Tag Archives: phenakistoscope

We use a video camera shooting  25 frames per second at a high shutter speed to make animations using illustrated picture discs, exploiting the same mathematical quirk as a phenakistoscope. We had a go at improvising a simple device to view the animations without a video camera…you’ll need some black cardboard, a sharp knife, a yoghurt pot, a record player and a bright light.

(here’s one we made earlier…)

The design could be ‘finessed’… e.g. we found we could watch the animation happen directly on the surface of the record (rather than by peering through the slots in the cardboard) by pointing the light through the slots at certain angles, suggesting a device incorporating a mirror and a carefully positioned light source could be very effective.