The Good, The Bad and The Ugly –

After working solidly for two days over the weekend, I finally finished the first prototype for the mobile.  I felt on the whole it was pretty good.  However, the sheer weight of the project even at this scale was pretty bad. Balancing the elements was also an absolute ‘nightmare’. This meant that some of the spacing between the mobile elements was pretty ugly.

The short time-lapse video below shows roughly how many elements went into making three quarters of the mobile (some elements were already strung).  I always imagined cardboard to be quite light but after this project I’ve come to revise my view.

On the whole I do think that the prototype was a success – not because it was perfect or anything like that, but because of what I had learned during the whole process.

First Looks

Below is a very short video of the mobile. As I was concentrating on the movement of the video there is nothing to show scale.  The mobile turned out to be around 6ft tall in the end! I had envisioned something much smaller and lighter.

Alternative Music

Below is a similar video to the one above but with different music.  I think that the music plays an important role and this will be a major consideration with any films, moving forwards.

Lessons Learned

Although the mobile isn’t perfect by any means, it has afforded me an opportunity to learn much about mobiles. They are not easy!  On paper it’s great to have lots of ideas, but translating this into an actual mobile takes patience (lots of it!).  It also takes dexterity and a sheer determination for it to work.

Possibly one of the greatest insights from this prototype was that sadly I do need to return to the drawing board.  The elements although they were small actually weigh a ‘ton’ when all strung together. Therefore, I need to break down my proposed larger mobile into smaller more manageable units. How will I string these smaller units? – at this point I’m not actually sure.  What I do know is that the weight in cardboard would probably make the large mobile untenable it is hung as one unit. I do have some ideas, but over the next few days I intend give myself a break by changing from the physical back to digital.

I am going to experiment with filming the prototype and augmenting a number of its mobile elements.

Other Hanging Ideas

Im still trying to think of ways of hanging/displaying my work more creatively. I came across a cheap black rail which I assembled. I can’t use it at the moment but I feel sure it will come in handy at some point.  Below is a short time-lapse of the black rail assembly.

Using Learned Knowledge

Unfortunately one of my very earliest prototypes got very tangled.  The method of stringing it was far from ideal.  However now that I had my newfound knowledge of what can work, I decided to restring the old mobile and try it out on my new black rail that I assembled (see above). I think that the music chosen for this time-lapse is very appropriate as I do feel as if I’m learning and moving on with my project.

Below is a quick snap of the finished mobile.  I may tweak this one further but at least it’s up and moving.

Sense of Scale

The image below shows the prototype next to the new stand to give an idea of scale.