FIERCE WOMEN CONTRIBUTING TO SOCIETY IN THESE interviews we present Maša Udovičić & Mirela Ivanković Bielen for Croatian Zoetrope, Gabrijela, Diana, Doris & Željka for Fierce Women social enterprise, and Matea Bručić for Buqele House of Fashion
CROATIAN ZOETROPE, MAŠA UDOVIČIĆ & MIRELA IVANKOVIĆ BIELEN Croatian Zoetrope and Flipbook are new creative souvenirs that came out of your Luma film studio in Zagreb. How did you come up with the idea of creating such original souvenirs? Since we run the School of Animation for Children in Zagreb, we have noticed that kids & their parents are delighted with the large zoetropes we use when teaching about the animation process. We wanted to share the magic of animation with a larger number of people, and came up with the idea of producing a small and affordable zoetrope. As the construction of the new zoetrope was demanding and time consuming, during the development we came up with another toy - a flipbook. It is much easier to produce, so it was a winning combination for us. Two super fun toys for animation, one complex & the other simple to produce! Can you describe your two products in more detail and how zoetropes and flipbooks work in general? These are two optical toys with a series of drawings that merge into a unique animation 10
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before the eyes of the observer. Zoetrope is a sleeve with holes, into which a strip of drawings is inserted. It needs to be rotated by hand to enjoy the animation. A flipbook is a small booklet with drawings whose pages need to be flipped quickly with two fingers. Both toys come with ready-made animations drawn by professional animators. They serve to enjoy the animated scenes, but also as an example of how users can animate on their own. Namely, empty zoom papers come with each zoetrope, and the flipbook turned upside down becomes an empty polygon for a new animation. You often say that your products are souvenirs for happy people. What do you mean by that? The slogan came from the smiles that spread on people's faces when they spin zoetropes or flip a flipbook and see the animation. Since a large number of people encountered animation at school age, our products arouse nostalgia in viewers. We believe that using our toys for animation cheers people up at least for a while. What can we expect from you in the future? We entered this project out of a desire to extend our love of animation to the general population. Animation as well as illustration communicates with viewers visually, without the use of language. That's why animation erases all boundaries and everyone likes it. As for the animations for zoetropes and flipbooks, we have in mind specific motives related to our beautiful country that we will realize soon.
