Camera-less animation: Creating a Thaumatrope

As we are exploring stop-motion animation, we looked at some of the first types of moving imagery before the notion of animation and film was prevalent.
We each made a Thaumatrope. This was a popular toy in the 19th century. It consisted of two images, normally on circular pieces of card, stuck together, back to back, with a piece of string in between them. When twirling the piece of string rapidly the two images become one.
Here is an example. On one side is the brightly coloured bird, on the other is the cage, when twirling the string on the left and right of the images, they appear to become one.



Here is my attempt at making a Thaumatrope. To make it, I used a pencil, a permanent marker, two pieces of card, a long piece of string (doubled to make it thicker) a ruler and a compass.

 Firstly I measured the card and cut it into equal sizes. Then I drew a dog on the right side of one piece of card.

Next I drew a cat on the left side of the second piece of card.

I then glued the two pieces of card together, back to back. Making sure that the image behind is upside down and that the drawings were adjacent to one another. Next I measured the left and right sides of the card and made holes with a compass in the centre. I put the string through the holes and folded it in half so it was thicker for better grip and control when spinning the Thaumatrope.

I then coloured the images in with permanent marker as they would stand out better as silhouettes.

Here is how the finished Thaumatrope looks.

As you can see, I made a rectangular shape rather than a circular. After trying and testing it, I think a circular shape would work better. Also I attached separate pieces of string at either end instead of running a single length of string between the two pieces of card. I think the spinning motion would have been better had I made it that way.

Quote

"A truth whispered among animators is that 70% of a shows impact comes from the soundtrack" Michel Dougherty

Personally I believe the percentage of impact to be equal for both visual and audio. The emotion you feel when you are watching anything is hugely increased by the soundtrack accompanying it. The imagery can be anything from beautiful and moving to chaos and carnage, however I believe it to be the right soundtrack that provokes the wealth of emotions experienced.
As for the use of the word "whispered", this gives us the impression that it is a secret that animators don't want to admit. Understandably so as their job is to create the actual imagery we see before us so to admit that most of the impact comes from the music would be quite difficult for an animator. However it is the soundtrack that brings that animation to life. It is a collaboration, without the soundtrack we would not experience the amount of emotion intended and vice versa.