Perception, Stop Motion, and the Circle of Life.

Stop motion animation is another technique that we have learned about this semester that actually has very old roots in the arts, but because of contemporary practices is considered New Media.  Thomas Edison’s invention of the kinetoscope and Casler’s mutoscope invention pioneered the way for the film industry to become such a success and also were the technological inspiration for special effects.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope

Both of these machines worked on the same principal of stop animation and created the same effects that we are creating in the 21^st century, they just used different photographic techniques and were unable to project their images.    

Like most people, I really enjoy stop animation and can remember it from my youth because of the Christmas movies Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and the Grinch who stole Christmas, as well as all of the truly bad dinosaur “B” movies from the fifties and sixties. It would also be a travesty to forget Gojira for Godzilla’s sake.    

I think that Amanda’s choice to use the topic of the “circle of life” is really interesting because we don’t generally notice the decay of things on a time lapse so for us to actually be able to perceive it will be entertaining.   Her choice of subject should be the most important element of the piece; however, the way that she demonstrates the circle of life and the decline of her subject will be interesting to see because it can be, depending on the subject, a pretty grotesque thing to watch. I am extremely interested in seeing how she incorporates all of the elements of the circle of life in her project as well: birth, life, and death.