Who knows about the magic lantern? Anyone? The magic lantern is a device that played an important roled in the early entertainment. The magic lantern is kind of the same with today's slide projectors. The first magic lantern uses fire instead of electric bulbs to illuminate the slides. Another difference is the shape of the slides. Today's slide are made of lightweight, thin plastic or glass and come in single frames. Magic lantern slides came in strips of large, bulky pieces of glass held together with metal or wood. Moreover, magic lantern often contain mechanical features that allows limited movement of one or more slides within the projector. The magic lantern also could display images of greaer complexity than today's slide projectors.
The magic lantern in the animation history is a pre-cinematic invention that sometime had "animated" slides. It is a precursor to the projectors and was very popular in Victorian times.
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| The Magic Lantern |
The Magic Lantern was the first projector invented in the 1650s and soon became a showman's instrument. By the end of 17th century wandering lanternist were puting on small-scale shows in inns and castles, using a lantern lit with a feeble candle. These shows usually featured goblins and devils hence the name 'magic lantern'.
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| An Early Showman carrying his Magic Lantern and Slides |
Soon, at the end of Victorian period, magic lanterns were everywhere like homes, churshes, fraternal lodges, schools, large-scale halls and theaters as a regular part of home and public entertainment. These lanterns came in sizes and shapes. There are from toy lanterns for the children to those used in large halls, huge brass and mahagony, double-lens machines lit with 'limelight'. The limelight was created when oxygen and hyrdrogen squirted on a piece of limestone which turned incandescent once the gas were lit and it will produce a light as powerful as todays slide projectors. The lantern then projected hand-colored slides on a full-size screen.
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