Continuing the work done in Bocote, I created this unofficial music video for LCD Soundsystem's Someone Great using a very old stop motion animation technique called strata-cut.

To create this film, I shaved off the ends of heavily figured woods at roughly 24 cuts per inch and then photographed them. The 1,200+ still images where then cropped, tiled and cropped again before animating in adobe premier pro. Here are some before and after stills.

Ziricote (After)

For this sample, I wanted to keep the bark (outer edge) intact and present in the final video.

Amboyna (Before)

A prepared sample of Amboyna burl, before turning it into dust.

Amboyna Burl (Before)

Amboyna (After)

A finished still.

Bocote (After)

Below are process images to give you an idea of my setup.

Radial Saw Setup

This plywood jig allows me to digitize the entire wood sample without risking my fingers. It is also used to register the sample for photography. 

Radial Saw Setup

A look down the jig at both samples.

Stop Block

This stop block is set to trim roughly 1/24" at a time from the wood sample.

Stop Block

After trimming the sample one time.

Photography Setup

Two-point lighting with diffusion gels after specially preparing the wood sample for photography.

Photography Setup

From my perspective when taking each photograph.

The Last Slice

The sample was unusable after this.

This is a stop motion animation (really) for Flying Lotus' "Do The Astral Plane" using a laser cut acrylic color mixing toyI created.

Every element, action and video effect corresponds to a particular sample within the song and syncopated to the underlying beat structure. The individual acrylic elements were photographed independently using multiple layers to create color combinations and then animated together in Adobe Premier Pro.

As featured on cult fixed gear forum fixed.gr. 

This was my first stop motion short that experiments with the animation of decidedly inanimate objects. At the time of this post, I had just begun the restoration of a 1960s British track frame, so bicycle parts were on my mind...

Although I chose a bike chain because of its highly articulated joints, it was precisely this degree of freedom that made it incredibly difficult to control. If you ever try something like this, I suggest using a flexible magnetic sheet underneath the parts to restrict their motion for greater control.

A stop motion animation first.

Employing a very old animation technique called strata cut, I created this 30-second short film prototype by sequentially cutting a piece of bocote wood in fine increments and taking a very high resolution still frame of the specially-treated end grain. I then used adobe premiere pro create this short from the 220 individual still frames.

Complete Setup

Showing one-point lighting, holding jig, photography and remote capture.

This is my first animated short film, created from a 140-page hand-drawn flip book. The story details the existential dilemma of a pencil and its search for meaning in a world of coffee cups.

Laser Cut Acrylic

This is a color mixing toy featuring two layers of laser cut acrylic arcs that form concentric rings, all constrained within a clear acrylic plate. This toy was designed as a fun, interactive way to teach children about color mixing and the effects of neighboring colors on one another. By swapping out arcs and/or rotating the top layer, a wild and varied color display ensues.  My current progress on a stop motion animation piece using this toy is below.