This project is directly based on Vanya’s amazing layered paper cutout portrait:

(see also 1 and 2, with reverse lighting)

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.

Zachary Johnson.

Nathan and Zachary Johnson.

“But some of them said, ‘He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons,’ while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.”

Ronen as Jesus and Beelzebub (Plate 78)

drawn by Zachary Johnson in his moleskine notebook— a(n authorized) sneak-peak of Zachary and Marke’s new (secret) project…

EDIT- Zachary:

by the way, hope you don’t mind, but it’s probably not Plate 78 — but fuck it.  There are over 100, and fuck all if I can keep them straight.  It works ; )  I just didn’t tell you I lied about the plate number until after you posted it ;)

Zachary Johnson’s Notebook

http://zucherman.tumblr.com

There’s First Hand Smoke, Second Hand Smoke, and Third Hand Smoke.

Then there’s spending an evening with Zachary Johnson, which I suspect is stronger than first hand smoke.

When most people take a smoking break, they’re taking a break to smoke. When Zachary Johnson takes a smoking break, he steps on the balcony and doesn’t smoke for 5 minutes. Then he steps back inside and gets back to it.

I sometimes think New York City with its buildings and girls and bars exists solely so that it can be drawn and written about by Zach. He works and hones his work because he is compelled to, like there is some demon inside him screaming and you can hear it in each picture, like he made a deal years ago which he keeps. He is relentless and kind at the same time. He is also like twenty feet tall.

Drunk one night in a bar at 230am he drew me a picture on a napkin. I should frame it, but I feel compelled to keep it in my pocket. Whenever I take it out and show it to people, they say, “holy shit! who the fuck drew that? Why is it on a napkin and not framed?”

The caption he wrote on the picture is: “Ronen, don’t be sad. there are still boobs.”

:)

Me with words on a napkin by Zachary Johnson.

Selections from drinks with Zachary Johnson.

I asked him to write it down.

Three unedited photographs of Zachary Johnson, from Thanksgiving Dinner at Adrian.

I can’t wait to publish the thanksgiving album.

Zachary Fucking Johnson, Rian Johnson

Zachary Fucking Johnson, Rian Johnson

Zachary Fucking Johnson

Jared, Zachary.

You’re an hour early but you head down to the place anyway. You walk from 14th st into soho. Wow, it’s a block from where you’ve been working all week.

Two blocks away, and there crossing the street is a motley crew of gypsy gallivanters. Your second family.

Nathan, wearing his new Superhero Costume, Katie, a china doll, Zachary Johnson, ten foot tall fucking artist that he is, probably smoking, and Chris Jacobs fresh from the rocky mountains sporting a hip new bethany johnson original.

You cross the street the way they’re coming. You and Nath catch eyes.

Surprising people has the benefit of watching their eyes light up, their body language change- all the things that happened to you when you first saw them, but no one was there to notice.

After hellos and hugs and how are yous you all agree to spend the hour getting food. “Have you ever been to”— (shit, you were going to write ‘have you ever been to _____’s, Nathan said” you were going to write, but you can’t for the life of you remember the name of the place.

See, yes you have this memory, but you don’t remember everything. The thing about your weird alien memory is that you tend not to MISremember anything.

..

HABANAS! The sandwich shop. Your second time there, the first earlier that week.

You all eat your food, and their amazing corn.

Nathan twitters a pic:

:

You head to the venue.

There is a HUGE LINE, and you ponder how to skip the line (you all are on some kind of guest list) without seeming like assholes. ‘Should we go in now, or wait till they open?’

“Should we to the back of the line and ask each person ‘is this the line for people on the list? No? Oh, ok”.

Then you see a little kid. BUT IT’S NOT A LITTLE KID! It’s BiancaRocksOut! (just messing, you knew yonx wasn’t a little kid ;D).

She’s standing outside some bar. “Jacob’s inside, eating nachos.” You run in and say hi to Jacob (you all got dinner the night before, at Kate’s Joint, your second time, and had a really cool discussion, more on that later) and you take a picture of Bianca through the window.

You run back and find the team.

Then Celia Rowlson shows up, wearing a giant smock-type outfit and carrying a giant Camera- a Panasonic VX1000 or somesuch. “Am I really going to cut your hair?” she asks. “Oh yes,” you answer, and point to the scissor/trimmer kit under your arm.

Then Jared Geller arrives, and after intros you all head in to the bookstore-turned-movie-theater-for-the-evening.

“Are we on the list?” asks someone in your party who isn’t on the list, when you’re close enough to the person with list that they would really do better not to ask such questions so loudly. “Don’t worry about it,” you say, and try not to worry about.

The girl with the clipboard takes your name.

“Oh, wait, You’re RonenV! Nick’s friend. Yeah, go on in, guys!”

:)

As you sit down to watch a new Mountain Goats video Rian made (with, oddly enough, the same model camera Celia’s stowing under her seat) you think about who you were the day you helped him make his last Mountain Goats video.

You think about a day when you would sit alone in your room with only your internet connection and imagination, and imagined a different kind of life.

Ten Pictures of Zachary Johnson