Mixing pottery with zoetropes sounds like just our thing: Experimental animation meets pottery is a short film by Jim Le Fevre, Mike Paterson, and RAMP ceramics‘ Roop and Alice Johnstone, commissioned by the Crafts Council. How does it work?
The film is based upon the principles of the Zoetrope – the difference being that instead of the slits that one would have in the drum around the side of the Zoetrope, it uses the shutter speed of the camera instead.
Jim used 19 ‘frames’ on the pot – a good balance of space per frame (about 4 cm at the outside of the bowl) and amount of animation (0.7 of a second per loop).
To get it up to speed it was simply pressing the floor lever gently until it was perfect in-frame for the camera (essentially it would be 78rpm and so therefore would work on a traditional 78 deck).
We’ve seen Le Fevre’s work here before: The Phonotrope. Plus, there are more videos of amazing optical toys in the archives, including this gem on Pixar’s 3D zoetrope.
via It’s Nice That.
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