Cake Zoetrope

This video is a great example of how you can do pretty much anything that you can imagine, no matter how pointless. This is a zoetrope of a spinning chocolate cake and a strobe light. The strobe light flickers at a speed exactly equal to the speed at which the cake spins one unit. This creates the illusion of an animated scene where chocolate penguins jump out of alligators mouths. When the lights turn on, the magic is gone because the flickering light is not in sync with the spinning cake and the illusion is over. What this video shows is that you don't need a computer to create animation, just a very creative mind, and also a friend who has a passion for chocolate art. I can only imagine what this animation looks like in person because I know that the poor quality of the camera, and the fact that its shutter speed is slightly off from the frequency of the strobe light, is taking away from the experience. Still, the video is very cool.

Midterms Hunger Can Lead to Weekly Blog Solutions (UPDATE: Now with Behind the Scenes!)

So this week is midterms here at Ithaca College. Studying, papers, long nights, and most especially: hunger. Since this week has started, I decided that after midterms on my way home I would reward myself with a delicious, succulent Chipotle Burrito. Oh dear, typing that even made my mouth water. Anyways, this video was made by Nexus Productions and directed by Johnny Kelly, who has worked on ads for Google, Bacardi, and Adobe. This video was done completely in beautiful stop motion and took over 4 weeks to make. It features the farm-loving Willie Nelson covering Coldplay's "The Scientist" which can be purchased on iTunes with 60 cents from every purchase going to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.