The Shadow Traps
History Podcasts
In October 1888, the French inventor Louis Le Prince shot what many people now believe to be the world’s first films. On the 16th September 1890, and just before he was due to sail to New York to demonstrate his films in public for the first time, Le Prince boarded the Dijon to Paris train and was never seen again.The Shadow Traps podcasts will tell the story of Le Prince, his life, his films and his mysterious disappearance. It is a mystery story, an exploration of invention and obsession and a love letter to film. To find out more and support this podcast, go to www.patreon.com/theshadowtraps
Location:
United Kingdom
Genres:
History Podcasts
Description:
In October 1888, the French inventor Louis Le Prince shot what many people now believe to be the world’s first films. On the 16th September 1890, and just before he was due to sail to New York to demonstrate his films in public for the first time, Le Prince boarded the Dijon to Paris train and was never seen again.The Shadow Traps podcasts will tell the story of Le Prince, his life, his films and his mysterious disappearance. It is a mystery story, an exploration of invention and obsession and a love letter to film. To find out more and support this podcast, go to www.patreon.com/theshadowtraps
Twitter:
@TheShadowTraps
Language:
English
Website:
http://www.buzzsprout.com/275917
Episodes
Episode 40. A Panic of Possibilities
11/13/2023
In early 1888, Louis Le Prince built a one lens motion picture camera in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Is it possible to say what influenced his decision to change from the sixteen lens machine he had already built, to this new (and soon to be historic) camera? This episode attempts to do that...
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Duration:00:21:47
Interim Episode. Please Dislocate Your Mind
9/3/2022
A short warm up for Episode Forty.
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Duration:00:05:01
Episode 39. 'Grandpa Consoles Me (At Least He Thinks So)'
11/14/2021
Le Prince sees the publication of his US Patent for a multi-lens camera. His excitement must have been mixed with apprehension as his designs were put into the public domain and suddenly available to potential rivals. And in Leeds, things were complicated: not only was he struggling to get a working projector for his multi-lens sequences, he had had some kind of eureka moment at the very end of 1887. What was it? This episode explores Le Prince's work from the end of 1887 to the beginning of 1888.
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Duration:00:49:27
Episode 38. The 'To Be or Not To Be', a Revelation Before the Second Sleep.
7/11/2021
Louis Le Prince has returned to Leeds. This is where history will be made - but not immediately. What did Le Prince do with his machines in the lead up to creating his one lens camera. This episode will begin to find out.
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Duration:00:27:20
Episode 37. Two White Gashes for Eyes.
3/15/2021
We have already seen Le Prince using his 16 lens camera in Paris in 1887 - but we know so little about what happened. This episode asks 'what can be discovered about those lost months and the images that came out of them?'
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Duration:00:25:04
A Few Words in the Interval
1/31/2021
Not quite an episode; not quite an interval; a few words to see us on to the next stage of the story of Louis Le Prince.
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Duration:00:04:32
Episode Thirty Six. History at ten to thirty-two a second.
12/19/2020
Le Prince travels from England to Paris. There, he nurses his mother, who is ill, struggles with his US Patent specifications, and builds a sixteen lens camera. Sometime around the summer of 1887, he films scenes in Paris.
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Duration:00:27:51
Episode Thirty Five. Cowboys and Yorkshireman.
11/11/2020
We begin by looking at Le Prince as he leaves New York for Europe in April 1887, and follow him rushing between Leeds, London and on to Paris.
While in London, he visits his brother-in-law who is responsible for a huge exhibition in the heart of London - the great American Exhibition, the star of which is undoubtedly Buffalo Bill and his famous Wild West show.
This episode looks at the story of Whitley and Buffalo Bill and how their incredible journeys intersected with that of Louis Le Prince.
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Duration:00:49:11
Episode 34. There is something I should add....
10/1/2020
Drawing to the end of the US Patent analysis, we discover a mistake in our research. Instead of becoming disheartened, we instead use this mistake to help us answer questions about the theories concerning possible corruption on the part of the US Patent Office.
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Duration:00:26:47
Episode 33. Amidst the Dense Thickets of Patent Correspondence
8/25/2020
1887. Le Prince was so close to getting his patent application allowed. But nothing seemed to run smoothly for the inventor. We examine the Patent Claims he tried to add, which almost ruined things for him - and we get to the bottom of one of the enduring conspiracy theories regarding Le Prince and his US Patent.
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Duration:00:30:03
Episode 32. Successively, continuously and in combination with...
6/26/2020
1887. Le Prince seems to be getting closer to having his patent application accepted. However, just when he seems to have succeeded, he does something that puts everything in jeopardy.
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Duration:00:18:08
Episode 31. A New Realm of Possibility
6/3/2020
Le Prince, frustrated time and again by the Patent Office rejecting his designs, is struggling to find a way of getting his ideas accepted. Will he find a way to appease Patent Examiner William Burke? And will Burke's rejections ultimately lead to Le Prince coming up with a truly new idea to put into his patent claims?
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Duration:00:37:42
Episode 30. Flying Pictures
4/30/2020
Le Prince has applied for a US Patent, however, things do not go to plan. The Patent Office rejects several of the inventor's claims, forcing him to go back and re-think. This episode looks at some of Le Prince's attempts to get his designs accepted, and in the process, it uncovers for the first time, a small mistake by the Patent Office which might provide a clue as to how much the Patent Examiner, William Burke, actually understood about what Le Prince was trying to do.
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Duration:00:25:27
Episode 29. 'Be It Known'
3/27/2020
1886. Louis Le Prince is ready to go public with his designs for a motion picture camera and applies for a US Patent. We look at how the inventor made the jump from a rough and rudimentary Ferris-Wheel viewer to a sophisticated multi-lens receiver and deliver in around a couple of years.
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Duration:00:26:48
Episode 28. Sheep-Jumping as seen through Several Lenses.
2/13/2020
While Le Prince works on his cameras, Lizzie is offered an opportunity that might change both their lives. What will now become of Le Prince's experiments? Should he show them to Thomas Edison? We reach 1886 and see that Le Prince is finally ready to tell the world about his work thus far.....
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Duration:00:25:33
Episode 27. The New York Cockle and Burn Years
1/20/2020
This episode tries to find an answer to the question 'What exactly did Le Prince achieve with his experiments in New York in the mid-1880's?' To help with this, we look at witness statements and descriptions of the work allegedly done and attempt to work out the extent of the inventor's achievements in America.
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Duration:00:32:11
Episode 26. The Man in Black and the Silly from Posillipo
12/26/2019
What do blue aliens from the moon Pandora and a painting by Marcel Duchamp have in common? We look at the work of Etienne-Jules Marey, another inventor who was capturing motion while Le Prince was experimenting in New York.
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Duration:00:25:59
Episode 25. The Crafty Fox
12/5/2019
A look at six cards from the Le Prince children to their grandparents. What can we learn about the children from them - and is there anything else they might tell us?
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Duration:00:13:24
Episode 24. An Impression of Life (with its reliefs and its hollows)
11/14/2019
We take another look at Le Prince's American cameras and explore the possibility that he planning on capturing 3D motion pictures. And if that were the case - what were the precedents which might have convinced him that this was a possibility in the 1880's?
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Duration:00:32:16
Episode 23. 'Buffalo Bill was never more surprised in his life'
10/27/2019
John Whitley enlists the help of the legendary Buffalo Bill for his American Exhibition project. Meanwhile, Louis Le Prince begins work on his motion picture cameras - but how much do we know, can we know, about these cameras? To help us, we enlist the considerable investigative powers of Sherlock Holmes, who is about to appear in public for the first time......
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Duration:00:32:13