Video of the Day: My Paper Mind

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Some people are purists, for whom the hard way is the best way. We’re talking about the folks who rub two sticks together to start a fire, spin their own dental floss, or thump cream in a churner just so they can butter their bagels. This ethos might not be commonplace, but you can find it in just about any sphere — including animation. (Perhaps I should say “especially animation,” come to think of it.)

Enter Javan Ivey.

^{[images courtesy Javan Ivey]}

Inspired by the mind-blowingly intricate strata-cut stop-motion technique used in some claymation, Ivey uses an approach he dubs “stratastencil,” in which each frame of the film is a layer of cut paper. The results are eerily beautiful, as the motion flows like a river of time. Link [via Make]

Bonus video (discovered while doing research for this post):

Here’s “Buzz Box,” the epileptic opus of strata-cut master David Daniels. This film demonstrates the slice-and-shoot process pretty clearly — maybe not terribly pleasant to watch (and YouTube’s pixelation is brutal), but it’s quite a marvel nonetheless. (For beautiful high-res videos by Daniels, go to BentImageLab.com and click on “New Scientists.”)

In case you’re having trouble viewing the embedded video, here’s a direct link.