Friday, May 09, 2008

Knitware meets animation

Tricot machine_Les peaux de lièvres from David Valiquette on Vimeo.

"We actually shot our characters on green screen to start with. Then we edited, keyed and composited in AE [After Effects] to add the other elements like snow and stadium. We then outputed 723 jpeg of the clip to our knitter that used them as templates for the knits. The knitting technique is actually called in french "Tricot machine", hence the band's name!"
David Valiquette writing on Vimeo


Everytime I watch this it leaves me in a dreamy state of gooey happiness. Like I've been drugged. Love it. I especially like the mixed media approach to animation - it makes me think that all animations should start life as something physical in the real world.

The process described by Valiquette above (video to computer to knitter then back to computer) reminds me of the process used in creating Copy Shop by Virgil Widrich:

"The exploration of repetition and copying was literally undertaken by the maker (Virgil Widrich) in the process of making this film: The film was shot with digital tape and then transferred onto a computer. Each frame of the film was then printed out using a black and white laser photocopier. Those photocopies were then animated and re-shot with a 35mm camera."
Me writing here last year