I’m currently working on the “Death of the Firstborn Egyptians” chapter of Seder-Masochism. The little move above happens only once in the film, but I wanted to see it over and over, hence the gif.
Death cycle
Category: Seder-Masochism
Chad Gadya embroidermation progress
A wee taste of the progress Theo and I are making on our “Chad Gadya” embroidermation project.
Frames of the animation are stitched in groups of 6, arranged in a circle on matzo covers. We currently have 516 frames on 86 matzo covers, which I painstakingly finished by hand with multiple fabric layers and labels and everything.
We hired Theo’s daughter, Emma, to help. Here she is ironing away while I adjust a lining.
Here I am topstitching one of the 86 covers on a treadle sewing machine.
We have a lot of additional photography, stitchcoding and stitching to do, but we are making progress. When the film is done the matzo covers will be for sale.
This Land Is Mine is yours
Due to horrific recent events, This Land Is Mine has gone viral again.
Here’s a reminder that you don’t need permission to copy, share, broadcast, post, embed, subtitle, etc. Copying is an act of love, please copy and share. Yes means yes.
As for the music, it is Fair Use. This Land Is Mine is a PARODY of “The Exodus Song.” That music was sort of the soundtrack of American zionism in the 1960’s and 70’s. It was supposed to express Jewish entitlement to Israel. By putting the song in the mouth of every warring party, I’m critiquing the original song.
Egyptian Falcon
Death Makes a Holiday
I’m currently animating the Death of the Firstborn Egyptians (Exodus 11:1-12:36) for Seder-Masochism. This is the miracle that started Passover! Hooray! I’m being sarcastic!
Ancient Egypt parallax
I’ve been designing Egyptian foliage for Seder-Masochism. The ancient Egyptian graphic style is pretty flat; there’s little if any perspective to give a sense of depth.
However, animation can give a sense of depth without compromising the graphic style. Thanks to the magic of parallax, each still frame looks authentically flat, but in motion the scene looks 3-D. Nothing overlaps anything else but there’s still a foreground and background.
Just one of many reasons animation is cool.