Spirograph (cinematography)

The spirograph was a device invented in 1901 under the name serial device or Vita for the production and playback of short films. The device was advertised as a “family cinematograph ”.

The inventors of the device were the three Viennese Leo Friedrich Herrmann , Josef Swoboda and Carl Lutzenberger . Your serial device - also advertised under the name Vita , possibly based on the Vitaskop from Armat - recorded the images, arranged in a spiral , on a disk so that a film length of around 40 seconds could be achieved. The film material was contained in a light-tight cassette that could be inserted into the device and exchanged.

The apparatus failed to gain acceptance in Europe, but it was successful in the United States . There he appeared under the name Spirograph and was able to spread among amateur filmmakers. When Thomas Edison's "home theater" came onto the market in 1913 , the spirograph lost its importance.

literature

• Wilhelm Formann: Austrian pioneers of cinematography. Bergland Verlag, Vienna 1966, p. 37 [1]

Web links

• Julius von Harpen: Spirograph . In: Lexicon of film terms of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel