Scanimation Children's Book a Hit With Kids and Adults
Posted on May 19, 2008
A new children's book called Gallop!: A Scanimation Picture Book by Rufus Seder is being talked about by both kids and adults. The book uses a six-phase animation process caleld to scanimation to give the illusion of movement. The publisher says in its description that the book shows turtles swimming, dogs running and a horse galloping.
A first book of motion for kids, it shows a horse in full gallop and a turtle swimming up the page. A dog runs, a cat springs, an eagle soars, and a butterfly flutters. Created by Rufus Butler Seder, an inventor, artist, and filmmaker fascinated by antique optical toys, Scanimation is a state-of-the-art six-phase animation process that combines the "persistence of vision" principle with a striped acetate overlay to give the illusion of movement. It harkens back to the old magical days of the kinetoscope, and the effect is astonishing, like a Muybridge photo series springing into action-or, in terms kids can relate to, like a video without a screen. Complementing the art is a delightful rhyming text full of simple questions and fun, nonsense replies: Can you gallop like a horse? giddyup-a-loo! Can you strut like a rooster? cock-a-doodle-doo!Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review and said the black-and-white images reference Eadweard Muybridge's motion photography.
The Washington Post says, "Gallop, by Rufus Butler Seder, made an obvious case for itself with ooh-ah graphics, using trademarked Scanimation, a low-tech marvel of sliding paper and stripes. Turn the page, and you set black-and-white pictures of various animals into motion - that is, if certain short people ever let you turn the page. Your kids will elbow you out of the way. They will also elbow each other out of the way."
It sounds like Seder's book is popular enough that there could be a series of scanimation picture books.