Monday, November 19, 2012

Cardboard Automata

It has been pointed out that Roy Naisbit is one of the few real geniuses in animation.
However, that isn't just limited to providing funky layouts that mess with your mind when you pan along them.
A shortage of motorized peg-bars on a rostrum camera will ultimately limit ones ability to have complicated multi-layer scenes.
Here is, reconstructed from memory, a background Roy once showed me in the basement of 138 Royal College Street.
I can't vouchsafe for the total accuracy of my version, but in principle, that's how it worked.
It was big, about 4 feet by 4 feet and it was the most beautiful thing I had seen up until then.

How Roy does it... from Felix Sputnik on Vimeo.

9 comments:

Matt Jones said...

. . .and only a genius like you could recreate this! Nice work Mike!

Anonymous said...

I don't get it.
Killa Watt - Killa Hilla- Killa Berger Grill?
So who's Thomas_ Berger?
And while we're on the subject, who are Markdimark and Ricsanches ?
And are they all in Nice eith Caron?
And DP 111?
Funck and Eaditorl Dhlighet , included?

David said...

GREAT ! Thank you for documenting this.

Michael Sporn said...

Hi, Thanks for the wonderful breakdown. I must have watched our ideo about half a dozen times. Very clever of Roy, very astute of you to capture it anew for us. Thanks for the hard work in documenting this.

Holger said...

I hope that all Roy's many original cardboard rigs for the Thief are archived properly - somewhere. For a DVD or BlueRay extras section this kind of thing, ideally with the original rigs, would be pretty awesome. Just as with stop motion "making off" videos I find the hand-made aspect of it captivating.

SCOTT CAPLE said...

Late commenting to this party, but I saw it when you put it up...brings tears to my old layout eyes. Thanks to Matt, Michael, Holger and the rest. Hope to meet you all som etime.

SCOTT CAPLE said...

another comment: in several years of teaching layout, there has ben nothing as elegant as this, to explain the
process of use of pegs, bars, levels and so on.

Thanks again.

spokeshave said...

I have a couple of photocopies of scribbles of how the carpet with Zig Zag walking was done and the panning multi-layers of the city with its many problems.

David said...

And now this wonderful video is gone . (this is on the day that we learned Roy has passed away and I had hoped to post it in tribute to him on my Facebook page). I hope someone saved the video and can re-post it ?