Konstantin Chaykin Takes On The Silver Screen!

The Russian genius returns with another incredible creation! Once again culling inspiration from the pages of history, the Cinema watch pays homage to an inventor from a bygone era. The last time we caught up with Konstantin Chaykin it was to discuss the Levitas watch; a watch whose inspiration drew back to Robert Houdin’s early 19th century ‘Mystery Dial’ clocks. Now it seems that he has turned to a different kind of magic, movie magic to build an incredibly clever and whimsical watch!

The Eadweard Muybridge Cinema Watch is a 31 jewel, manual wind movement with 48 hours power reserve, creation telling the wearer time in hours and minutes. The first impression I had of the shape and layout of the 37mm by 47mm stainless steel case was that of a medium-format camera… something old-fashioned at a minimum. By pressing the button at 9 o’clock on the case, an image of a horse and rider galloping appears! See for yourself!

The ‘movie’ is actually 12 separate images of the horse and rider in progress on a disk, spinning by at 1 frame per .007 seconds. Konstantin drew his inspiration from Eadweard Muybridge (the watch has his name inscribed on a flared portion of the case below 6 o’clock). Muybridge’s 1878 invention, the zoopraxiscope (check Wikipedia here), was one of the earliest forerunners of the motion picture camera.

Konstantin’s homage to the device is not just a fun distraction from timekeeping; it’s also a way to stretch the borders of what can be done. And just in the same way that the clunky sounding zoopraxiscope gave forth to the Carl Zeiss 50mm Planar motion capture lens who is to say where a creative exercise like the Eadweard Muybridge Cinema watch could develop into. As ever with likes of a talent like Konstantin Chaykin – staying tuned, switch your mobile phones to silent and enjoy the show!