To animate your hedge it needs to be about a quarter of a mile long and of fairly straight and even geometry. You need to get a copy of "Animals in motion" by Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge - it's then a simple matter of transferring one of the running animal sequences using your best topiary skills (this bit may take some time). Once complete, to view the animation, simple drive past at a suitable speed, whilst your passenger observes the passing hedge at right angles through a vertical slot. Boring roundabouts could have toll controlled admission to allow cars to orbit circular hedges. Extremely long hedges could be converted into complex chase scenes, and for the truly ambitious the world of short film clips awaits.-- xenzag, Oct 12 2005 Praxinoscope http://brightbytes....llection/praxi.html [jurist, Oct 12 2005] Zoetrope http://brightbytes....ction/zoetrope.html [jurist, Oct 12 2005] (?) Magic Mirror Movie Records http://www.geocitie.../1302/movierecords/ [jurist, Oct 12 2005] (?) some images by E. Muybridge http://web.inter.nl...ridge/aam/aam-1.htm [cromagnon, Oct 12 2005] This might be an idea for plantings alongside a commuter railway line.-- Adze, Oct 12 2005 A spinning, cylindrical zoetopiary installation would doubtless go down a storm at the Chelsea Flower Show.-- calum, Oct 12 2005 Oooh, yes! Like the praxinoscope [link] records we had as kids. I remember spending hours and hours with "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" and Red Raven Magic Movie Mirrors records, which would translate beautifully as topiary for a special installation.-- jurist, Oct 12 2005 Where's the shuttering mechanism? It's a brilliant plan but it needs a shuttering mechanism, like a slatted fence next to the road.-- wagster, Oct 12 2005 Wouldn't the "vertical slot", as proposed by [xenzag] work though, [wagster]?+-- cromagnon, Oct 12 2005 This would brighten my twice daily bash around the M25 which serendipitously starts and ends in Eadweard Muybridge's home Borough. [+]-- coprocephalous, Oct 12 2005 //Wouldn't the "vertical slot", as proposed by [xenzag] work though//
No, it won't, you will just see a blur of green scrolling by behind the slot. Zoetropes work by shuttering (as do film projectors): there is a black, opaque barrier between your eye and the image which is removed at intervals, but only when the image is in the correct position. If you can see the images being moved in and out of the frame, the illusion is lost. If you had a black fence with thin vertical gaps at the side of the road this could perform the shuttering function as you drove along. As you drove past a gap, the figure behind would briefly become visible in the correct position, then disappear.-- wagster, Oct 12 2005 For "vertical slot" read "vertical slot shuttering mechanisim" subcontracted for refinement to the learned and helpful wagster-- xenzag, Oct 12 2005 I love this and I aint got round to reading it yet!
:)
o.k. read it.
I think the hedge should be circular and on some kind of turntable that you can rotate to any speed you like.-- po, Oct 12 2005 Out with the hedge clippers!-- 100 percent, Oct 12 2005 Mightn't the Vertical Slot be replaced by a suitably positioned picket fence (or picket fences)? I'm not sure, but maybe the parallax effect might somehow be able to provide the shuttering effect required.-- zen_tom, Oct 12 2005 //drive past at a suitable speed, whilst your passenger observes…//
This is wishful thinking, but hey, it’s the ‘bakery. +-- Shz, Oct 13 2005 Bun, especially if as Adze says it can be adapted for my train journey into work. I'd quite like a topiary version of the Ascent of Man, especially if I can descend back into an ape at the end of the day.-- rubyminky, Oct 13 2005 Parallax is the answer indeed. You need two parallel fences, with gaps in both fences lined up in front of each frame.
As you go past looking perpendicular to the fence, you would see only fence unless you were right next to a hole.
The illusion of motion would thus be sustained.-- GutPunchLullabies, Oct 13 2005 Yep...I've built many zoetropes for kids in order to demonstrate the principle of motion pictures...This idea is great...but the hedges idea would not be very practical except on a huge scale. I see a clever advertising freeway fence idea in this, though. With properly designed black painted "pickets" in front of a properly painted animation behind, this idea would certainly work. I suspect it would be so interesting that drivers would be distracted and may be likely to cause accidents... I don't see anyway it could be insured. But, think about it being built alongside roller coasters, water slides, and other moving rides in amusement parks...a great idea, really! I bun it.-- Blisterbob, Oct 13 2005 pastry on the voluntary version
arthur c clarke reference I wonder if "dave" had this going on during 2010 when there were a bunch of obelisks around jupiter; OMG Jupiter is a movie-- beanangel, Mar 13 2008 Well, I google image searched for "zoe" with the filtering turned off.
It was rewarding, but I don't think I'll post a link. I can recommend the exercise, however.-- normzone, Mar 13 2008 That's true for just about any generic female first name. Hell, even searching for "norm" with safesearch off will get you a naked dude (holding a guitar in front of his genitals, though).-- jutta, Mar 13 2008 Needn't be that generic, [Jutta]...-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 13 2008 Yeah, but that guy's a copycat. I'd need a bigger guitar :-)-- normzone, Mar 14 2008 random, halfbakery