Laura's Disney Lines

"The Toy Story *what?*" is what I'm sure you're all asking! At least, that's that *I* said when I saw the sign outside the Animation Gallery inside DCA's Animation Building.

According to a Pixar press release, the zoetrope is a "kinetic installation... an early cinema device that created the optical illusion of static images in motion. The 7' (high) x 12' (diameter) zoetrope, which is cycled to synchronize with the artscape installation, features characters from both Toy Story films and uses a series of strobe lights to make the Toy Story characters Buzz, Woody, Wheezy, and others revolve around a central spindle, out of which hordes of toy soldiers parachute down."

And from a Disney press release: "Originally created for the '20 Years of Pixar Production Art Show' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Zoetrope creates the illusion of movement by presenting a rapidly changing sequence of images - actual three-dimensional models - of characters from both Toy Story films: Woody, Buzz Lightyear, cowgirl Jessie, horse Bullseye and even the little green Aliens. The figures are mounted on a spinning disk and lit with a strobe which creates a sense of continuous motion, as if the characters have actually come to life before your eyes."

Initially I thought it looked like a carousel - only with Toy Story characters instead of horses. But when you take a closer look, you can see that the characters' poses vary.

We stood in the room for a couple of minutes, then all of a sudden the room lights dimmed and the lights inside the zoetrope became brighter. It started to spin, and music started to play. At first everything was just a blur, but then the strobe light effect began and the characters appeared to be moving in an animated sequence - Woody rode a bucking Bullseye, Jessie spun a rope up and down, Buzz walked on top of a ball, the green army men parachuted down, and my favorite, the penguins and the little green guys collaborated in a stunt where the penguins catapulted a green guy into the air and then he dove into a hole in the floor. One really interesting thing - the display was spinning counter-clockwise, but all of the action, except Buzz on his ball, appeared to be moving clockwise.

The "show" is a couple of minutes long, and it's really very cool to watch.

I took a video with my digital camera and put it on YouTube - unfortunately the quality suffered in converting it to something YouTube could handle, and the video frame rate doesn't match up with the strobe rate so the animation isn't as smooth, but it'll still give you the idea.

Toy Story Zoetrope video