Watch “The Woodswimmer,” a Stop Motion Film Made Entirely with Wood, and “Brutally Tedious” Techniques

Above you can watch “The Woodswim­mer,” a new stop-motion music video shot by Brett Foxwell. As Foxwell describes it, the film was shot with “a straight­for­ward tech­nique but one which is bru­tal­ly tedious to com­plete.”  Elab­o­rat­ing, he told the web­site This is Colos­sal, “Fas­ci­nat­ed with the shapes and tex­tures found in both new­ly-cut and long-dead pieces of wood, I envi­sioned a world com­posed entire­ly of these forms.”  “As I began to engage with the mate­r­i­al, I con­ceived a method using a milling machine and an ani­ma­tion cam­era set­up to scan through a wood sam­ple pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly and cap­ture its entire struc­ture. Although a dif­fi­cult and tedious tech­nique to refine, it yield­ed gor­geous imagery at once abstract and very real. Between the twist­ing growth rings, swirling rays, knot holes, ter­mites and rot, I found there is a lot going on inside of wood.”

Final­ly, Foxwell notes on his per­son­al web­site: “As a short film began to build from [the filmed sequences], I col­lab­o­rat­ed with bed­times, an ani­ma­tor and musi­cian of spe­cial tal­ents to write a song and help edit a tight visu­al and son­ic jour­ney through this won­drous and fas­ci­nat­ing mate­r­i­al. WoodSwim­mer is the result.”

Watch it, in all of its glo­ry, above.

via This is Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Stop-Motion Films: 39 Films, Span­ning 116 Years, Revis­it­ed in a 3‑Minute Video

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

Mes­mer­iz­ing GIFs Illus­trate the Art of Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Wood Join­ery — All Done With­out Screws, Nails, or Glue

Watch Japan­ese Wood­work­ing Mas­ters Cre­ate Ele­gant & Elab­o­rate Geo­met­ric Pat­terns with Wood