Sand animation
{{Short description|Manipulation of sand to create animation}}
File:Кот и петух – Украинская сказка Сказки на песке -3.webm
Sand animation is a form of stop motion that manipulates images formed with sand under a camera to create animation. A sand animator will make incremental changes in the sand, taking one frame with each change in order to create a sequence of movement. Sand animation can also refer to a performance in which an artist tells a story through a series of images drawn with their hands in real time using sand, usually projected through a live camera feed and accompanied by music. A sand animator will often use the aid of an overhead projector or lightbox (similar to one used by photographers to view translucent films) to illuminate the sand from behind, manipulating the light coming through the sand to create shading and lines.
History
One of the first documented uses of sand in animation can be seen in the special effects in Lotte Reiniger's film The Adventures of Prince Achmed. While Reiniger is known for her animated silhouette cutouts, she employed Walter Ruttmann on the film to create magical effects with sand and wax underneath her cut-outs.{{cite book |author1=Robert Russett |author2=Cecil Starr |title=Experimental animation: Origins of a New Art. |date=1988 |publisher=Da Capo Press |location=NY, NY |pages=77}}
Using sand as a primary material for animated films was adopted in the 1960s by Swiss animators Gisèle and Nag Ansorge and American animator Caroline Leaf. The Ansorges were running a small commercial film studio near Lausanne, Switzerland and used ground and dyed quartz sand to illustrate the circulating blood in a film about heart disease. They then adopted sand as their primary creative material, premiered their first complete film in the medium “Les corbeaux” (“The Ravens”) in Annecy, 1967, and continued to work with sand until Gisèle's death in 1993.{{cite web |title=Sand Animator Ernest ‘Nag’ Ansorge Dies at 88 |url=https://www.awn.com/news/sand-animator-ernest-nag-ansorge-dies-88 |website=Animation World Network |access-date=4 January 2025}}
Caroline Leaf began using sand for animation when she was an undergraduate art student at Harvard University in 1968.{{Cite web |last=Roberts |first=Eric |year=1998 |title=Hand-Crafted Cinema Animation Workshop with Caroline Leaf |url=https://www.nfb.ca/film/handcrafted_cinema |access-date=21 March 2016 |publisher=National Film Board of Canada}} She created her first film, Sand, or Peter and the Wolf (1968), by dumping beach sand on a light box and manipulating the grains to build figures, textures and movement, frame by frame.{{Cite web |date=November 5, 2012 |title=The Animated Art of Caroline Leaf |url=http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2012octdec/leaf.html |access-date=21 March 2016 |website=Film Series / Events |publisher=Harvard College Library}} In the 1970s, Eli Noyes, another Harvard graduate, created the short film Sandman (1973){{Cite journal |last=Griffin |first=George |year=1980 |title=Cartoon, Anti-Cartoon |journal=The American Animated Cartoon |pages=261–268 |editor=Donald Peary and Gerald Peary}}{{Cite web |title=Sandman |url=https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/2016-federal-grant-winners |access-date=6 March 2017 |website=2016 Federal Grant Winners |publisher=National Film Preservation Foundation}} and the Sand Alphabet (1974), which became a feature on the children's educational television program Sesame Street.{{Cite journal |last=Educational Film Library Association |year=1976 |title=Motion pictures in education |journal=Sightlines |volume=10-11 |page=62}} About the same time Misseri Studio located in Italy produced the A.E.I.O.U. series, which was drawn in wet sand.[https://books.google.com/books?id=razMCgAAQBAJ&dq=AEIOU+animating+wet+sand&pg=PT419 Animation: A World History: Volume II: The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets] In 1977, The Sand Castle by Dutch-Canadian animator Co Hoedeman won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Gary |url=https://archive.org/details/innationalintere0000evan |title=In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 |date=30 September 1991 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0802068330 |page=[https://archive.org/details/innationalintere0000evan/page/232 232] |quote=The Sand Castle Co Hoedeman. |access-date=19 March 2012 |url-access=registration}} Corrie Francis Parks used colored gels as background elements in the film Tracks (2003) to introduce vibrant color in what is usually a black and white medium.{{Cite AV media |url=https://vimeo.com/58062008 |title=Tracks (2003) |date=2013-01-23 |last=Parks |first=Corrie Francis |access-date=2025-01-21 |via=Vimeo}} In 2006, Gert van der Vijver{{Cite web |title=De Zandtovenaar |url=https://www.zandkunstenaar.nl/#about}} created the series De Zandtovenaar (The Sand Magician) on Dutch national television and since then, animates for the yearly outdoor play The Passion.
Notable artists
References
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External links
{{commons category}}
- [http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.2/3.2pages/3.2student.html An explanation of how to make animated films with sand animation]
- [https://www.nfb.ca/film/animando_en/ Marcos Magalhães' "Animando" at NFB.ca]
- [https://www.nfb.ca/film/owl_who_married_goose/ Caroline Leaf's film The Owl Who Married a Goose at NFB.ca]
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