What Is Sand Animation?
Are Animation Explainers experts in sand animation? We Shore are! Are Animation Explainers experts at sand-based puns? Maybe not.
However, there is one thing that we are sure of, and that is that there is a story in every grain of sand.
The technique can be pretty complicated in its execution since it requires the slow and accurate pouring of sand onto a luminous surface to simulate the formation of a 2D image. The pouring sand artists must work with patience and delicacy.
The History of Sand Animation
Sand animation was first invented by Caroline Leaf in 1968 when she was an undergraduate at Harvard University. It is an animation technique that can be used to create animated cartoons and incorporated into live-action shows.
The pioneer of Sand animation, Caroline Leaf, produced her first film, Sand, or Peter and the Wolf (1968), by arranging beach sand on a lightbox and manipulating the grains to build figures, textures, and movement, frame by frame. The process is almost a little reminiscent of clay animators’ patience. This animation game isn’t a walk in the park, you know.
Let’s get back to our timeline.
In the 1970s, Eli Noyes, another Harvard graduate (who knew law students were so fond of the beach?) created the short film Sandman (1973) and the Sand Alphabet (1974), which achieved great success, finding its place as a feature on the children’s educational television program Sesame Street and the Nickelodeon children’s TV series, Eureeka’s Castle.
In 1977, The Sand Castle by Dutch-Canadian animator Co Hoedeman won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The film, featuring an array of odd creatures created from foam rubber, wire, and sand, has proven to be a perpetual favorite.
The Process of Sand Animation
As we have previously mentioned, sand animation, as a basic concept, combines a few different forms of art into a single performance – pretty straightforward, right?
The sand artist (or performer) creates several images in sequence, forming a series by applying the sand on the surface before drawing figures and lines with their own hands; they often use a lightbox or an overhead projector.
The sand performer uses sand on a flat surface made of back-lit glass. Then arranges the sand to let the light, depth, shadow, and density go through and create the picture. The animator captures images, then these images are arranged in a sequence and played at a suitable speed which creates the illusion of motion.
There are, in existence, other practices that also refer to sand animation. These are associated with a sand artist creating their art while the camera is capturing all the actual motions on video; though this kind of art is more often referred to as “sand painting”.
Live shows have traditionally been the primary use of sand animation. A live sand art performance requires the presence of an artist, and it is subsequently highly engaging. Actors combine sand movement and acting skills in a captivating performance.
Sand artists should pride themselves in the speed of their performance. As well as their ability to capture the crowd’s attention with the accompaniment of audience and music. It is an elegant art through which artists can reflect real-life and create messages that resonate with audiences truly emotionally.
Image Progression
Sand animation relies heavily on image progression. The way one scene transitions into the next is just as important as the content itself.
The sand on the surface may form a silhouette that resembles children playing in a field one moment. Then, with a few movements of the artist’s hands, those forms may transform into tombstones in a cemetery the next.
Sand artists tend to use the juxtaposition of images to enhance each scene and make a more powerful statement transitioning from one idea to the next.
A bonding ritual follows: the audience watching the sand animation bridge any momentary gaps between images. This encourages the audience to interact with the work to create personal meaning and inject the performances with so much emotion that they acquire a second life.
Charlene Lanzel
Charlene Lanzel keeps audiences spellbound with unexpected twists and turns of her story with every stroke of her hand.
Have a look at an excellent example in the above-embedded video of a projected, live performance by the sand artist Charlene Lanzel. Lanzel’s performance is a perfect example of this medium’s exploration of the relationship between real and virtual spaces.
The technique is critical here. During the creation, her hands must be fluid and fast at the same time, creating genuinely compelling results. Since her hands are seen at all times during her show, the audience is naturally awed by the decisiveness of her actions. Which are observed like a hawk from all angles. There is no room for mistakes in live sand animation performance.
Sand animators produce extraordinary results when their process is executed flawlessly. Since the animation cannot be duplicated precisely, it becomes a single moment in time of unique artistic beauty.
While sand animation is stunning to look at, it lasts only for a single moment. Ephemeral storytelling that allows the passing of life and time to flow right before your eyes.
Application to Modern Marketing
In the vast world of marketing, it is possible to use this niche and technical format. Or at the very least, remnants of it. When it comes to storytelling in particular-themed scenarios, sand animation can effectively build up a dramatic series of events. Creating tension and impact. For this reason, examples of sand animation can often be found in evolutionary content.
The beauty of sand animation lies in that it only lasts for a short moment. It is a fragile form and often evokes very impassioned responses in viewers. That said, if your brand is looking to encourage an emotional response in its audiences, sand animation may be the way to go.
Take a look at this Swinton Insurance advert from 2014.
Remember Attraction? They won Britain’s Got Talent back in 2013 and are the world’s leading and most sought-after Shadow and Black Light Theatre Company in the world.
Attraction absorbs their audiences into a new dimension with their revolutionary and awe-inspiring performances, with their thrilling and thought-provoking shows. The combination of performance art and technology creates an unforgettable visual spectacle.
By reinforcing messages and illustrating the story. Attraction produces an unforgettable visual spectacle.
Yes, we are aware of the obvious. Attraction is human-based art performers who use bodies and movement to create images. But we think that elements of sand animation and associated shadow technique can apply here when it comes to modern marketing and the ability to produce a dynamic build-up of emotional events to connect with the viewer.
More Britain’s Got Talent?
“I always felt like a piece of paper wasn’t enough for me.”
Kseniya Simonova: AMAZING Sand Artist Gets GOLDEN Buzzer!| Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions
Meet Kseniya Simonova. She is a Ukrainian sand animation performance artist. Having also worked as a graphic artist, illustrator, film director, Kseniya has become a Merited Artist of Ukraine.
In 2009, Simonova won that year’s series of Ukraine’s Got Talent with her sand art masterpiece, based on an interpretation of Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during the Second World War. In 2019, she was invited back into the Got Talent circle, appearing on Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions and finishing in third place.
Following her successes in the Got Talent franchise, Siminova has rightfully become the most viewed sand artist on the Internet today and continues to perform her sand animation shows across the world in more than 70 countries.
Wrapping Up
Sand animation – who’d have thought it was so sprinkled with history yet still so prominent as an art form in today’s modern world? It has a uniting power to inspire all. No matter where you’re from, how old you are, or what your story is.
A visual language is born that simply surpasses linguistic barriers. Drawings are in the enduring transformation which thrills imagination, surprises and allows abrupt changes of tone and unexpected images where the audience may least expect them. And yet, the stories still flow so delicately and perfectly.
A sand artist’s lightbox dream world offers us an opportunity for growth and education, for manifesting positive changes and bringing new ideas to light.
Sand Animation is another animation technique that proves that patience, delicacy, and precision pay off.
