Museum of the Moving Image

I remember being to the Museum of the Moving Image when I was younger and having loved it the first time I was there. So it came as no surprise that I really enjoyed this second trip to the museum. I was really amazed to see how far the technology surrounding moving images has come over the last century or so. Viewing the thaumatrope and zoetrope made witnessing the Feral Fount exhibit that much more impressive. It was amazing to see how something as elaborate as the Feral Fount evolved from something as simple as thaumatropes and zoetropes; the Feral Fount works in the same basic way: displaying the still images and incorporating the flickering light to make the still images seem as they are moving.
The automated dialogue replacement exhibit was pretty cool; I really like hands-on exhibits. I know they might seem boring but my favorite exhibits were the Kinetoscope and The Great Train Robbery exhibits. I've read a lot about the Kinetoscope and actually getting to see one in action was great. Its hard to fathom that the movie technology we use today, like the grand IMAX theatres, began from such humble beginnings as the tiny Peep Shows of the Kinetoscope which only a single person was able to view at a time. I also learned something new about Kinetoscopes from the tour guide: that their nitrate film was flammable, which didn't fare well with the fact that they were made of wood. The reason I liked The Great Train Robbery exhibit is basically the same: its pretty cool to see how cinema has evolved from short, unedited, straightforward narratives to the CGI saturated, intricate plot line films we see today. Seeing The Great Train Robbery in its soundless, black and white simplicity and then comparing it to something like Transformers with its over the top CGI and computer effects really goes to show how far the technology surrounding moving images has come.

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