The animated origami, genesis
Animated origami is a creative process that has led to El Atelier de Santi. And this after a few laps around both worlds, the animación and the origami. The video that I expose below, shows in images the meaning of what I will explain next. It is a mixed production of 3D and origami drawings and is the short story of the awakening of this art.
Discovering cartoons and the secret of their creation at an early age was a motivation inspired by a child’s fantasy. A child who animated inanimate objects with the intention of telling and/or living an imaginary story. Something natural in childhood. It is the moment where the human being discovers his potentialities and refines his restlessness. And something that, in my case, has had me very entertaining since then.
I also remember the impact of short films that state television broadcast on children’s hours in the 70s. I refer to the artisanal productions that were then produced in the countries of Eastern Europe. Based on what is now called the “stop motion” technique, frame by frame.
Animated clip of the origami animated video “Papiroexodo”
Stop motion, the beginning of the cinema
The pioneers of cinema as illusion, magic and trick, are among others Georges Méliès y Segundo Chomón.
They made use of this procedure, “stop motion” or frame by frame, a very artisan technique at the time, but whose results are a mixture of magic, illusion and fantasy, which is cinema in essence.
The movement cycles lend themselves easily to this technique. In fact it was the inspiring principle of the zootrope and other instruments that sought to capture and reproduce the movement. So jumping, flying, running, walking, blinking, etc., are repetitive and cyclic movements. All living beings perform reflex and mechanical movements that are easily reproduced by this technique. A sequence of images with a slight gradual variation of the image before the next. This produces in the view the illusion of movement of the observed image. As a result the exercise with origami figures results in the animation of these, bringing life to their forms.
The animated origami in the snail and the worm
The snail and the worm, practice
Thus it is possible to animate anything by following this technique. Because making a short animated home requires sequencing the movement frame by frame. This is the case of “The snail and the worm”, with which, among other homemade animations, I have studied this technique. For this animation I used a simple snail designed by Kasahara. Simple and very geometric final appearance. However, for the worm I developed my own design thinking about the movements that the figure had to make in the short. It consists of making a stepped folding from outside to inside on a folded base, very elongated format. This gives the figure a very flexible look for its “performance”. I applied the corresponding cycle to both figures.
Searching for simplicity is the best for the desired results to flow. The result, by the means, the procedure and, also by the intention, is very handmade and basic. And as a musical background for this loop cycle I have used a fragment of the song “Este fin” of Sergio Cardoso.
Finally, I invite you to visualize the masterful Hungarian production of animated origami and 3D. It was done by Láslo Ruska and Dávid Ringeisen for WWF. And for its content and for the artistic direction, this short is an example and reference of what I understand and I think should be the animated origami.
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