Short papercraft film on the beauty of the book

Going West is a beautiful short film illustrating the worlds in a book, incorporating papercraft to make something dreamlike and wonderful. It was animated by Andersen M Studio.

NZ Book Council - Going West (via @GreatDismal)

25 Comments Add a comment

Anon #1 11:16 AM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

Quite astounding and so beautiful. I'm glad stop-animation seems to be returning to favor.

Chentzilla #2 11:33 AM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that the book is effectively vandalized to make a point?

aelfscine #3 11:40 AM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

With all the echoing and noise I could hardly understand a word he said, but it was gorgeous.

peterbruells #4 11:59 AM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

"Meh!"

Sorry, but I really, really hate that metaphor. As an avid reader, visualisation of what I read is a non-issue for me and for years I thought that it's only something children do. I don't have anything against movies, but the assumption that a book is some kind of mind-movie is somehow offensive to me.

@Chantzilla Probably not, but I don't really care. One can destroy a physical book, one can even destroy a great many physical books, but these days it's nearly impossible to suppress the content (yay), so only the act of explicit book-burning (as opposed to just using an obsolete book as kindling) makes me feel queasy.

lorq #5 12:00 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

Puts me in mind of the gorgeous "animated book" sequences from Greenaway's "Prospero's Books."

AT203 #6 12:13 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

Aw man, I would love to share this with people but the vocal effects totally ruin it.

Anon #7 12:49 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

I wish I could have heard what he was saying. The animation was beautiful.

peterbruelles: are you saying you don't visualize what you are reading?

Gloria #8 12:52 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

@2: No, because it was used for a reason, rather than censorship or casual vandalism.

mechko replied to comment from Chentzilla #9 12:55 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

I have no significant respect for physical books. The nail in the coffin was Steve Leveen's Little Guide to your Well Read Life (http://www.amazon.com/Little-Guide-Your-Well-Read-Life/dp/1929154178) which suggests that one should smell, taste and fondle a book prior to reading it in order to get the full effect of the reading experience.

In order to be able to understand a book (reading is very hard after all), one should read, first, the last word of every chapter, then the last sentence of every chapter, then the last paragraph, and so forth. Reading the book backwards allows you to understand the plot.

And fear not, this strategy is the most effective one for reading both Tolstoy AND Growing your own fruit and veg for dummies, by Geoff Stebbings (http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Your-Own-Fruit-Dummies/dp/0470699604/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258923293&sr=1-1)

clockbound #10 1:59 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

#2 - Destroying a random, machine bound commercial book? Whatever. That thing's already eating itself anyway. A nice old handbound book, that's something else entirely.

Anon replied to comment from Chentzilla #11 2:28 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

As a filmmaker, I can say it's highly unlikely any actual books were harmed for the making of this movie. The paper appears to have been laser cut. I suspect a number of prop books were created, at various sizes, in order to pull off the amazing animation of this thing.

Anon #12 2:48 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7LgngwByY

Another really beautiful papercraft animation.

Chentzilla #13 3:18 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

It's not that I feel pity for the book, I just think that the message of the video can be read as "To understand a book, destroy it".

Anon #14 3:23 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

The intro with the pages folding over shows the same page twice in a row, containing the text "That's can't be right." Draw your own conclusions from that.

Anon #15 4:14 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

I highly recommend the author Maurice Gee. He's one of NZ's best known writers (and for good reason).

Lady Katey #16 6:51 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

re "destroying" the book:

There is an art movement known as 'book arts'... much of which involved 'altered books.' If you were offended by this animation, I don't recommend looking into them. But if you liked this, you might be interested.

Anon #17 7:51 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

I've seen a whole lot of amazing stuff on Boing Boing over the past three or four years, and this one is among the gems. Wow.

apoxia #18 8:56 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

What a bunch of moaners!

The video was cool, go New Zealand!!

zikman replied to comment from Anonymous #19 9:33 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

dunno what you were looking at
http://i47.tinypic.com/30x8s9k.png

peterbruells replied to comment from Anonymous #20 11:23 PM Sunday, Nov 22, 2009 Reply

@Anonymous Yes, I'm saying that. While I *can* visualize just fine when I want, I don't do so automatically. I do keep track of the described facts (placement, time, hair color, gender), but – excuse the lame metaphor - more in an abstract prolog-ish way. Only as a kid I read something and it invoked pictures of what it might have looked like by itself, but I think that was only for Karl May's Wild West stories and Astrid Lindgren stuff.

kjh #21 4:27 AM Monday, Nov 23, 2009 Reply

Odd, the narrator seems to me to have an Australian accent, not a kiwi accent.

dm10003 #22 8:41 AM Monday, Nov 23, 2009 Reply

kicks nook's ass.

treli #23 12:19 PM Monday, Nov 23, 2009 Reply

This video is really cool. But the book "Going West", in my opinion, is incredible.

Anon #24 10:30 AM Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010 Reply

Beautifully realized stop-frame dreaming excised from print-page pulp with an x-acto sensibility! Norman McLaren would have been made proud!

Anon #25 9:47 PM Saturday, May 29, 2010 Reply

This took 3 or 4 2010 Clio awards by the way... thought you'd like to know if you didn't already.

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