Сборник текстов и упражнений по внеаудиторному чтению для студентов факультета культуры и искусств, изучающих английский язык. Полторак Д.Л. - 25 стр.

       3. At the end of the story the author says: "...she (Emma) knew             After the first photograph was made by Niepce, an American
he'd get a piano some day, and everything else, too." Do you think so       called Sellers made a machine which used photographs to show mov-
too? Why?                                                                   ing pictures. The photographs were fixed on a wheel, which was
       4. Do you like the end of the story? How would you have fin-         turned. They were clearer than the pictures in the cylinder, but even
ished the story if you had been the author?                                 this machine was little better than a plaything.
                                                                                   In 1872 Edward Muybridge, an English photographer living in
                                                                            America, made an experiment which became well known.
                The Early Days of the Cinema                                       To find out whether a horse raised all its four feet off the ground
                                                                            at each stride when it was galloping, Muybridge arranged twenty-four
      Words:                                                                cameras in a line and took photographs of a horse as it galloped past
      a stride – большой шаг                                                the cameras. The result showed that a horse really raises all four feet
      a hole – отверстие                                                    off the ground when galloping. But Muybridge did more than this. He
      a cylinder – цилиндр                                                  made a machine which showed the photographic plates one after the
      a plate – пластина                                                    other on a screen, thus making the horse move.
      to manage – суметь                                                           About ten years after this many .men were studying moving pic-
      jerky – отрывистый                                                    tures, but now they were using one camera instead of twenty-four.
                                                                                   An Englishman named William Friese-Green was working on
       When we visit a cinema today and watch a moving picture, we          the cinema at this time. He managed to make a moving picture and was
do not often remember that in fact, nothing on the screen moves at all.     so pleased that he wanted to show it to someone immediately. He
       It has been known for a long time that the human eye sees things     rushed out into the street and found a policeman. "A policeman must be
                                                                            ready for anything," he thought.
for a short time after they have gone. In 1824 Peter Mark Roget, after
                                                                                   Friese-Green did a lot of work in developing the cinema, but he
much study of this subject, gave to the world the results of his work:
                                                                            never made any money. Instead of selling the results of his work, as
the eye sees an object for about a tenth of a second after the object has
                                                                            other inventors did, he was always trying to make something better. He
disappeared.
                                                                            died a very poor man, and without honour.
       This is what happens at the cinema. Twenty-four pictures are
                                                                                    One of the first cinema films was made by Edison, but the inter-
shown on the screen every second, one after the other. But we see each      vals between his photographic exposures were too short—about forty-
of them for about a tenth of a second after it has disappeared, and so      eight photographs taken (and shown) to the second. The human eye
we never notice that there is nothing on the screen between the pic-        could not see them so fast and the movements therefore appeared very
tures.                                                                      jerky. This made the eyes tired.
       When Roget was at work, a plaything was in use which showed                 When Edison's machine was brought to France to show films, it
"moving" pictures. It was a cylinder with pictures on the inside wall.      was seen there by Auguste and Louis Lumiere. These two brothers
Each picture was a little different from the one before it, and each pic-   soon made a camera and projector that worked at about 16 photographs
ture could be seen from outside through a small hole in the wall of the     per second. This reduced the jerkiness very much, and in December
cylinder. So the eye of the watcher saw one picture after another as the    1895 the Lumiere brothers gave the world's first real cinematograph
cylinder was turned round very quickly, and the people in the pictures      show. Their film was called The Arrival of a Train al a Station. The
seemed to move.                                                             film was so good that some of the audience almost expected the train to
                                                                            rush out at them from the screen.

                                   49                                                                          50