Piece of film from collection of original cine-films taken by Étienne Jules Marey and Lucien Bull

Piece of film from collection of original cine-films taken by Étienne Jules Marey and Lucien Bull in their researches on the analysis of animal locomotion. Film A1 Vol des insectes Agrion Puella (Dragonfly) Lucien Bull 1906

90mm film. 53 stereo frames, 20mm (h) x 34mm (w).

Taken with Bull's spark drum camera, (inv. no.1956-190)

An assistant of Etienne Jules Marey beginning in 1896, Bull accepted a permanent position at the Marey Institute in 1902. He first worked on stop motion, then dedicated his efforts to the opposite technique, fast-motion, and came up with extremely innovative systems. By combining electrical sparks, a lens with a rotating prism and fast 35mm film, Bull recorded at a rate of 800 images/second, for ‘Flight of a Common Fly’ (1903), then at 2000 images/second (1905). By increasing the frequency of sparks, Bull achieved rates of 15,000 images/second in ‘Firing a Gun’ (1914) and finally reached a rate of one million images/second in the late 1940s with ‘Shockwave’.