Friday, January 27, 2012

Sharing Animation - Mindscape (Jacques Drouin, 1976)


This week I'm coming to you with an animation that when I first saw it, when I understood what I was watching, it completely blew my mind!

The name of the animation is Le Paysagiste (Mindscape, the english name) by Jacques Drouin.

I tried for a while to look for videos that talk about this unbelievable animation technique, so before you see this animation you could actually see the process, but I couldn't find any proper video. You can scroll along this video HERE, where Drouin himself is talking (in french) and he has a pinscreen behind him and he sometimes shows something in it. I've watched a wonderful one that I just couldn't find.

Taken from the wikipedia, I found it quite right: "A pinscreen is a white screen that consists of thousands and thousands of pins in small holes. Light shines from the side of this platform causing each and every single pin to cast its own shadow. Each pin, being able to slide easily back and forth through the holes, can cast different shadows. The white screen becomes darker the farther the pins are pushed out. The more the pins are pushed in, the lighter the screen becomes, giving a grayish tone and eventually an all white screen again."

It's really a macro sized thing that can have the whole grey, black and white scale almost perfectly. The pins are so small that you almost can't see them, you just see the gradient.

So as for animation: imagine you push a group of pins until that part of the screen is white, you take a picture and then you have to go to the back of the screen push those pins out again so you can have the white area in a different place, to have the movement when you take a picture again.

Maybe you can imagine that it's a pretty difficult technique! And so this beautiful work I bring to you today it's even more spectacular.
The technique is amazing enough but Drouin managed to make a real master piece out of it!

The best video I found was in the very National Film Board of Canada website, watch it in High Quality, wait it to load, it's totaly worth it. Although the standard is quite watchable it High Quality takes too long.
So here it is, Mindscape by Jacques Drouin.




Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!


See you next week with another incredible animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for recommending it, I love the animation. I don't really get the technic of it (although, I read your discription) but, to me, it looks as if you put sand on a sheet of paper and blow on it. It's really great, the way it's done but the whole story as well. Actually, I value the story and its meaning more then the technic (just because I'm not a professional, I can't fully appreciate it). Thank you again :))
    Karola

    ReplyDelete