kaleidoscope

One of the first few times I listened to the song Dog Walker by The Most Loyal, I pictured a rotating kaleidoscope for the chorus that would resemble a church's stained glass window.

I drew a rough representation of what that might look like in the context of the leica reel, and set about figuring what this might look like in bringing it to actuality. First steps included researching how to make one of those contraptions, what to use for the little fragments (went with shrinky-dinks, which are amazing, for the record), and most importantly, how to rig that in such a way that it rotated evenly and smoothly. 

plans

shrinky-dinks, pre-shrunk

 The first kaleidoscope version I animated was a toilet-paper tube rotating in a square cardboard frame that was glued to my light disc's surface. (Handy, these light desks). I had originally intended to glue just the toilet paper kaleidoscope to the disc and rotate that, but had difficulties with that since the disc didn't rotate evenly in the desk so the kaleidoscope tended to wander off-center. Enter cardboard frame and cardboard rings fitted onto the kaleidoscope tube; a circle rotating inside a square. This was better but the shrinky-dinks inside moved around fairly abruptly - they would collect in one corner and then all slide to the bottom at a certain point of critical mass with gravity. It was a bit too jarring.

The solution was to create a circular bottom (the end covered with wax paper to hold the shrinky-dinks) that included a thin circle of cardboard in the centre that kept the little pieces within the general area of the mirrors. The kaleidoscope was fixed to a grip stand arm held over the light disc, and just the circular end piece was rotated. That worked quite well. 

The results were composited in Premiere along with a layer of acrylic paint used as a circular matte

here is the church, here is the steeple...

..and here is the little cardboard church featured in the music video. A bit of salt for shingles. 

Part of the song's inspiration came from this little building by Dovercourt - a mini-church! in the middle of a neighbourhood.

I used pencil crayons and Shrinky-Dinks (amazing stuff) for the stained-glass windows, and lit it from inside with a night-light, another miscellaneous item salvaged from the junk drawer back home. The grey matter is butyl used to hold the light in place. 

A view from the back, and the final shot:

Next up: how the kaleidoscope was made!