Animating with Rice

By September 28, 2015 May 5th, 2016 Honours Project

In order to push away from familiarity I wanted to try stop-motion animating with different types of materials.

I first thought of rice but hadn’t actually seen an animation with rice before (sand is quite popular). I looked into other rice animations out there and have analysed them below.
This however is my attempt at animating with rice:

Not in anyway a technical feat or anything close to my best work but it was fun to try something different.

Most of the other rice animations I found often featured the rice forming to make shapes and then they would shift around.

I enjoy this one in particular because of how each grain of rice has been successfully moved along in each frame. The animator has obviously spent a lot of time ensuring there is an equal movement throughout all the rice:

However I find the last animation listed here my favourite because I think it successfully utilised the quality and texture of the rice and matched it with music that suits the look. Unlike the smoother animation above, this retains the randomness and jumpiness that comes with animating hundreds of objects at once. The music’s quick pace mixed with the abstract nature of the video enhances the style.

I also like the way colour, light and exposure is used to blend the rice together into abstract shapes.

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