Inspired by vintage... Clips & animations

As we mentioned couple of times, we like to follow vintage things as well as to watch contemporary projects inspired by vintage mood, style and aesthetics: fashion, design, art, movies and animation. Here we have three examples from the last field: movie shorts inspired by...

Effects of connecting old and new things can be classy and nostalgic or funny and suprising - and that's the point! For more contemporary projects inspired by vintage things - check also our previous post When past meets future - modern projects based on vintage elements.

Posted: Dec 01, 2015 | Tagged: animation, music, photos, retro, video, vintage

Paper magic, part II: playing with shadow and light

In the first part we showed tiny, richly decorated paper theaters in which colours and shapes played the main role. Now it's time to revive the paper (and not only paper) forms using light and shadow. 

Shadow puppetry - inspiration and tradition

The one of greatest inspirations for that kind of art can be found in shadow puppet theaters, which are popular in various cultures, especially in Asia (Indonesia, Thailand Malaysia, China, India, Nepal) but also in Turkey, Greece or France. Shadow puppetry has an old tradition - for example,  the earliest references to it came even from the 8th century. In traditional shadow theatres are used three-dimensional wooden forms or flat leather puppets.

 Silouette animation 

Contemporary shadow puppets are made from various materials, such as paper, wood or plastic. Today such puppets are used not only in special theaters but also in short animated movies or music videos.

The foremost pioneer of silouette animation was a German film director, Lotte Reininger. She made her motion pictures more than ten years before Disney. Below - one of her works:

Here you can read more about this creative woman.

And another example of this kind of animation - Les Trois inventeurs from 80's made by Michel Ocelot - French writer, designer and director of animated films and television programs:

Dioramas

Dioramas are miniature worlds with tiny props and figures. They also have quite long tradition, which reaches up even to the 6th century. Of course, when we're talking about miniature worlds, we also must mention about vintage dollhouses, which are a great inspiration for contemporary diorama creators.

Like shadow puppetry, dioramas also are made not only of paper, but it's quite popular material, often used for creating this type of little landscapes. For example, Tatebanko, very popular in 17th century, was a Japanese art of making dioramas out of paper. Some of those paper creations look quite similar to paper theaters.

Here are contemporary paper cutted dioramas and theather of lights, inspired by vintage mood. First - Boucheron, Theater of Lights - an interactive experience created in paper art and stop motion, which shows 120 years of history of the famous french jeweler Boucheron:

Boucheron, 26 Place Vendôme, Héliodon from Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff on Vimeo.

And paper diorama, prepared as an effect of cooperation of Cognac house Courvoisier and creative agency White Label; the installation was unveiled as part of L'Atelier de Courvoisier:

Alchimie de Courvoisier - Projected Paper Diorama from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.

Sources:

A short history of dioramas

Shadowlight.org

The history of Indonesian puppetry Theater (Wayang) 

Photo of shadow puppets used in this post:

Magdalena Koscianska (source) 

Posted: Sep 18, 2015 | Tagged: animation, paper, video, vintage

Vintage French Illustrations Take Motion and Come Alive!

We decided to choose two illustrations from Rue Marcellin's collection and let them live their life for a moment. ;) Two decades of difference, two various moods, both - illustrative, joyful and a bit nostalgic. 

First - indoor entertainment at the famous Maxim's de Paris, men's conversations, glasses in hands and top hats on heads: Maxim's 1902 Original Print

And second one -  outdoor adventure, female trip, wind in the sails and a pinch of elegance : La Vie Parisienne - Un Mousse d'Occasion - circa 1920 Original Magazine Print 

Which one is your favorite?

Posted: Apr 15, 2015 | Tagged: animation, cover, graphic design, illustration, magazine, print, ruemarcellin

Pictures in Motion - A look at Old Animation Tools and Optical Toys

For contemporary people pictures in motion are something extremely ordinary. Daily doses of ads on TV and the Internet, 3D movies, mobile presentations and animations make us accustomed to the fact that we live in a world full of motion pictures. Often we don't even have enough time to stop and think of how it all looked before mankind had the TV, cinema or mobile devices.

The world of motion picture has a very rich history, full of optical illusions, studies of visual perception and surprises. At the end of the XIX century most pre-film animation devices used a sequence of pictures showing progressive phases of motion. This was quite similar to the film reel method which is still well known to this day, many years after its invention. The main difference being that the pictures in the early days were hand-painted and - well, let's be honest - the story was much shorter and simpler than that of movies today. The method can be clearly seen on the zoopraxiscope (below). This kind of divices was created by photographer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879:

Posted: Apr 01, 2015 | Tagged: animation, collection, illustration, picture