Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Frames
Ombro Cinéma

Title:

Historie du Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood)

Date:

c. 1921

Material:

Chromolithography on translucent paper, wooden spools

Dimensions:

Length: 72 in. (183 cm)
Width: 5½ in. (14 cm)

Company:

Saussine Editions

Location:

Paris, France

A scroll for the Ombro Cinéma. Two frames of animation are interleaved along the scroll in vertical stripes. As the scroll is unrolled through the device, the stripes for each frame are alternately hidden and revealed by opaque stripes printed on a transparent celluloid sheet. The scrolls are on wooden reels advanced by a wind-up motor, which also plays a tune on the built-in music box. Over a dozen scrolls were available. The scrolls are rear-illuminated: the name "Ombro," i.e., "shadow", originates from an earlier rear-illuminated toy, the Ombres Chinoises, a shadow theater produced by Saussine Editions and others. The Ombro Cinéma received a gold medal in 1921 at the 19th Concours Lépine.

Barrier grids were first applied to images in 1896 as a way of viewing stereo images. They were first used for motion in the Motograph Moving Picture Book published in 1898. Le Cinescope, included in this collection, is a later example. More recently, Scanimation, which can store as many as six or more frames of animation, was patented by Rufus Butler Seder in 2004.

Barrier grid animation scroll with wooden spools
Barrier grid animation scroll with wooden spools
Three scrolls with wooden spools in paper wrappers with labels
Additional scrolls
Front view showing lithographed design and celluloid grid
Rear view
Rear view without scroll showing transparent grid
Rear view, no scroll, showing grid

Box with