Holy Flying Circus

Here is the latest project Jim Le Ferve has been working on. Jim is a freelance film maker, mostly working in animation. He is also represented as an art director for some projects by Nexus Productions. This title sequence for the new series Holy Flying Circus is created using a very large phonotrope. Below is Jim's explanation of a phonotrope.

"The Phonotrope is a technique I created about five years ago involving a record player spinning at a fixed speed (45 revolutions per minute) and a camera filming at a fixed speed (25 frames per second) and a sequence of pictures laid out around the circumference which, when filmed, would create the illusion of animation."

I love this style of animation, I would definitely like to try it out some time. It looks like it would take a lot of patience to get all the characters prepared.  Maybe I could animate my cut out Rosie army this way, seeing as they are all lined up and ready to go! (If you haven't seen my 'Rosie' animation check it out here). Watch the 'making of' Video for Jim's new project below and have a look at his blog for more information http://www.jimlefevre.com/?p=1430

The Bicycle Animation

Really interesting project from Katy Beveridge looking into the way animation is made. Her work is an exploration into the proto animation and zoetrope techniques showing you can animation in real time. When I first saw this it reminded me of Nexus Production's dircetor Jim Le Ferve's project creating a zoetrope using blue tack. You can see his work here http://vimeo.com/5507203. Katy's bicycle animation is really nicely put together, and very creative. I could see these being sold as bicycle accessories! I would definitely want one! You can see Katy's blog here http://www.katybeveridge.com/ 


"With my work I wanted to take it to the point where the whole animation, including the mechanism was all human driven. In such I hope to share with the viewer the exciting technical aspects of animation, that magical moment where we see something come to life for the first time, an experience usually limited to animators alone."