Gallop! A Scanimation Picture Book

by Seder, Rufus Butler

• ISBN13: 9780761147633
• ISBN10: 0761147632
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-22
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company

Summary

There's never before been a book like Gallop! Employing a patented new technology called Scanimation, each page is a marvel that brings animals, along with one shining star, to life with art that literally moves. It's impossible not to flip the page, and flip it again, and again, and again. A first book of motion for kids, it shows a horse in full gallop and a turtle swimming up the page. A dog runs, a cat springs, an eagle soars, and a butterfly flutters. Created by Rufus Butler Seder, an inventor, artist, and filmmaker fascinated by antique optical toys, Scanimation is a state-of-the-art six-phase animation process that combines the "persistence of vision" principle with a striped acetate overlay to give the illusion of movement. It harkens back to the old magical days of the kinetoscope, and the effect is astonishing, like a Muybridge photo series springing into action or, in terms kids can relate to, like a video without a screen. Complementing the art is a delightful rhyming text full of simple questions and fun, nonsense replies: Can you gallop like a horse? giddyup-a-loo! Can you strut like a rooster? cock-a-doodle-doo! Every child who opens the book will be amazed and so will every parent.

Author Biography

Rufus Butler Seder is an optical genius whose first significant invention was Lifetiles, glass-walled murals that appear to come to life when the viewer walks by. He’s installed them at the Smithsonian, SeaWorld, Union Station, and other museums, aquariums, train stations, and ocean liners around the world. Next came Scanimation, and his company EyeThink, Inc., a business that produces a line of toys and gifts using technologies he’s invented. Mr. Seder lives in Boston, Massachusetts.