Memories of Childhood Biking I’ve created a prototype zoetrope to visualise the movement of cycling as a container for archiving people’s memories of cycling from their childhood. Each recording is an account of someone’s memory of when they first rode a bike or a particular memory that sticks in their mind. 82% of people agree that learning to ride a bike was a milestone in their childhood/life. I believe this way of an interactive archive could be useful for pre-school children who are yet able to ride without stabilisers to understand how they might find cycling an importance in their life. The feedback I received I thought was fair. They found it fun and interactive which I wanted it to be and the comments for improvement I agree upon as well. They believed that I should had used a better choice of material for zoetrope which I mentioned before I wish I had done. They recommended I could had tried checking out the 3D Workshop space at the university that I had forgotten existed. Another they recommended was having the recordings playing without headphones. The reason I used headphones was because I thought the studio space would be noisy and it'd be difficult to listen to like what had happened before during the exhibition for Experimentation and Expanded Forms project at the church. If I were to present this in front of children to play with, I do believe that the sound should be playing out loud without headphones as I would imagine a few children surrounding the zoetrope to watch the animations and would all need to listen at the same time. The feedback also recommended that I experimented with lighting. This was something I hadn't considered throughout the whole project. I'm not too sure how I could experiment with lighting and what sort of effects that would have on the piece. Perhaps a way I could experiment with it is by having a light source in the centre and treat it like the zoetrope like a bedside lamp, however I feel doing this would distract the viewer from the animation itself. Overall I'm pleased with my ideas and that people found my final outcome fun and interactive. The only thing I'm disappointed with is the execution of the final outcome as as a professional, working piece, however I'm aware what would had made it better and will consider these different aspects for future projects that may involve similar elements.
Making the Zoetrope proved to be more difficult than I expected. I used resources that I had at hand such as card and cardboard but after constructing it, I realised more and more along the way that it was the wrong choice of medium. The card caused friction slowing down the pace of spinning greatly and the base was not sturdy enough to keep itself straight when it spun. I was overly disappointed with how my zoetrope turned out looking like. It didn't have that professional look to it. As I was developing the zoetrope for a long time, I realised using a smoother and sturdier material such as metal like the ones in the Musuem would had been a wiser choice, however I was running out of time and I wasn't sure where I could get this type of resource.
My original test animation I produced had the bicycles facing the right hand side and when I printed and spun them with my right hand, it was in reverse! So I made sure that for all my further strips frames were in order from Right to Left.
For this animation strip, I attempted making it look like the person was cycling on and off screen, however when in the Zoetrope, this didn't happen at all, the animation wasn't fluid. I looked back at the animation strips from the Museum and noticed that none of them did this type of technique and this is probably why. I decided to change it so that image was more static in its positioning on the frame.
I made the animation more simple and included the two lampposts to refer to movement of up and down the street still, and it worked a lot better.
I'm not pleased with my final prints of the strips because they're 60cm long and I didn't plan beforehand to buy and print onto A2 in order for it to be on one single sheet. I had to print my work on an A4 printer and onto different sheets of paper and stick them together. This attributes to my Zoetrope looking more unprofessional. I wish I had more time to ensure I could book a slot at the university to print on A2 but making the animation frames and the Zoetrope took up more time than I had expected. I think my time management in this past week wasn't efficient enough for me to produce an effective and professional looking Zoetrope and animations.
Below are Digital Animations of the Strips.
![]() I presented my ideas that I had developed in the past week and the group thoroughly enjoyed the idea. I asked if presenting a film or the interactive zoetrope would be best to present for the fact show, and the interactive zoetrope was what preferred and I agree upon also. The motive of cycling is that it's an interactive activity of pedalling yourself forwards, and the idea of allowing the viewer to interact with the zoetrope is most appropriate. They also suggested that for each strips that I use different point of views and angles so that each one was different. I liked this idea because it includes the speakers's perspective of their story which I find is more appealing to watch.
My next step is to now begin making the zoetrope and the animation strips based on the recordings to create my final outcome. Recordings from Survey from Gemma Aylward on Vimeo.
I really liked the idea of a child reading out other people's memories of riding a bike, I feel that it brings it back to being a child at that particular time of that persons life. I'm not too keen on using one video of every sound recording as hearing the same voice straight after one another sounds very bland. I think if I were to do it as one video, I'd want a mix of different children voices so that its not the same continuous voice going on. I do like the recordings as individuals though, so I feel that I should present them as individual clips that the audience can flick between. I think that adds audience interaction which is something I like my work to have.
I learnt to ride a bike properly when my next door neighbour had the stabilisers taken off of her bike and I wanted to try it too! A few years later we were both cycling around our street and rode full speed into each other, resulting in both of us falling off, her flying over the handlebars and her bike landing on top of her.. ouch!
My first bike was five pounds from a friend. Used to have family bike trips around some lakes and the woods, stopping at a place where a lady sold home-made cottage cheese. I just remember cycling up and down my road for ages when I was first allowed to go out on my own. The first time i rode a bike, i didn't know how to brake, and thus I went straight into the hedge at the end of my driveway. I had to remember to dodge the dog poo. Used to go to the park with my dad and he'd hold my seat whilst I tried to balance. There was a certain part in the park that all my family and siblings used to use to learn to ride our bikes. I still remember the moment my dad just let go of the back of the bike seat and I was riding the bike without stabilisers for the first time. Me and my brother both got our first bikes which matched but were different colours for Christmas, so we spent Christmas morning riding round the house. When I was little I used to sit on the seat of my dad’s bike while he cycled standing up, it felt like I had my own personal driver. I tried to ride bike up a curb and stacked it and grated my knee all up. I used to wake up at 7 most days in the summer holidays and go on a long bike ride along the canal with my adult cousin and take a bowl, milk and cereal with me and we would make breakfast and eat it on the banks of the canal. My sister plonked me on her bike that was far too big for me and pushed me down the hill. Amazingly I managed to hold the handlebars rather steady and remain upright all the way down the hill, despite my feet waving around and the helmet slipping over my eyes. As you can imagine my journey was terminated in a very prickly manner and it was a while before the trauma wore off and I was ready to give it another go. There was a little hill in the park and I would walk the bike up it, to then just ride down with my feet off the pedals. My grandad is a keen cyclist, bikes are his passion, so it was great once I learnt because we could spend time together. We still go for bike rides now. My first bike was a £1 from a yard sale. It was my dad who taught me up and down the street. I’ve fallen a few times, would bash my teeth but always got back onto a bike, it never put me off. I also have a lot of scars from falling off, because I would always go too fast and forget to brake. My brother taught me how to ride a bike, it was either ride a bike or get conkers thrown at me. I remember looking back and seeing my parents grinning their heads off. After speaking with Sinead about possibilities of what the context of my animations could be, I referred back to my survey where people had told me their stories of riding or learning to ride a bike as a child. I thought to develop these into recordings that overlap my animations from a Zoetrope, similar to how Fusco's created her films with Rebecca Davies. Me and Sinead agreed that using a children's voice would be quite a good choice as it's people reminiscing about their childhood. On the same day as my tutorial, I visited Seb AKA The Bike Man, who is a bicycle mechanic in Norwich. It was great to meet and visit Seb and to see his workspace. It was great to see his personal space and how he works. Seb himself is a bike enthusiast and I gathered a lot of information about Seb and cycling being a hobby then later on a career for him, as well as different type of bicycles and the sort of people that would visit him for repairs or to buy/hire. I found each bike in his space filled with different characteristics and personalities, not one was alike another. I also documented some of what Seb had told me to record later on for the idea I developed earlier this day.
After explaining that I want to concentrate on childhood memories for my project, Fiona suggested that I visit the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnel Green to find kinetic movement in childhood toys, and I'm really glad that I did.
I loved the interactive side to the Zoetrope's of the Musuem. I thought that they represented the idea of a circular spinning movement alike bicycle wheels perfectly. The idea of using a children's interactive 'toy' to relate to childhood memories of cycling sounds like a perfect connection for me. I think to develop from this, I could make my own animations using a zoetrope and present it as a film. What I feel like I need to define is the context of the animation itself.
A Bicycle Ride from Gemma Aylward on Vimeo.
"From the top of we had a magnificent view of the surrounding country and a more magnificent ride down into Market Weighton. We just sat there on our bikes and coasted on and on into the plain in which York stands. A brief stay in the town gave us a chance to buy some teacakes and apples to help us on our way. A few showers had to be faced, but by the time we reached York, both of us were warm and dry." (ed. Smith, 2006 p.6)
Smith, M. ed., (2006) A Bicycle Ride from Norwich to Sunderland in 1950 By Leslie Brown, aged 40, and David Brown, aged 11. Norwich: Stolen Press. This was the first time I had made an animation type piece of work. I thought animation would be most suitable as cycling is all about the movement. I was hoping to include sound however I ran out of time to include any alongside that I believed to be relevant. I did originally plan to go out and film sound similar to the Chris Paul Daniels workshop we had done previously. I also though due to the lack of time to maybe find some license-free sounds from the BBC FreeSFX's, however I still didn't allow myself time to search through and find the ones which I believed would give the appropriate atmosphere of what I was trying to depict. The slow pacing of the animation would had made the use of sound more significant because it allows the viewers to listen more carefully to the the sound in connection to that current image. I do wish I had planned my time more efficiently to allow sound because that was one aspect people commented on for improvement. Another improvement needed was the typeface which I agree upon. I think because of the way I was rushing this, I didn't look through for the most appropriate typeface and the one I had used was rather unfitting. I was trying to match the final shot typeface for York that I hand-drew, I think it would had been a better match if I hand-drew the typeface in the same manner. From the comments people left, they did notice that I had depicted the British countryside and the weather being a major factor of the story as well. I think this means that people did understand my narrative without reading the piece of text and I think that was a success itself. |