A Watch With a Built-In Movie Theater

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/fashion/a-watch-with-a-built-in-movie-theater.html

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In 1878, the pioneer photographer Edweard Muybridge created the first stop-motion recording of a running horse, taking 12 sequential photographs that, played through a device he called a zoopraxiscope, revealed the way its hooves moved at the gallop.

The Russian watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin stumbled across Muybridge’s pioneering animation on April 9, 2012. It was the 182nd anniversary of Muybridge’s birthday, and Google was marking the occasion with a re-creation of the “Horse in Motion” series. Mr. Chaykin was intrigued.

“I clicked on it, toyed around, clicking through the photos,” he said. “Then, I wanted to find out more about the story behind it.”

Muybridge’s series was an experiment intended to settle the question of whether horses ever lift all four hooves off the ground at the same time (they do). As a spinoff benefit, his zoopraxiscope became the precursor of the movie projector.

Mr. Chaykin set himself a challenge. Could he build a miniature movie theater incorporating the Muybridge sequence?

He finished his latest wristwatch, the Cinema, less than a year later, complete with its own tiny animation of a running horse.

“I thought it would be interesting to see if I could create a movement small enough to do the same inside a watch,” he said. “First I drew several ideas on paper before running the best options into a computer program. Then I manufactured a model ten times the size of a watch.”

Over the months, Mr. Chaykin miniaturized the mechanisms and built them into the Cinema, which will be introduced at Baselworld, which runs from April 25 to May 2 in Basel, Switzerland. The price is about €50,000, or around $71,000.

A version of Muybridge’s running horse can be seen through an aperture at the 6 o’clock mark. Twelve frames, moving at the rate of 1 per 0.08 second, depict the horse in motion. The movement, powered by a Maltese cross stop-work, is wound up using a button at the 3 o’clock mark and released by a second button at 9 o’clock.

“It’s probably the most fun watch because it’s more of a toy that tells the time than the others I’ve made before,” Mr. Chaykin said.

The face, finished using the “clous de Paris” technique and black lacquer, is inspired by the vintage cameras used by Muybridge. The hour and minute bands are drawn to resemble lens rings.

The less obvious, but perhaps most-impressive feature of the Cinema is that it houses two movements: one for the galloping horse, and another for the time.

The watch and the animation movements are wound using the same screw at the 3 o’clock mark — clockwise for the watch, counterclockwise for the animation.

The Cinema uses a classic mechanical movement with bridges decorated with pearling and clous de Paris, ruby bearings set in gold chatons and gold-covered gear trains.

Mr. Chaykin said he hoped to manufacture several series of the Cinema, each time introducing a new animation.

“The animation is easily customizable in the current 12-shot format,” he said, adding that he would like to manufacture 10 watches for each new animation.

One of the characters that Mr. Chaykin may bring to life is Winnie-the-Pooh. But fittingly, there would be a Russian twist. The honey-loving bear would be wearing the brown fur coat he uses in the Russian adaptation of the children’s cartoon.

The Cinema, Mr. Chaykin said, is a triple-homage watch, elevating it above other anniversary watches.

“It’s an homage to Muybridge, certainly,” he said, “but it’s also dedicated to the spirit of invention, and the passion of horse racing.”