Tuesday, November 12, 2013
You Wouldn't Think To Set Up Such Clever Domino Destruction
gizmodo.com: At 20,000 to 25,000 dominoes total, what you're seeing in this video doesn't come close to the world record. But that doesn't matter, because these domino setups are incredibly involved and creative.
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The fact that this doesn't even come close to the world record for dominos completely blows my mind. What an incredible setup! It must have taken so much time and such great care to put it all together. Thinking back on the anxiety and endless failures during our time building our Rube Goldberg machine, I feel such sympathy for whoever put all of this together, as they must have been going crazy by the end of it. I would be so worried that something would go wrong, that I had placed one domino just the slightest bit off so that the whole thing would come grating to a halt in the middle, but this one is marvelous. It is also hard to imagine the space this must have required in order to all be set up on the same surface with nothing in the way, but wow. I am blown away at the cleverness and success of this domino construction (and ensuing destruction).
This was a very cool, very long Rube Goldberg. It says it took about 3 months to setup. I wonder how rewarding it is to see something that long in setup to work only once. I guess some people just get a rush out of that though. There is a guy on Youtube who creates absurdly detailed and seemingly impossible (large) shapes out of buckyballs. and for a minute he shows it to you at different angles, and at the end smashes it with a big grin on his face. Coming from theater I kind of get it. We spend a long time setting up this huge set, and then it gets torn down in a day or two. It is so satisfying but I don't know that I could handle that with a show that was only going to have one performance.
Watching all those domino tricks is always amazing because domino is something that recalls my memory of the past. Looking at this video, this always reminds me back of Rube Goldberg project I did in my freshman year. It is interesting how this set up is slightly different from regular domino in that it uses so many different medium such as popsicle sticks and cards, and plays with time and place. Also, there is many details in the setup that fascinated me. Because I have done so many domino in my childhood and Goldberg machine in freshman year, I can understand how much patience and effort the team had to undergo in order to succeed just for one time. I think domino is great way to teach repetition of trial and failure. Even now I am surprised how this much of pieces do not make this domino to be world record. Although some of the tricks in the video seem to be mundane and common, I really want to acclaim for their effort and creative setup.
I was completely blown away by this set up. I was mesmerized by the patterns and creations that the dominoes made on the floor. Although this was obviously shot in pieces, it was enthralling to believe for a second that this was one continuous strand. I loved their use of dominoes and even popsicle sticks. I've never thought of that before! I'd also never seen anyone use dominoes to build those tall structures. Although, I have to admit, I loved it when they came crashing down. I do have to admire that kind of precision; one offset domino and the whole thing comes to a halt. Bravo, guys. This was incredible.
This is quite visually interesting to watch, however in terms of the difficulty of setting it up, I am not impressed. I have seen this video before on the creator's page, and he/she says that it was shot in two different locations across the country, with each shot being set up individually and then recorded. Difficult, but nowhere near as impressive as having all of the video set up at once.
There has got to be more at work in this video then we are seeing, because a few of these particular movements shouldn’t (mechanically) work. That said, some of the concepts here are actually pretty cool, as far as actuating motion.
On a different note, I’m trying to think about how I would practically approach this effect on stage. Hypothetically, if a director liked this visual as a way to represent a passage of time, how would I recreate this on stage? It would be one hell of a preset.
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