The story of Le Prince’s developments in motion picture technology is as enigmatic and mysterious as is the story of his life. Some make strong claims that he created the first true cinematic moving images. Others seriously doubt many of his achievements. Film Historian and author Terry Ramsaye called his work, ‘The tentative background of the motion picture effort.’ He had studied at Lepzig and eventually became the manager of a famous military panorama, which was presented in New York, Washington and Chicago. His time was also divided between cities as diverse as Paris, London and Leeds.
In 1886 he began work on a camera and projector fitted with no less than 16 lenses. Having been inspired by inventors like Muybridge who succeeded in capturing movement by taking a series of still photographs with multiple cameras, Le Prince set about doing much the same by utilizing a single camera device. The images were taken on a glass plate by triggering the multiple lenses. Records of these particular experiments are very hazy, however, and it is unclear exactly how this invention - if it truly did exist - functioned. Eventually, another camera device was conceived with two lenses, which employed an internal mechanical movement. This recorded images on two strips of sensitized paper, traveling alternately, one above the other. While in New York he took out one patent (Number 376,247) in 1886 and another when he returned to England in 1888. This particular device was never constructed and was referred to by the patent office as, ‘A reduction to practice.’ Seemingly, Le Prince could not accomplish what he claimed it could do.
His British patent, dated January 10, 1888, described separate devices for taking pictures and projecting them - thus being the first mention of. Le Prince then experimented with a single lens camera and the pivotal ‘Maltese cross’ mechanism. This camera, loaded with a 2½-inch wide roll of sensitized paper, succeeded in capturing movement by photographic/mechanical means. The first occasion of moving images occurred in the garden of his father-in-law in October of 1888 at Roundhay, Leeds. The cinematographic speed was 10-12 frames per second. One of the persons appearing in the sequence was his mother-in-law, Mrs Joseph Whitley. This helped in the verification of the date because she died on October 24, 1888.
Le Prince’s second filmed sequence was of the traffic on the Leeds Bridge and was photographed at the speed of 20 frames per second. One of his assistants, a mechanic named James Longley, claimed that this filmed occurrence was shown successfully on a projector utilizing the ‘Maltese cross’ device necessary for the achieving of intermittent movement. The image obtained was clear enough for smoke to be seen emitting from one of the vehicles. Fragments of these two early cinema sequences survive. With these successful experiments behind him and the eventual acquisition of the celluloid film for use in further experimentation, Le Prince came extremely close to being the first true first person to exhibit motion pictures to a large audience. By 1890, yet a new projector was developed for the purpose of a demonstration for the secretary of the Paris Opera, Mr M Mobisson. This all took place at least five years before the Lumiere’s demonstrations.
Eastman’s transparent film stock originally designed for still photography, was the next element in Le Prince’s work. James Longley, again, described in later years how the film stock was utilized by recalling that the edges, at first, were fitted with brass eyelets similar to the eyelets on boots. The projector had a wheel with pins, ‘…for gearing in to the band (read film) of pictures.’ Eventually the eyelets were abandoned for perforations, which were successfully used three years before Edison’s experiments.
Le Prince’s work ceased with his mysterious disappearance. The mystery exists to this day and has remained on the police records as ‘unsolved.’ With his equipment, he visited his brother in Dijon in September of 1890. He then boarded a train to return to Paris and was simply never heard from or seen again. His family and friends had no clues as to his whereabouts. Neither his body nor his equipment was ever uncovered.
His name and his two-lens camera re-emerged ten years later, however, during one of the early patent legal battles in New York. The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, attacking the priorities and claims of Thomas A Edison, put a mechanic named Joseph Mason on the stand. Guided solely by the specifications on Le Prince’s patent, Mason constructed a working model. Since it employed the use of two lenses and two strips of sensitized paper, every other frame was slightly out of register with the next. In other words, the even numbered frames were taken from one viewpoint while the odd numbered frames were taken from a slightly different viewpoint. This produced a noticeable ‘jiggle’ in the movement that was synthesized. Attempting to minimize the display of dual viewpoints, Mason first placed his subject in front of a black velvet curtain. He then laboriously hand registered each frame of the odd-even negatives in the printing. This deception almost worked in stabilizing the wobbling figure. What was positively accomplished, however, was proof that Le Prince’s camera could not successfully capture a clear moving image. He, no doubt, was aware of this shortcoming as it in turn was his catalyst to press on and develop more practical contrivances.
One can not help but wonder how the course of cinematic history would have went if Le Prince had survived for at least another five years. He just may have pulled together all of the necessary and practical elements of the camera and projector into a serviceable device. Others subsequently took on this task. A plaque has been erected in his honor in the BBC building that stands on the site where he worked. It mentions his one-lensed camera and the photographing of the traffic on the nearby Leeds Bridge. In 1990 a book concerning the Le Prince mystery was published titled The Missing Reel, by Christopher Rawlence. A ‘mocumentary’ film of the same name was produced. Both works alluded to illegal tampering of his devices by ‘goon squads’ employed by people connected with Thomas Edison’s interests. Since the case remains unsolved, nothing could be proven.