The choreutoscope is the first pre-cinema device which employed a system similar to early film projectors.[1] It was the first projection device to use an intermittent movement, which became the basis of many cine cameras and projectors. It was formed by a sheet of glass on which different drawings were made, and the sheet was mounted on a type of Maltese cross mechanism, which made the image move suddenly.[2] The most common drawing was the 'dancing skeleton' in which six sequential images of a skeleton were animated in the viewing pane.
In 1869, O.B. Brown received a U.S. patent for an optical instrument that used a Maltese cross mechanism for the intermittent projection of sequential images from a rotating disc.[3]
In 1870, "The Popular Educator" featured an article about a very similar instrument (with an "intermittent motion-piece") that was produced by Greenwich engineer John Beale. It was called "The Dancing Skeleton" and projected a skeleton in various positions. An earlier article described Beale's related "Automated Picture" or "automatic face apparatus". This had a bust of a young lady painted on a screen, with a hole in place of the face filled in with a mechanically randomised succession of 16 different facial expressions painted on a rotating disc. A rotating "interceptor" (shutter disc) with 8 apertures in front of a lantern produced a stroboscopic effect that made the apparent movement of eyes, mouth and tongue look natural.[4] Early British film historian Will Day claimed that Beale's choreutoscope had already been invented in 1866.[5]
William C. Hughes created his own choreutoscope in 1884.