From: grammatim@verizon.net   
      
   On Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 9:05:17 PM UTC-5, John Levine wrote:   
   > >If the views at the start of the sequence are simply random snapshots from a   
   > >balloon, they shouldn't be claimed to be movies! Could there have been such   
   > >a thing as automatic shutter release and automatic film advance in 1905? A   
   > >manned balloon wouldn't have exhibited such jerkiness; the successive shots   
   > >would have been composed.   
   >   
   > Of course there was.  There was an experimental movie camera powered   
   > by an electric motor in 1891, and commercial movie makers before 1900.   
   > For that short clip, I expect they used a camera powered by a wind-up   
   > spring in an unmanned balloon.   
      
   BTW it's unlikely that photographs made in 1905 show a completed exterior   
   of the New York Public Library -- while the cornerstone was laid in 1902,   
   the building wasn't dedicated until 1911 and the interior wasn't completed   
   for another two years.   
      
   And I _think_ the Hippodrome was at 49th and Eighth (where the ugly pink   
   skyscraper went up -- it was a parking lot for my entire youth), making   
   it unlikely that a picture of it was made in the same session as a picture   
   of the Library.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)