I did a test print of my book the other day just to see how thick it would actually be and if the sizing and flipping works. It was good because it let me see what I needed to fix up in terms of the layout aaand it also made me realize (from cutting each page with a ruler and an exacto) that I am going to need some sort of crazy guillotine or something, because even if I cut each page exactly with the crop marks it will not be precise enough to assure that they are EXACTLY the same size, and this is a necessity for optimum flipping. Guillotine anyone? (my book is about 1/2" thick so it needs to be a pretty sharp one)
So I'm thinking that instead of page numbers, which upon further thought seems slightly useless and doesn't really add anything to this project, I want to enhance that message of time and speed by using little clock icons where the page numbers would usually be. For my "fast" story, the clock will start at 9:00am and end at 5:00pm (a typical office-job work day) and will be animated in the same way as the main imagery so that when the book is being flipped it looks as though the clock is quickly spinning through the hours. And then for the "slow" story the clock will appear to tick at a slower pace.
I want to try and keep the cover as simple as possible in keeping with the inside content. I'm thinking of just using type. The cover will be a wrap-around and since there are essentially two books in one, I want to also play with this aspect on the cover.Here's my initial concept, just playing with the two opposing words Pell-mell and Lull:
I'm thinking that instead of writing a fictional story for this half of the book I want to include facts about the pace of modern life and the benefits of living life at a slower pace. I found an article that pretty much covers everything:
The Slow Life
Do you have the feeling that life is getting away from you, that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done? Don’t worry, it’s not just you, the pace of city life really is speeding up.
A recent survey by the University of Hertfordshire and British Council found that city dwellers are walking 10 percent faster than in 1994. Singapore topped the list with locals rushing around 30 percent faster than they were in the early 1990’s.
Deliberately slowing your walking pace in the city against this rising tide of rushaholics could see you swiftly swatted out of the way by irritable commuters, but just by toning down the nagging sense that you have to do more, and do it faster, can have plenty of long term benefits.
“We live in a world that is obsessed with speed that is stuck in fast forward. We often lose sight of the damage that this road-runner form of life does to us -- on our health, our diet, our work,” he said.
Slowing, not slacking
Resist the tug of technology: turn off your mobile, don’t send that email just yet and try and forget, just for a few minutes, about the thousand tedious tasks that you feel need to be done.
The stigma attached to slowing down equates it with an idleness at odds with the dominant work ethos of always doing more and doing it faster.
As well as the slow food movement, there are slow towns, aiming to improve the quality of life for inhabitants and making them more pleasant places to live. It’s more a philosophical statement rather than a directive.
“But why slow down when you can multi-task,” you might ask? Well, multi-tasking is a flawed skill and there’s been plenty of scientific research to prove it. “Multi-tasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes,” David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, told the New York Times. “Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”
That’s not to say that people who have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time are more enlightened, but most people who have juggled a number of tasks at the same time won’t need scientific research to confirm that by doing many things at once, you’re less likely to do any of them well.
3 Tips to live a slow life
1. Drink more tea -- making a cup of tea is the perfect pursuit and displacement activity to idly consider absolutely nothing and everything. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu called it an essential ingredient in the elixir of life, so it can’t be bad.
2. Walk more -- what could be better than moving at a pace nature intended and getting some fresh air round your chops. You’ll see much more than by taking public transport or driving.
3. Realize that time is nothing more than an abstract concept used to measure the distance between to points, it’s futile and pointless to even consider ‘beating’ it, so don’t try.
I've been bouncing back and forth on whether I want to colour the frames or not. I'm leaning towards not, just because I really like the way the lines look and I feel like adding colour would be a distraction from what I'm trying to communicate. Any thoughts?
So now I've started placing all the frames into a final layout. Instead of just having the text of the story as a static element appearing line by line, I decided to have it move onto the page and scroll up so that when the book is being flipped it is also part of the animation. After a talk with Reg I realized that the point of including text in this flip book was to play with the whole issue of timing - the user can either flip the book and skim the surface of what's going on or they can choose to take the extra time and engage with the text, so the line by line thing wouldn't have worked as well for that purpose.
On that note I was also considering changing the last line of the story to play with the the idea of flipping through vs. taking the time to read by changing it to something like: "One day as Marty is rushing out of his car to a very important meeting at work, he sees himself, just a glimpse, in the reflection of the door as it slams shut. A tired resemblance of his former being. Wrinkles, shadows, the fast life is taking it’s toll. And he wonders, Will anyone even bother to read this story?" Because there is a fair amount of text in the book I've included page numbers - they count down instead of up though to tie into the whole theme of the story and the character's impending demise.
I think I will have a different cover and title for the two different sections of the book. Some initial ideas for titles (I've highlighted my favourites):
FAST * I need this yesterday! * You snooze, you loose! * The Fast Lane. * Speed Junkie. * Turbo. * Pell-mell.
SLOW * Slow and Steady Wins the Race. * Pause. * Respite. * Breathing Space. * Lull. * Interlude. * Time Out. * Recharge.
Here's the to do list from my previous blueprint. Grey= Done. Green = Doing. Blue = haven't started yet.
TO DO
content * conduct research * write story x2 * capture footage of characters x2 * edit footage and export frames for animation x2 * trace frames to form line drawings x2 * add colour * figure out binding method * place frames in layout * add type * title, legal info, dedication ???
construction * create test mock-up * print (double-sided) * bind
So I've managed to edit the footage down to a more manageable chunk and from that I've started sketching out the frames for the animation.
Here are the first 30 frames. (the sketches are still a little rough and will be cleaned up for the final). I'm not sure if I should add colour to the sketches or just leave them as line drawings, any thoughts?
When I went home for thanksgiving I managed to rope my brother and sister into letting me film them to get a base on which to build my final flip book animations. My brother did a good job once he got into it, but when I turned the camera on my sister she couldn't stop smiling, so I'll have to edit that out when I make the sketches.
I've been trying to find some real life flip books so that I can have a look at how they are constructed, what kind of paper would be best to use, and so on. Thank god for Pages! They kicked Chapters butt on the flip book front. They have a whole little shelving section set up at their front desk with books by multiple authors/artists as well as pretty much the entire Santiago Melazinni flip book collection. I flipped every available book in that section and in the end decided that the Melazinni books were the best in terms of their construction and how they moved in your hands, and at only $6.95 I HAD to get a couple!! I got a really nice black and white yoga one which shows a sun salutation sequence and a fun bubble blowing one (posted below).
*As a side note I actually called Chapters out of interest to see if any of their locations sold these books (cause they did have them on their online store) but not a single location, not even that big one on Bloor, had them in stock.
So here's a very rough draft of one of the stories for my book. I'm thinking of breaking up the text so that it enhances the fast-paced tone of this half of the book and speaks to the fact that nowadays we tend to skim words or sentences when we read. There will be one sentence/chunk per page along with a frame of the animation.
Marty Swift is a speed junkie. He eats fast, talks a mile-a-minute... ... to five different people at a time... ... drives like a fugitive... ... and is always looking towards his next milestone. “It’s called multitasking.” he says triumphantly to himself... ... as he slurps down a bowl of cereal in the shower. To fuel his turbo routine, Marty consumes a crap-load of caffeine.... in the form of coffee, Red Bull, Rock Star, Power Horse, Full Throttle, Tab, Jolt Cola, Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt. ..it’s a real drink, caffeine pills. He’s tried them all.
And what does he do with this caffeine-fueled vigor? Everything! Marty is the proud owner of many “time-saving” devices On top of all the usual suspects (electric stove, flush toilet, hot water system, toaster, kettle, blender) Marty also owns The Roomba vacuuming robot, instant coffee, automatic garage door, push button ignition on his car, and several of those electronic picture frames that cycle through images of friends and family so that you never have to change it.
Marty has a lot of friends, but he connects with them briefly. a chat over coffee here, a short e-mail there, or a quick phone call, interrupted of course, by a beep on the other line... ... that just HAS to be answered! He flits from one social encounter to another... ... like a butterfly... ... but with less grace. You see... ... all that fast food... ... and “no time” to exercise... ... has not done any favours for Marty’s waistline. Drive-throughs and microwaves are Marty’s culinary companions. If it ain’t fast it ain’t gonna last!... ...is his motto. But do these “time-saving” devices and technologies really given him more time to enjoy life as they claim ? or does he just use this extra time to become even more busy.
Marty works at an advertising agency – Think F*#%$ing Quick (or we’ll lose our jobs) Studio. Where vague briefs, tight deadlines, and even tighter shirt collars are a way of life. He’s been competing hard for an upcoming promotion... ...to a faster-paced, more hectic job than the one he currently has... ...which is already supersonic. Speed is king in the workplace! Of course, all this haste results in cut corners... ... inside the box thinking... ... and many, MANY mistakes... ...but as long as they meet the deadlines right? “I need this yesterday!” yells Marty’s boss. There’s no time for reflection. “Didn’t we make the same mistake when we worked on the Cheese Whiz account?” Ah well, no-one will notice anyway... ...they’ll all be too busy rushing around in their own lives.
Not surprisingly, eight of Marty’s co-workers are off sick today... burnt out, anxious, depressed, exhausted, ...on the verge of cardiac arrest... Or at least another pimple. But not Marty! well not yet anyway. Marty won’t find out that he has cardiovascular disease till next month because “Who has time for a visit to the doctor these days?!” and even after he discovers this alarming fact Marty will continue to push himself. He’s more afraid of failure than his impending demise. Too obsessed with punctuality, productivity and progress.
He did take a vacation once. He went to New York for a week, tried to squeeze in as many possible sights, day trips and tours as possible, and ended up coming home more exhausted than he had been when he left!
Instead of taking a proper vacation Marty tries to cope with his stress induced anxiety... ... by smoking. but nicotine is actually a stimulant. Don’t be too hard on him though. It’s not his fault. Speed is a natural part of our daily lives... ... where each fast aspect... ... is necessary... ... for the other fast aspects to happen. It is part of our vocabulary... ... “You snooze, you lose!” So “Get up to Speed!”
One day... as Marty is rushing... ... out of his car... ... to a very important meeting at work, he sees himself just a glimpse... ... in the reflection of the door as it slams shut. A tired resemblance of his former being.. wrinkles shadows the fast life is taking it’s toll. The biological cost of his need for speed: accelerated aging. He’s been pressing “fast forward” without realizing that... ... there’s no rewind on THIS remote.
* 2 books in one * subject of book will address speed and pace of life * flip-book component * smaller format – easy to hold in hand, easy to flip * self cover, glued spine (for optimum springy/flippyness) OR Japanese-Style binding (not sure which would work best, maybe Japanese would work with my "slow down" message.) * thicker stock for the cover, medium weight paper for inside content * 80-100 pages (enough to flip with) (after doing some research into flip books I estimated that for 12 seconds of animation takes about 150 pages)
THE NITTY GRITTY
* Overarching message/theme/topic of exploration: the fast pace of life in the West, the negative effects it has on our lives and the importance of slowing down. * The user will flip/read through the book one way and then turn it over and flip/read through the other way. * animation images will take up about 1/3 of the page and will always be on the outside.
* There will be 2 stories, featuring 2 different characters: one who partakes in all aspects of the fast pace of his society and the other who has learnt to slow down. * stories will be fictional but based on research. * animation for fast-paced story will show the character doing many things at once and getting older/more tired as it progresses. (multiple hands: holding cell phone, drinking coffee, on laptop, eating etc.) * animation for slow paced story will show the character barely moving reading a book with a cup of tea (or something) a contented look on their face. * playing with pacing both in the animation itself and also in the fact that the reader can flip through both stories quickly and get a gist of what is going on OR take the time and read the stories which will give the animations greater depth and meaning. (which is kind of the point - life will have more meaning if you slow down at least once in a while and appreciate the moment [page] instead of always rushing to get to the next chapter)
APPEARANCE
* animations will be simple line drawings, with splashes of colour * maybe the animation for the fast-paced story could be drawn like someone did it in a hurry with ink splotches and mistakes here and there. * typographically there will also be a suggestion of pacing in the way it is presented. (e.g fast-paced story might have congested looking type) * potential titles: “speed junkies”, “i need this yesterday”, “up to speed?”
TO DO
content * conduct research * write story x2 * capture footage of characters x2 * edit footage and export frames for animation x2 * trace frames to form line drawings x2 * add colour * figure out binding method * place frames in layout * add type * title, legal info, dedication ???
construction * create test mock-up * print (double-sided) * bind
Because the subject matter of my book deals with time and pacing, I would like to incorporate a flip-book element into the final piece.
Surprisingly I found it quite difficult to track down specific published flip books, but I did come across this guy Santiago Melazzini, a photographer and filmmaker who has published a whole series of flip books on a wide range of different subjects from tango to soup.
Here are a couple of videos of the books in motion: