University of Houston



Shaunna Smith

CUIN 7358-Educational Uses of Digital Photography and Digital Storytelling

Dr. Bernard Robin

December 5, 2008

The Making of: “How Pop-ups Got Their Pop”

I knew that I had high hopes for my final project; therefore I tried to receive topic approval as soon as possible, which in this case was the second week of school. I chose to work on the topic of “pop-up books” because I could draw from my art history background and discuss the artistic techniques behind their creation, as well as their importance within children’s literature. Because I began researching my topic at such an early stage of the semester, it allowed me to explore many resources and I was able to explore a variety of hardware and software.

FINDING CONTENT

The content for my project was found from a variety of sources. Images were found from various books and websites (see “Featured Works” on page 4). Though there were mot many resources on my topic, research for my script was found in a variety of articles, books, and websites devoted to the topic (see “Bibliography” on page 5).

Script

Due to the fact that I only found a handful of resources that covered the topic, I struggled with how I could make the information my own…how I could make it different from everything else I was finding on the topic. What I discovered was that most of the resources had varying timelines in which some would mention people and works that were not mentioned by others. I decided to attempt to consolidate the timeline as much as I could and I decided to add an emphasis on the evolution of the complexities of paper mechanisms and how contemporary paper engineers utilize the mechanisms of the past within their creations.

Images

One of the biggest challenges that I faced was the lack of quality images available online, particularly for older works that are now out of print. Images that I found were either too small in size or had poor resolution; therefore, I could not use them. Thankfully, Dr. Abrahamson allowed me to sift through his book collection, in which I found several books that he allowed me to photograph and video. Using the CITE lab light table, I was able to mount my cameras and take aerial shots of the books. As necessary, I used Adobe Photoshop to edit color and contrast within my images and I used Windows Movie Maker to edit my video clips.

This left with me missing only a few proper examples, but then I stumbled upon the website for the US National Library of Medicine which highlighted their recent acquisitions of rare volvelles and Johan Remmelin anatomy texts. That was able to provide me with adequate images to cover the earlier works.

There was a plethora of images available for contemporary works; however, again the images were varying in quality and the videos were poorly done or too grainy for use within my project. At this point I decided that I needed to contact some major players and beg for permission to use their visuals. I contacted the webmaster for Robert Sabuda’s website and was granted permission to use all of the images within the website. This provided me with great images of his own work plus great images of older pull-tab and pop-up books.

My biggest achievement was contacting Reel FX, the special effects company that did the pop-up transitions for Disney’s movie Enchanted (2007). I found an online press release that mentioned that Reel FX had created the effects used in the movie, which led me to their website. After scouring their site I found a short video, 4 Little Transitions, that showed how they made the transitional effects for the movie. I contacted them and asked if I could use the online video for my project and, to my surprise, was immediately contacted by the project manager. She and I spoke about the details of my project and how I would be citing my sources, etc., and next thing I know I am receiving a package in the mail that has a CD with additional videos that they gave me full permission to use in my project. From the videos I was able to pull pre-production examples and final cuts of the transitions. I was also given permission to use their own dialogue to comment on how difficult the process was to recreate the pop-up mechanisms and how the team now has a “profound respect for the pop-up”.

For the rest of the visuals needed for my project, I took photographs and video of works from my own collection of pop-up books. With the help of my husband, I was able to set up a tripod and a white screen to video the movements of pop-up pages and hidden compartments within the books.

Audio

I recorded several rough cuts of my script just to check the timing of my story. This allowed me to see what I needed to trim and what I could emphasize more, which resulted in approximately 20 edited scripts. I used a basic microphone, Labtec AM-242, in addition to a Samson USB microphone that I borrowed from Dr. Robin. The USB microphone clearly produced a better quality audio so that is what I used to record my final script in one successive file. I chose to record it in this manner because I knew that I was including video along with my Photo Story clips and I wanted to ensure that my dialogue would flow over the segments instead of having abrupt delays between them. I used Goldwave to edit superfluous pauses and to fix certain “pops” within my recording.

One of my biggest challenges was selecting the appropriate music to accompany my script. Though it may seem as if this would be easy, it was rather hard to find copyright free, instrumental music that added a suitable feel to my digital story. Most of the music I found was either too busy, thus confusing the listener, or too slow, which bored the listener. I have to admit that I am still not 100% happy with my music selection, The Old Guys (courtesy of ); however, I polled numerous people, including my family members and classmates, and they said that it sounded good and did not detract from my script or the visuals. Again, I used Goldwave to mix the music with my recorded script. I had difficulty getting the volume levels where I wanted them to be so I wound up trimming the first 5 seconds of the music and created a crossfade with the mixed track so that I could transition from full volume music to softer music behind the full volume recorded script.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Due to the fact that I had various pieces of content to work with: still images, video, and a mixed audio track, I needed to use more than one piece of software to bring them all together into one file. For this, I used Photo Story 3 for Windows and Windows Movie Maker.

Photo Story 3 for Windows

I edited thematic units of my still images separately within Photo Story. I did it separately so it would be easier to organize them in Movie Maker, as well as it would be easier to edit and make changes throughout the production process (which came in very handy several times).I timed the individual portions of my script and then created clips in Photo Story to match, utilizing the basic fade transition, fade in, fade out, and panning. Each clip was saved as a WMA file (with no audio) for use in Movie Maker.

Windows Movie Maker

I utilized Movie Maker to bring all of the individual elements of my project together. I created a title image in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for the beginning which was coupled with instrumental music. I also used still frame images together with Movie Maker title effects to create a 5 second introduction for each paper mechanism because I wanted there to be a clear distinction between them throughout the digital story. Intermingled among these were the imported WMA clips created in Photo Story and my personal edited video clips. Movie Maker provided me with a lot of creative freedom in terms of trimming my video clips to work perfectly with my mixed audio, as well as the ability to insert blank space to fill in as necessary. I especially liked using the title effects because I feel that they were extremely easy to create and added a whole lot of clarity and professionalism to my finished product.

FINAL OUTCOMES

I learned a great deal throughout the process of completing this final project. I learned that though I started the second week of school, you can never start too early. Had I started later in the semester, I would not have had time to find some of my resources, edit my material properly, and I would have been incredibly stressed out (more so than I already was). I also learned that getting images of rare works is a very tedious process. You have to properly ask for permission from the sources and allow adequate time to wait for a response. Sometimes it is a matter of hours but other times it is a matter of weeks, if at all (at the time of this paper, I am currently still waiting for responses from 2 sources, which needless to say were not used in the production of this project).

Featured Works

Anonymous, Theorica Planetarum, (1600)7

Anonymous, Collection of Astrological Writings, (15th century)7

Apianus, Petrus, Astronomicon Caesareum, (1540)7

Blue Ribbon Press, Tarzan, (1935)19

Blue Ribbon Press, Cinderella, (20th century)19

Braun, Isabella, The Little Actors Theater, (1981 reproduction)16

Callesen, Peter, Impenetrable Castle, (2005)2

Carle, Eric, The Honeybee and the Robber, (1981)16

Cape, Jonathan, The Genius of Lothar Meggendorfer: A Movable Toy Book, (1985)17

Dean & Son, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, (1860)14

Dean & Son, Little Red Riding Hood, (19th century)14

Dean & Son, Movable Dog Party, (19th century)16

Giraud, Stephen Louis, Bookano Stories, No. 3, (1936)8

Giraud, Stephen Louis, Bookano Stories, No. 9, (1942)8

Giraud, Stephen Louis, Bookano Stories, No. 10, (1943)8

Hyman, Tina Schart, The Enchanted Forest, (1984)16

Kubasta, Vojtech, Dolonit Advertisement, (1950)3

Kubasta, Vojtech, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, (1955)3

Kubasta, Vojtech, Gulliver v Liliputu, (1956)3

Kubasta, Vojtech, Polar Flight, (1960)3

Kubasta, Vojtech, Tesla Advertisement, (1950)3

Meer, Ron van der; Sudjic, Deyan, Architecture Pack, (1997)1

Meer, Ron van der; Cooper, Adam, The Formula One Pack, (1999)1

Meer, Ron van der; Geller, Uri, Para Science Pack, (2000)9

Meer, Ron van der; McGowan, Alan P., Sailing Ships: Pop-up Book, (1997)1

Meggendorfer, Lothar, International Circus, (1979 reproduction)16

Meggendorfer, Lothar, Surprise! Surprise!, (1982 reproduction)17

Melcher Media, The Pop-up Book of Celebrity Meltdowns, (2006)9

Nister, Ernest, The Children’s Picture Book, (1980 reproduction)16

Nister, Ernest, Magic Windows: An Antique Revolving Picture Book, (1981 reproduction)17

Reel FX, 4 Little Transitions, (2007)4

Remmelin, Johann, Catoptrum Microcosmicum, (1613)12

Renihart, Matthew, Star Wars: A Pop-up Guide to the Galaxy, (2007)17

Sabuda, Robert; Baum, L. Frank, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, (2001)17

Sabuda, Robert; Carroll, Lewis, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, (2003)10, 17

Sabuda, Robert; Reinhart, Matthew, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, (2005)10

Sabuda, Robert; Reinhart, Matthew, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega Beasts, (2007)10

Sabuda, Robert; Reinhart, Matthew, Fairies & Magical Creatures, (2008)10, 17

Sabuda, Robert, Peter Pan, (2008)14

Sabuda, Robert, Wizard of Oz Pop-up Note Cards, (2002)14

Sayer, Robert, Queen Mab, (1771)20

Sayer, Robert, Harliquin’s Metamorphosis, (18th century)20

Sayer, Robert, Harliquin’s Tour, (18th century)20

Stark, Jen, Over and Out, (2008)18

Team One Advertising, Lexus Pop-up Book, (2007)24

Bibliography

1. Avella, N. (2006). Paper Engineering: 3D Design Techniques for 2D Material. Hove, East Sussex: Roto Vision.

2. Callesen, P. (2008). Selected Works. Retrieved from Peter Callesen:

3. Findlay, J. A., & Rubin, E. G. (2005). Pop-ups, Illustrated Books, and Graphic Designs of Czech Artist and Paper Engineer, Vojtech Kubasta (1914-1992). Fort Lauderdale, FL: Bienes Center for the Literary Arts.

4. FX, R. (2008). 4 Little Transitions: Making Enchanted FX Video.

5. Haining, P. (1979). Movable Books. New English Library.

6. Lee, M. (2008). Disks. Retrieved from Visual Lee: weblog/images/artbeat_06.jpg

7. Medicine, U. N. (2008). Recent Acquisitions . Retrieved from History of Medicine: happening/acquisitions/recentacquisitions.html

8. Monocat. (2008). Bookano Stories. Retrieved from Flickr: photos/monocat

9. Morph33. (n.d.). Origami Pop-up Book. Retrieved from Flickr: photos/97117914@N00

10. Noble, B. &. (2008). Cover Story: Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart. Retrieved from You Tube:

11. Pogue, D. (2007, November 11). A Galaxy in Your Face. The New York Times .

12. Rubin, E. G. (2004). Pop-up and Movable Books. Retrieved from The Popup Lady:

13. Sabuda, R. (2008). Explore Pop-ups. Retrieved from Robert Sabuda:

14. Sabuda, R. (Director). (2005). Popping Up in Ecuador: How a Pop-up Book is Made! [Motion Picture].

15. Saul, S. (2008). Volvelles. Retrieved from A Website: design/instructional/volvelles.html

16. Smith, S. V. (2008). Courtesy of Dr. Richard Abrahamson.

17. Smith, S., & Photograph. (2008). Courtesy of Dr. Richard Abrahamson.

18. Stark, J. (2008). Current Work. Retrieved from Jen Stark:

19. Texas, U. o. (n.d.). UNT Libraries: Pop-up and Movable Books A Tour Through Their History. Retrieved from UNT Libraries Exhibitions:

20. UK, P. P. (2007). Harliquinades. Retrieved from People Play UK Guided Tours: .uk/guided_tours/pantomime_tour/early_pantomime/harliquinades.php

21. University, R. (2008). Bookano Series. Retrieved from Rutgers Libraries: libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/montanar/daily.htm

22. Virginia, T. U. (2000). Pop Goes the Page. Retrieved from Pop Goes the Page: www2.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/theme.html

23. Wikipedia. (2008). "pop-up books", "Vojtech Kubasta", "volvelles". Retrieved from Wikipedia:

24. You Tube. (2007). Lexus Pop-up Book Video. Retrieved from You Tube:

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download