#zoetrope

I had never made a zoetrope before, let alone one on a vinyl record, so it was fun figuring out the math. This 12” vinyl plays at 33.3 rpm on the turntable so I knew the rate of spin, and for the zoetrope “shutter”, I chose a 30fps “shutter” to make it easier if viewed through a phone since most smart phone cameras record video at 30fps by default.

With that information, I knew I would be animating at 30fps, and I found that playing with the number of sub-divisions on the disc could give the illusion that the cycled animation appears stationary (54 subd) or travels clockwise (55 or greater) or counter-clockwise (53 or less). The factors of that subdivision number inform the frames of the cycled animation. For example, at 52 subdivisions, the animation cycle could be either 4, 13, or 26 frames long, and it’ll appear to travel counter-clockwise.

Using After Effects, I created a series of nested comps for different subdivisions so all I had to do was drop the animation file in the desired premade comp and it would output the subdivided disc layout.