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Whiteboard stop motion

This music video is outstanding. Created for the Swedish band Minilogue by Kristofer Strom from Ljudbilden & Piloten, the entire thing is stop motion animation created on a whiteboard.

A whiteboard seems like a wonderful medium for animation since it allows the artist to modify a drawing, leaving entire parts of it intact. Watching this reminds me of being a kid and discovering all the strange experimental pieces of animation produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Norman McLaren would’ve loved this!

Update: Kristofer tells me that he created a 23-minute whiteboard animation prior to this one, set to his own music, which we can hopefully expect to see online sometime in the near future. In the meantime, to see more of his work, why not try Pen on Paper (final work here).

  • http://acuarela.blogspot.com/ Acuarela

    I agree: this is a remarkable animation. Very imaginative. Makes me feel like doing something similar.The shape succession reminds me of a free association game. For example, I have here in my pasteboard a printout of a nice take on this, the Bearskinrug’s “Doodle association game”.

  • http://acuarela.blogspot.com Acuarela

    I agree: this is a remarkable animation. Very imaginative. Makes me feel like doing something similar.The shape succession reminds me of a free association game. For example, I have here in my pasteboard a printout of a nice take on this, the Bearskinrug’s “Doodle association game”.

  • http://www.mattiasbilder.se/ mattias.kall

    Nice work. Love the free mind. It’s fun to see how one picture leads to another and how thoughts link together.

  • http://www.mattiasbilder.se mattias.kall

    Nice work. Love the free mind. It’s fun to see how one picture leads to another and how thoughts link together.

  • http://galletly.blogspot.com/ Galletly

    Yeah, it also looks like quite a good way of keeping a record of drawing stuff on something that isn’t permanent. A whiteboard or a chalkboard is great for an adding / subtracting, stream-of-consciousness kinda doodling, but there is always the problem of not being able to go back to earlier stages. This way you can see the stuff that has gone before and you get a neat wee animation to boot!

  • http://galletly.blogspot.com Galletly

    Yeah, it also looks like quite a good way of keeping a record of drawing stuff on something that isn’t permanent. A whiteboard or a chalkboard is great for an adding / subtracting, stream-of-consciousness kinda doodling, but there is always the problem of not being able to go back to earlier stages. This way you can see the stuff that has gone before and you get a neat wee animation to boot!

  • http://johnuibel.com/ bexrex

    well, it is nice, but I hate to rain on the parade: This is not “stop motion animation”. It is simply animation, or at the most, “frame-based animation”. Stop Motion Animation refers to the process of moving physical 3D objects in tiny increments (like a model of a dinosaur or a puppet), photographing each pose individually — thereby stopping the motion. Think King Kong, One Million Years B.C. (no, Ms. Welch was not stop-acting) and all those Edgar Rice Burroughs films of the seventies. The key here is that in stop motion animation you are photographing actual objects and not a sequence of drawings.

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion_animation for more info.

    Just trying to keep everyone on the straight and narrow…

  • http://johnuibel.com bexrex

    well, it is nice, but I hate to rain on the parade: This is not “stop motion animation”. It is simply animation, or at the most, “frame-based animation”. Stop Motion Animation refers to the process of moving physical 3D objects in tiny increments (like a model of a dinosaur or a puppet), photographing each pose individually — thereby stopping the motion. Think King Kong, One Million Years B.C. (no, Ms. Welch was not stop-acting) and all those Edgar Rice Burroughs films of the seventies. The key here is that in stop motion animation you are photographing actual objects and not a sequence of drawings.

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion_animation for more info.

    Just trying to keep everyone on the straight and narrow…

  • http://www.robotjohnny.com/ Johnny

    Stop Motion Animation refers to the process of moving physical 3D objects in tiny increments

    You mean like the artist’s hands in this piece? This may not be strictly stop motion, but it’s not strictly traditional hand-drawn animation either. It’s experimental animation that maybe can’t be easily classified, but I don’t think you can say it’s categorically not stop motion.

    This isn’t a series of drawings after all — it’s one drawing on a physical surface that’s being manipulated frame by frame. The drawing(s) didn’t exist in a series before being photographed, in the same way that King Kong’s poses didn’t exist in a series prior to being photographed, so I think this method has far more in common with stop motion than it does with traditional 2D animation.

  • http://www.robotjohnny.com Johnny

    Stop Motion Animation refers to the process of moving physical 3D objects in tiny increments

    You mean like the artist’s hands in this piece? This may not be strictly stop motion, but it’s not strictly traditional hand-drawn animation either. It’s experimental animation that maybe can’t be easily classified, but I don’t think you can say it’s categorically not stop motion.

    This isn’t a series of drawings after all — it’s one drawing on a physical surface that’s being manipulated frame by frame. The drawing(s) didn’t exist in a series before being photographed, in the same way that King Kong’s poses didn’t exist in a series prior to being photographed, so I think this method has far more in common with stop motion than it does with traditional 2D animation.

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/ Ward

    The correct term would be pixilation. Using the camera to shoot frame-by-frame of anything — puppets, people, objects, you name it. And if you read from that link I just gave you, you’ll see that it is basically a technique of stop motion. So yes, it’s closer to stop motion than 2D animation.

    Norman McLaren would dig this, that’s for sure.

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com Ward

    The correct term would be pixilation. Using the camera to shoot frame-by-frame of anything — puppets, people, objects, you name it. And if you read from that link I just gave you, you’ll see that it is basically a technique of stop motion. So yes, it’s closer to stop motion than 2D animation.

    Norman McLaren would dig this, that’s for sure.

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/ Ward

    Oh, and this is off the subject, but I’ve never heard these boards called “whiteboards.” I’ve only known them to be called “dry-erase boards.” Perhaps a regional thing?

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com Ward

    Oh, and this is off the subject, but I’ve never heard these boards called “whiteboards.” I’ve only known them to be called “dry-erase boards.” Perhaps a regional thing?

  • http://myspace.com/ljudbilden ljudbilden

    it says whiteboard on my pens = why i chose “whiteboard”
    stopmotion is a term everybody can relate to = why i chose it
    simple as that
    thanks for all the attention, drawn has drawn a couple of eye’s to my fram-by-frame-stopmotion-pixilation on dry-erase-whiteboard 2D (with 3D at some places) animation

    a lot of love!
    {·_·} (·◊·) [ · ∫·] (⁄¯º-º) -piloterna

  • http://myspace.com/ljudbilden ljudbilden

    it says whiteboard on my pens = why i chose “whiteboard”
    stopmotion is a term everybody can relate to = why i chose it
    simple as that
    thanks for all the attention, drawn has drawn a couple of eye’s to my fram-by-frame-stopmotion-pixilation on dry-erase-whiteboard 2D (with 3D at some places) animation

    a lot of love!
    {·_·} (·◊·) [ · ∫·] (⁄¯º-º) -piloterna

  • http://www.robotjohnny.com/ Johnny

    That’s funny, Ward — must be a Canadian/European thing.

  • http://www.robotjohnny.com Johnny

    That’s funny, Ward — must be a Canadian/European thing.

  • ralphm2k

    I’m thinking it’s photographed the erasing.

  • ralphm2k

    I’m thinking it’s photographs of erasing.

  • ralphm2k

    I’m thinking it’s photographed the erasing.

  • ralphm2k

    I’m thinking it’s photographs of erasing.