The Horse in Motion is a series of cabinet cards by Eadweard Muybridge, including six cards that each show a sequential series of six to twelve "automatic electro-photographs" depicting the movement of a horse. Muybridge shot the photographs in June 1878. An additional card reprinted the single image of the horse "Occident" trotting at high speed, which had previously been published by Muybridge in 1877.
The series became the first example of chronophotography, an early method to photographically record the passing of time, mainly used to document the different phases of locomotion for scientific study. It formed an important step in the development of motion pictures.
By January 1879 people placed Muybridge's sequential pictures in zoetropes to watch them in motion. These were probably the very first viewings of photographic motion pictures that were recorded in real-time.
SpaceCraft Productions has set out to take yet another historical cinematic leap by animating a full-size locomotive train. This will be accomplished by applying a sequence of visual frames to the train cars via wheat paste and paper. The train will consist of 200 cars, each car displaying three frames playing out at 12 frames per second for a total running time of approximately 66 seconds.
Our team will assemble a large viewing area in a field near a set of train tracks in a rural Utah location. At approximately 6 pm the train traveling at approximately 40 miles an hour will pass into a lit section of tracks revealing the animation before the eyes of the audience. The crowd will watch as Eadweard Muybridge's historical photos animate and then evolve into a magical cinematic sequence.