The zoetrope creates the illusion of movement by showing a series of images spinning in a cylinder. From the outside, you can look into the cylinder through vertical slits to see the images. The slits spinning around the outside of the cylinder creates a strobing effect, which "blurs" the images together to create movement. Created in the mid-19th century, the images originally consisted of simple, delightful, often circus themed figures or animals. For my zoetrope, I wanted to create an animation that was shocking by comparison. The animation begins as a digital drawing of a raw steak then transforms into two cows by increasing or decreasing line weight and shapes. Because the animation happens during a revolution around the cylinder, every animation created with a zoetrope must loop fairly quickly. I experimented with different forms of animation the zoetrope could create, and found that one interesting aspect was to create the illusion of movement from left to right. Because there are 13 cells that spin together, each image becomes animated within its own cell frame, with the animation of each cell "delayed" in comparison to the others. Rather than having 6 separate animations (since only half the cylinder is seen), I was interested in showing one animation that spanned all 6--and in theory all 13--cells. By creating an animation that moved from left to right in position within the cell, the illusion of traversing was created in the zoetrope. My final project consists of the "static" images of the steak becoming cows and back, and also the chopping knife which is traveling around the cylinder over the transforming animation. Two very different animations were created, completely independent of each other.
The Flash simulation of the zoetrope (the faux-a-trope) can be seen by clicking the images below.
Speed and zoom are adjusted by moving the cursor horizontally and vertically, respectively.
