Émile Reynaud(1844-1918)

Émile Reynaud was a French inventor born in Montreuil, Paris to Brutus Reynaud, an engineer who moved to Paris from Le Puy-en-Velay in 1842, and Marie-Caroline Bellanger, a former schoolteacher who educated Émile at home and taught him drawing and painting techniques. By 1862 he started his own career as a photographer in Paris. When his father died, him and mother both left Paris for Le Puy-en-Velay. He was taught Latin, Greek, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and natural sciences by his uncle, a doctor in the area. After reading a series of 1876 articles about optical illusion devices, he created the praxinoscope (an animation device) out of a cookie box and patented it in 1877. He started production on the device in Paris and was a financial success. He perfected the praxinoscope and invented Théâtre Optique (Optical Theatre), an animated moving picture system, which is also notable for the first known use of film perforations, and patented it in 1888. Its first regular public screenings started on 28 October 1892 with his series of animated films called Pantomimes Lumineuses. In 1895 he created the photo-scénographe, a version of the théâtre optique that could take photographs, but it was overshadowed by the cinematograph of Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière. Later, due to the success of other filmmakers the popularity of Reynaud's showings was reduced and they ended on 1 March 1900. He destroyed the théâtre optique during a fit of despair and years later he threw most of his films into the Siene. On 16 October 1902 he patented the stéréo-cinéma, a stereo camera that could take 3D film. He made several films with the camera, but was unable to find financial backing. During World War I he lived in hospitals and nursing homes before dying on 9 January 1918.