Picture Gallery :: Moving Sand

Still from Ferenc Cako's 'Creation'

I remember when animation was young and at best an adjunct to burlesque and the music hall. Now it’s everywhere, it’s big business and anyone, it seems, can do it. Of course some do it better than others -- although money seems to be a big help there. Personally all this computer-generated stuff seems a bit…well… easy, so I love it when I find someone who insists on going about things the hard way. And it doesn’t get much more challenging than sand animation. Not that I’m biased or anything.

Synchronistically, I have stumbled over two sand-animators previously unknown to me.*

Ilana Yahav uses only her fingers, drawing with sand on a glass table whilst cameras capture her every move, projecting onto a screen for the audience to see.
Sand Fantasy site includes public sand art shows, video clips and a new DVD for babies - "Baby Sandy" >>

Still from Ilana Yahav's 'Just Imagine'

Ferenc Cako is Hungarian and has been producing sand animations since the mid-80s. Same deal as Yahav vis a vis technique. He’s good. Actually he’s really very good…
His website unfortunately only has short excerpts >>
His performances can be seen here >>
Google Video (already set to dominate the world of video-sharing) has a couple of beauties however >>

* I DID have a bit of help there and I’d like to thank all those who pointed me in the right direction. On the other hand, I’m not going to name them…but both of you know who you are.