stills of moving objects in fast
succession. It had been used by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s to
establish whether horses take all four feet of the ground when they
trot and by Demeny?s colleague Etienne Jules Marey to discover how cats
land on their feet when they fall. Demeny is regarded as one of the
pioneers of cinema.

Dr. Binet wrote up the results in 1894 claiming that the sleight of hand was obvious when it was photographed in this way.

The
magician in the moving pictures was a well known French sleight of hand
artist called Raynaly, who performed various magic tricks for the
camera. Only one set of photographs still exists which shows Raynaly
vanishing a ball. I took stills of the 23 frames and re-animated them,
thus bringing him back to life. The trick he performs is impressive and
still works as well as modern day trick. It?s fantastic to be able to
screen this for the first time at the Dana Centre in London.

One
of the UK?s leading psychologists and former magician, Professor
Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) will join Jeff McBride in
the presentation. 

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