The Haunting Story About the Inventor of Moving Pictures Told From His Rejected Son’s Perspective

Filmmaker and illustrator Drew Christie has created the short film “The Emperor of Time“, which uniquely uses a mutoscope to tell the story of Eadweard Muybridge, the eccentric photographer who accidentally invented moving pictures in 1878 in order to settle a bet about horses. What makes the narrative so haunting is that it is told from the perspective of Muybridge’s rejected son, Floddie, who was sent off to an orphanage after Muybridge shot his wife’s lover, but shared a love of horses with his father.

The strange and sordid tale of Eadweard Muybridge, the man who accidentally invented motion pictures. The film is told from the point of view of Muybridge’s abandoned son and viewed completely through a nineteenth century early cinema contraption called a mutoscope.

photo by Eadweard Muybridge, Animation: Nevit Dilmen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons