DZG 5104 - Flick Book

Dudley Zoo - Bear Ravine - Flick Book

Alongside my stop animation video for the Bear Ravine at Dudley Zoo, I have chosen to create an animated flick book which will use the same photo's / frames. I have chosen this idea because I admire animation and although it can be simple at times, I believe that it can sometimes give a better understanding to the audience and will compliment my previous video.

Research

I have started to look at animation artists who incorporate their images into flick books. Some of the animated books I enjoyed were 'Morph' by 'Peter Lord' which seemed to be aimed at a younger audience, and 'Princess Box' by 'Dug Calder' where he has used photographs as a means to create a fun and positive book, it is often a good way to show a memory which will be key within my work. 

Links for clips

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/sca/research/flickflipflick/Artists/peterlord.html

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/sca/research/flickflipflick/Artists/dougcalder.html

Progress

As a means to create a flick book, I have purchased a small book that I plan to draw inside of to get a rough idea of how one should be used, what to expect, and what type of thickness to use when creating my final. I will also need to find the most suitable type of paper for my flick book, as I understand that it will need to be durable and strong so it can last a while. 

After creating a simple flick book that used pencil drawings, I began to look into what type of paper should be used. After looking into a few professionally companies that make and distribute these books, it seems that anywhere from 100-200 GSM would be best. Before purchasing the paper, I printed a few flick books, some smaller then average and some bigger. I believe that if the book itself is smaller in size, then it seems to flick better because there's less area to put tension on. The only draw back with this is sometimes the images are hard to notice. 

One of the issues I came across when printing a flick book is, that I had to create my own template. This is because when the image files where printed out normally, the print preview didn't allow me to move images around so they where spaced un-equally. This resulted in the prints not having a border on the left side so when you were flicking through it, part of your finger was on the image itself thus stopping the viewer from seeing all of the picture. I tried to overcome this by printing the images out and sticking them onto other paper, but this did not go according to plan because that then made the pages to heavy to flick.

Another issue was that I needed to cut all of the paper the same length, this required alot of concentration. This is because some pieces in my mock up flick books where not all the same size, this effected the animation as the paper would clump together and flick multiple pages (As seen above in video).

Final Outcome

Conclusion

Overall I'm satisfied with my final piece but really would of liked it to turn out better. During the whole experience I came across some problems, I.e trying to make it look professional was challenging to me (Cutting paper all same length, size etc). I would of liked the flip book to turn out looking a bit more eye catching and presented better. Overall though I am satisfied that it flicks well and doesn't seem to clump together, only a small problem where you cant see the full image during the flicking but it does show around 3/4.