The Joy of Books

I've always been a fan of animation. Last term, I took an animation class and enjoyed learning more about it. One of the most meticulous types of animation was stop motion. Stop motion, as I learned, takes such a long time to do, having to pay attention to each and every detail in every shot you take. Although exhausting to do and often annoying to know that your 3 hours of photo taking is equivalent to only one minutes, it was rewarding to see the final results.

This video, the Joy of Books is a stop motion piece that I've admired. I first discovered it in an article in the Toronto Star earlier this year and became quite interested. It takes place in a bookstore called Type Books in Toronto and illustrates an imaginative world after the store closes.

It was produced by Sean Ohlenkamp, an associated creative director at an advertising agency. To help with this project, he recruited students from Mohawk College's creative advertising program.

In the world with computers and eBooks, it was refreshing to see the diversity of movement a real book can have. Through this video, you are in awe about the time and effort (especially since I went through the same thing on a smaller scale) spent on the animation and it made me remember the imagination I often grasp from reading a book.