hurry up and slow down

Toronto. Most of you know how slow motion video/movie works, but for the few who do not, the idea is simple. Movies are shown at 24 frames per second, up from the slower frame rate for older films.

Video uess a slightly faster 30 frames per second. Persistence in the human brain is the secret to thinking you see smooth motion. For slow motion, the images are recorded at a faster frame rate and projected at the ‘normal frame rate’.

A November, 1946 advertisement by Kodak in the American Cinematographer announced the use of its high speed camera (High-Speed Camera, Type III) to create slow motion movies of extremely fast events – ‘too fast for the human eye to register’. This camera can take 1,000 to “3,000 pictures[frames] in one second”. This means anything photographed is shown slowed down ‘nearly 200- fold’.

Thanks to my good friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, for sharing this advertisement with us.