Dummy walk

Dummy Walk stop motion animation

Between 10 and 11am this morning, light moved in patches across the front garden. I animated a dress dummy, found in a local opp shop, moving through it. She is silver, like ice, and reminds me of my mother. Not because my mother was cold, not at all, but because my mother was a tailor, with a dress dummy in her work room.

I was interested to capture changes in the light, and to contrast the regular motion of the sun’s shadows with that of the dummy. I had her pirouette slowly across the screen from right to left in a straight line, come to a dead stop, and then accelerate off screen left, facing camera full-on as she did so. I was improvising within the physical constraints available, exploring what the dummy could do along a straight garden path, with no legs.

I imagine the dummy in Antarctica, and how the light would work on her there… how it would work on me over a year, if I were there.