This project is directly based on Vanya’s amazing layered paper cutout portrait:
The idea, put simply, is to produce a stop-motion animated video with each frame a paper cutout like the image above. (Picture the above face moving and singing, with the paper crinkles bouncing to life from frame to frame.)
It would be a ‘one long shot’ music video set to the song ‘She Likes To Pretend’. It would be in a workshop and begin on my face, then TILT DOWN to reveal a work table with paper fastened to it.
Now we start the ‘stop motion / fast forward’ part of the video. As people zoom by around the worktable, the paper cutout portrait of me would come to life, and move as it sings the song.
Additionally, in the ‘empty space’ of the page, there will be a kind of STOP MOTION HANDRAWN ANIMATED SKETCH for each verse. (See awesome method for producing this below).
During the middle ‘instrumental’ part of the song, the cutout would STOP MOVING and the camera would PULL BACK, to show everyone working on the process and how they’re doing it. (!)
We’d see a computer with a VECTOR READER creating layers from the video frames using the settings Vanya put into it, and we’d pan over to see a LASERCUTTER cutting the vector layers out of the pages. Camera would follow as someone removes the existing pages, and puts in the new pages for the next frame, showing the whole process. The new ‘frame’ would be cut, finished & fastened just in time to BEGIN MOVING AGAIN as the lyrics return..
On the verse “it’s probably better if I stop right here” the animation STOPS SUDDENLY, and we tilt back up for the ending.
CONTEXT/PROCESS:
Vanya would version the vector settings a few different ways, to ensure the finished stop-motion animation is ‘bouncy’ instead of smooth.
The ‘sketch drawing animation’ will be accomplished as follows: The amazing Zachary Johnson will be given a computer tablet and will doodle ONE PICTURE for each verse, at a maximum time limit of ten minutes per picture. The computer will record his drawing AS HE DRAWS IT, make it a video file, then divide that video into enough frames to fit across a given verse. These frames will be printed on the empty space of the top page layer for that verse.
The result will be that for each verse, we in effect SEE A PICTURE GET DRAWN BY AN INVISIBLE ARTIST ONTO THE PAGE OF THE STOP-MOTION MOVING PAPER next to the singing cutout face.
Relatively easy to implement, awesome result. *(Note: If the tablet/drawing part doesn’t work out, move forward without it).
CONCEIVED:
The instant I first saw the above image.
NEEDS TO ACTUALIZE:
- Vanya’s blessing (given).
- A modest budget for expenses.
- A good videocamera and someone to operate it.
- A studio (we can use the classroom and my desk).
- Someone who can show Vanya how to record his photoshop filter settings into a ‘process’ file, and who can then copy the frames from the video into photoshop, run the process, and export each frame as vector files. This person would probably also setup the tablet drawing / frame reading process for Zachary. *(My first preference is Team Scientist and Supergenius Nahanaeli Schelling).
- A big Lasercutter and someone who knows how to use it. (Bre Pettis offered his after I did the Makerbot Photoshoot, and I think Nahana has access to one.)
- A lot of paper.
