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The Mill NY Goes Retro With the “Christmill” Zoetrope Tree

Friday, December 09, 2011

The Mill employees are no strangers to technology.  Every day they are dreaming up new ways to stretch the boundaries of the latest imaging software--from Nuke, Maya and Flame, to After Effects and Flash.   Perhaps that's why this holiday season they have decided to take it back to a simpler time and create The Mill's first zoetrope Christmas tree!

What is a zoetrope? It is a device that produces the illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. A cylinder with slots cut vertically around the outside houses a band of images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins, the viewer looks through the openings at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder's interior. The viewer sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion: the equivalent of a motion picture.

The tree, conceptualized by The Mill NY Creative Director Rama Allen, stands over six feet tall and combines geometric style with an impressive three-layer zoetrope. "I wanted to create something that felt charming, had a sense of discovery and wonder about it, and felt rooted to the warmth of the holidays," says Allen. "I chose the earliest form of the moving image and visual story telling because it is the foundation of what we at the Mill live and breathe every day. The story within the three-stage zoetrope is a 'loop of loops' with... a story of constant creation and interconnectedness."

Each layer is a different size and the number of slots and their spacing was mathematically calculated to determine the picture size and number of images that would provide a smooth, flowing motion picture animated by The Mill's Design department.

The tree is powered by a belt-driven record player set at 44 rpms.  "The player was hotwired so it could function without its arm," explains The Mill NY runner and tree builder Mike Wasserman. "We added wings to the border of the player before covering it with tinfoil.  Lights were layered and reflected from underneath the zoetrope to provide additional light and eliminate the shadows from the more powerful overhead light."

The result is a cute Holiday story. A Yeti smashes snowmen in the clouds to create snow (and carrot noses!) that fall to the bottom where another Yeti makes more snowmen that will travel back to the clouds.

The tree is on display on the 6^th floor of the New York office until the end of December.