Websites

Never Seen Books

Now archived by the Internet Archive and the UK Web Archive. It can be accessed via:

The Optilogue

theoptilogue.wordpress.com

Available online, it has extensive essays on early film pioneers Robert Paul and William Friese-Greene.

MOMI (The Museum of the Moving Image)

Now archived by the Internet Archive and the UK Web Archive. It can be accessed via:

The Compleat Muybridge

Now archived by the Internet Archive and the UK Web Archive. It can be accessed via:

On this site, Stephen listed modern iterations of Muybridge‘s work: sculpture and art, games, toys, poetry, films.
Selections were published in MuyBlog: Eadweard Muybridge Selection 2009-2012. Available from Amazon £8.78 (Nov. 2023)
Stephen is the world expert on Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope. He even made one from Meccano, which can be seen on his YouTube channel.

The Race to Cinema

theracetocinema.com

In 2000 a team of specialists in Film and Photography decided to tell the story of the earliest filmmakers by recreating replicas of the very first motion picture cameras. 15 years later the project was completed.
Stephen was the consultant providing the historical background and technical information for each camera.

Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema

victorian-cinema.net

A biographical guide to the world of Victorian film ending in 1901, featuring 300 biographies of those who, behind and in front of the camera, played a significant part in creating the phenomenon of moving pictures.
Originally a book edited by Stephen and Luke McKernan.

The Wheel of Life

Now archived by the Internet Archive and the UK Web Archive. It can be accessed via:

This has thorough descriptions of optical toys and how they were invented and used, with many examples of zoetrope strips and explanations of their context, usually political or satirical.