In Marey's most familiar chronophotography, a moving figure or animal was photographed at sequential stages of motion overlapping on a single glass plate. The result was suggestive of Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, which was, in fact, inspired by Marey's photographs. But Marey was interested in analyzing motion and the overlapping images were sometimes difficult to interpret.

In 1888, Marey switched to using rolls of the sensitized paper newly available from the Eastman company. Individual frames were exposed using a mechanism that stopped the paper strip briefly as it was pulled through the camera. In 1889, he adopted Eastman's celluloid roll film, of which this is an example. The transparency of celluloid opened the possibility of projection, but Marey's film wasn't perforated so the frames that came out of the camera were irregularly spaced. It was possible to cut the frames out and align them on another strip by hand, but this was clearly inadequate.