The Animated Film Camera - Text 2
On the other hand, it is possible to examine how these “animation cameras” functioned on the basis of one specific case, that of Émile Cohl in France. In order to make his first animated drawings (Fantasmagorie, 1908; Un drame chez les Fantoche and Le cauchemar du Fantoche, 1909), Cohl modified a Lumière Cinématographe, making it possible to record his drawings frame by frame. As described in notes taken by the filmmaker (the technique was not patented), this principle made it possible to expose two frames with each turn of the crank (Fantasmagorie, for example, is made up of 700 drawings photographed twice each, for a total of 1,400 photograms). A drum (the cylinder visible in drawings of the device), pulled by a spring, transferred its rotational movement, identical each time, to a drive shaft which replaced the camera crank. In this way, Cohl obtained a “camera crank” every second and a half (with a stop after each turn) at a time the optimal recording speed for a traditional moving picture was around two turns per second. This set-up thus reduced the number of photograms per turn by two-thirds (it was originally seven or eight per turn) to end up with approximately two photograms per turn, or one drawing photographed twice with each turn of the shaft.
