How To - Make An Origami Butterfly
Studio Project 3
Initial Research - How To Do the Task (10/15)
- Begin with a section of square paper lying flat
- Fold that square in half both horizontally and vertically before unfolding
- Turn the paper to its other side and fold diagonally both left to right and right to left
- Push slightly on the middle point of the square from beneath to make shift upwards rather than downwards
- Pinch the center middle on top and bottom to make an X shape from above, crease and place down.
- Fold, only on the upper layers, the half of each triangle closer to you to the tip of the triangle further from you. Crease mini-triangles.
- Turn the paper over and fold the top corner, that closest to you, of the triangle back slightly past the edge on the triangle furthest from you. Make sure not to flatten the corners of the triangle that was just folded back, except its top corner which folds beneath the back line of the triangle that it went slightly passed.
- Turn the craft over once again and fold half of the entire body across its own vertical center line.
- Place pressure on main connecting point.
How To Do the Task WELL
- Keep folds clean and crisp, with little to no wrinkles.
- Use a slightly thicker paper that can keep the shape of the folds.
- Make the triangular folds fully pointed.
- Make sure each fold reaches its intended endpoint and, if folding on top of another shape, accurately/fully covers that shape.
- Crease tightly/put high amounts of pressure to make sure fold stays.
- Fully avoid flattening end points of middle triangle.
Initial Research - Approach and Practice (10/17/18)
Based on just a quick Google search, there are a wide variety of approaches to the origami butterfly in terms of folding technique, detail, and complexity.
Those models with rounded wings (bottom right) become, from my perspective, more moth-like than butterfly, and don’t really convey the butterfly essence that linear models do. On the other hand, heavily linear/geometric models (top right) feel too crafted and unnatural, as do the hyperrealistic versions in the top left. The details on these models feel overdone and unnecessary, and seem to veer to far away from the idea of a simple, straightforward How-To video.
Overall, that leaves approaches like the bottom left, with clear linear elements that still seem to have a malleable, moving feeling to them. I believe a child should be able to easily imagine the paper model flapping its thin wings and flying away as a living butterfly would, but that they should still have to work within their mind to envision it, an experience that the highly detailed or heavily simplified versions wouldn’t be able to give as effectively.
*In retrospect, this desire to involve the child/user in the process of creating the butterfly through their imagination is also directly connected to the idea of closure and the gutter explored later in storyboarding.*
Initial Research - Storyboarding (10/20)
The initial step towards the creation of our How To video is a process of storyboarding, similar to that of storyboards for Movies or TV, mapping out the story both narratively and by image. While storyboarding is more of a step-in-the-process for video creation, it is the entire basis for an different but not unrelated medium: Comics.
As Scott McCloud describes in the above excerpt of “Understanding Comics”, the comic medium is particularly powerful in its use of storyboarding as a foundation, as it emphasizes not only the content within each panel but the content hidden between them, in the gutter.
This power of hidden information can become both a strength or a weakness, depending on how it is utilized between its respective panels. It can cause the reader to think more, become more involved in the story, and make their own decisions about/interpretations of the gutter. However, it can also be confusing to the reader, leaving them feeling lost and left out of the storyline’s plot, particularly if the creator does not provide enough information in each panel, in other words asking too much of the reader with a narratively wide gutter.
Storyboarding within comics also engages a key human action, that of closure. When lost in the thin white space of the panel’s gutter, the reader engages their sense of closure, imagining the movements, actions, storyline points, etc. that occur before the following panel. Closure is connected to a crucial question (which appears often in both Studio and Visualization); what information can be taken away and what must be included?
Storyboarding plays a somewhat different role within filmmaking, however, as a draft concept for the film’s individual shots. Whereas the gutter is a defined tool utilized to incorporate the reader’s imagination within comics, it is more of a shorthand in film storyboarding for what will be a cut between shots, the movements of the camera during a continuous shot, etc. In his talk at the American Film Institute in 1978, Spielberg describes his use of storyboarding as “I…outline the composition and, of course, the concept and the thought. I draw arrows and I say this is red, this is green, that’s blue”. It is obvious that although it serves the director as a quick communication tool for his film’s concepts, it is still integral to his process, conveying the foundation ideas of the film in a way that is not dissimilar for the communication of comic storyboards.
Storyboard - Draft 1 (10/23)
Originally for my storyboard I attempted to make it very similar to how the How To video would function, as in each panel began with the state of the origami paper from the previous step. This way the storyboard flowed as the video would, from the previous step to the next step. However this proved very confusing once the board was printed out, many people thought that they were supposed to construct two butterfly models rather than one (especially because of the ‘Intro’ and ‘Conclusion’ panels at the start/end) based on the two sheets of paper in each panel. The inclusion of the previous step on each panel was unnecessary and made it more difficult for people to understand the following step.
To get rid of this confusion, I simplified the storyboard down to simpler panels, each with a single piece of paper so that it was clear that one piece was being worked on throughout. I also removed the ‘Intro’ and ‘Conclusion’ panels as they felt redundant when added to the explanation of the task.
The steps may be oversimplified, especially at steps 5 and 6, as they don’t show the actual folding of the model with hands or fingers, just the result of a fold that happens ‘offscreen’. Ideally, this would make the process for a user of the How To video more straightforward as there are less steps and less things in frame, allowing them to just focus on the butterfly. The ‘offscreen’ action is happening in ‘the gutter’, so for example between steps 4–5 and 5–6, diagonal folds are done both ways across the paper, which is made clear by the crease that ‘appears’ in each following panel.
However, these steps and others do feel a bit too sudden and unclear without frames in between showing the specific diagonal fold, as in the gutter is too wide and leaves too much room for interpretation. Introducing a frame in between these that shows the movement, or at least the shape, of the fold will make it more clear without adding too many steps.
There are also certain steps, such as 7–8 and 8–9, that are too complicated to show in a sudden jump without hand motions, as in the step doesn’t clearly lead from the previous panel.
How This All Affects the Video: Depending on the feedback that testers give while they’re completing the task (and from Steve and Stacie), I’ll either shoot the video as a stop-motion, continuous, or a combination of the two. The steps that are more confusing to people / require an active hand motion to be shown will be a continuous motion shot whereas simpler folds might only need to be stop-motion. The continuous shots will also require more time and probably be a slower shot, which will help indicate to the viewer that the step is complex and requires more focus/time than simpler steps which could be show in quick stop-motion.
Things to Consider from Tester Feedback:
- Can they do it? At which steps do they have trouble? Where do they speed up, slow down, focus more/less?
- What do their hands do? What are their expressions? What are they looking at? How do they orient the model to themselves?
Other Aspects to Consider (Class Discussion):
- Does the sequence make sense?
- How does the visual composition (lighting, etc.) affect the viewer’s understanding? How do they relate to it?
- Framing of shots (whats in the shot and what isn’t?)
- Pay particular attention to transitions
- Point of view (from the camera) → What’s effective and appropriate?
Storyboard Feedback
***All shots must be taken horizontally (since the camera will be oriented in that position)***
- There are some significant jumps in logic between steps that do not fully communicate; they are oversimplified. Clarify those points (same as earlier idea of the gutter being too wide).
- Figure out which approach you’re taking - including hands versus having the paper fold itself (Origami teaching tradition often has the paper folding itself — it may be interesting to continue this concept within the How To video).
- How will the video format handle this concept? Will it need to introduce hands / a human element?
- To what extent will this utilize video versus stop-motion? If hands are used, how will they be incorporated? Could the two formats (self-folding stop-motion and hand-folding video) be mixed?
- “Other than a few little things, this project is finished. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to this over the next two days.”
Revised Storyboard (10/24)
In response to feedback on my initial storyboard, I expanded the number of steps and increased the level of detail of the process of folding within the storyboard. The number of steps doubled from 11 to 22, with each individual early fold being shown rather than folds being skipped/implied and a series of smaller steps broke down the more complex/sudden steps of 7–10 from the previous draft.
Video Approaches (10/24 - 10/25)
In order to test a series of different approaches/strategies to conveying the process of folding the butterfly, I shot four separate videos, each utilizing a different kind of technique. Only the bottom right video displays the full process, at a length of 49 seconds. The top left and right focus on a single, more difficult step towards the end of the process, each below 10 seconds. Finally, the bottom left video explores the beginning 2–3 steps and the final 2–3 steps of the folding process at about 10 seconds.
Top Left:
Exploring quick stop-motion with a 7 second video consisting of 45 individual shots taken at a constant rate. Creates somewhat of a lighting issue as the camera moves around slightly, this can be fixed with a tripod though. Displays steps 16 and 17 but does not show the butterfly turning around (instead one shot jumps to the next in which it has flipped). Good for conveying pressure applied by finger and the detail of the smaller folds by showing each individual movement, but can be confusing to watch while folding and does not have many pros over continuous video of a hand motion.
Top Right:
Exploring a continuous but zoomed in shot of the smallest fold in the process, with a split between the two steps at around 8 seconds. The zoomed-in function is particularly good for showing this small fold and should also be tested for the complex folds at the end of the process. It does create a lighting and focus issue, however, but use of a tripod and more consistent lighting may be quick-fix to this. The finger being shown does feel like its floating a bit so perhaps zooming out slightly to provide more context would improve it. Finally, the zoom-in function creates a need for a transition from the previous continuous shot — would this be a cut or would the zoom itself be shown?
Bottom Left:
Exploring continuous shots for each step with an inclusion of hand motions, the video is 10 seconds with 4 separate videos. Has more clarity than stop-motion approaches, as the viewer can see both the fold and the corresponding hand motion which creates the fold. The hand does occasionally obscure the fold but this is a rarity due to the top-down rather than angled POV and the bright red-white contrast of the origami paper and background. The hand coming directly from the top/bottom/sides I believe creates more clarity but may seem less ‘human’ than a more realistic angle, and it may not be an effective method for smaller folds, although the above zoomed-in angle may be able to supplement this.
Bottom Right:
Exploring slow stop-motion with a 49 second video consisting of 30 shots (with each shot appearing for ~1.5 seconds). Details the entire folding process fairly effectively but can get confusing suddenly when showing more complex steps, which become even more unclear without the presence of hand motions. The lack of hand motions does, however, invoke a more traditional origami teaching technique in which the paper folds itself and avoids some of the more removed/disjointed hand motions in my peers’ current drafts. This and the above quick stop-motion method will not work effectively on their own but may be helpful as supplements for intros/conclusions or smaller folds.
Group Critique (10/25)
Considering Other Aspects (10/29)
To better lay out the full range of steps in the folding process, I revised the storyboard to include every flip, fold, crease, and other movements, for a total of 25 steps, although some steps have multiple hand movements occurring at once (such as holding a corner with one while folding with the other). The board also includes any needed camera functions, which for now is just a zooming in and out for two steps at the end of the process.
Showing each of these steps on a flat surface shouldn’t cause too many problems, with the exception being step 10, which requires a hand to go beneath the folded paper, which may difficult to convey, although the paper could alternatively just be flipped back and forth.
In addition to the main folding steps, there are a handful of other aspects that need to be considered when creating the full instructional video. First is the Intro/Conclusion, which will use the more supplementary techniques explored early, particularly stop-motion and self-folding. The introduction is probably more necessary than the conclusion and will contain more information, so it will last 7–10 seconds versus the conclusion’s 3–5 second span.
The stop-motion approach could be used to invoke the earlier discussed ‘Japanese Teaching Tradition’ of origami by having the paper fold itself into the butterfly form, however the more important aspect of this introductory clip is to convey, quickly, the full process first. This displays to the viewer their end goal, the result they should be working towards throughout the process, but does not yet convey how to reach that point with human hands. This creates a kind of narrative gutter, in which the viewer begins to imagine how their hands may complete the folding process just shown to them, which is followed by a filling of the gutter with the main folding process with hand involvement.
The conclusion is narrative rather than informative, consisting of a short movement from the now-folded butterfly in which it is pulled, or flies, off the top of the frame, in order to complete the initial movement of the folding process where the unfolded paper is pushed from the bottom of the frame.
The total time allotted for the video is 60 seconds, so while the intro and conclusion should get enough time, the folding steps take priority to fill the single minute runtime. Based on the above time breakdown, which gives more time to longer, more difficult steps and cuts down time on early simple folds, as well as giving specific time for creasing these folds, the video should take up around 45 seconds with 15 seconds for extra steps, longer steps, a longer introduction, etc.
While they could be glossed over within the folding process, a lack of emphasis on the creases following each fold would lead to a less structurally sound model and confusion on the part of the viewer as to why their folds are not staying secure. The top-down perspective of my frame should prevent the creasing finger from blocking the view of the crease, but the direction and movement of the finger should still be made abundantly clear, as well as the intended speed and pressure of the finger. The former aspects may be solved from a more exaggerated movement to indicate the quick motion and diagonal direction of the crease. The latter aspects will be helped by a short but obvious pressing down on the paper before making the creasing movement, which I will test out as a sample before incorporating it into the main steps video.
Audio may also be a way of indicating the details of the crease action, as well as other types of folds/movements. While the ‘natural’ fold sound probably adequately indicates the action for a basic fold movement, it may not be distinct enough from the sounds of other actions such as a crease or flip. At a certain point, based on my experience folding, they all just sound like ‘paper moving around’. Artificial sounds created digitally/orally and played during the videotaping, or a mix of both artificial and natural, should be explored to see if there is a way of creating individual sounds to indicate that type of action to be taken.
The sound effects attributed to each movement, should they be artificial, is similar in my mind to the idea of comic book ‘noises’. While the ‘real world’ sound may not be the sound being made within the pages of the comic book, the artificial interpretation made by the author is based on how we as people think of sounds rather than how they actually are. The first example below (on the leftmost side) contains the sounds “Shook!” and “PZING!” to indicate a quick turn and the movement of a bullet. In the reader’s head, when accompanied with the imagery of a turned-around man and bullet, these sounds make sense when applied to the movement and it helps our understanding of what actions are occurring. The next panel over takes this further with a more literal interpretation, in which a barging-in action is simply expressed by “BARGE!”, which sounds nothing like a door being suddenly opened, but nonetheless feels accurate in the context of the imagery. In contrast, the panel furthest to the right is highly abstracted with the sounds of battle and energy being expressed with fully nonsensical words like “WHRINNNNNNE!”. Despite the reader having most likely never been in battle (at least not with a giant red energy monster) and has never heard those sounds in real life, they feel correct given the extreme imagery placed alongside it.
There seem to be 3–4 distinct approaches to the sound effects of the folding:
- Natural Sound
- Literal Sound (FLIP, CREASE)
- Abstracted Sound
- Comic Sounds (Extremely Abstracted)
I’d like to try testing each of these audio styles out on existing video with creasing and folding movements to see which feels more appropriate to the viewer.
**Literal Sound won’t work as it involves ‘speaking’ in words, which doesn’t fall within the project’s limit**
Testing Sounds (10/29–10/30)
Natural Sound vs Artificial Sound — Long Crease
Natural
Artificial
Natural Sound vs Artificial Sound — Short Crease
Natural
Artificial
**Other audio examples were recorded and may be used for videotaping purposes**
I believe both approaches work well, but the artificial sound effects are only really necessary for actions that do not have much of a distinct sound such as pressing and zooming, so applying them in the context of a full process video will probably yield the best comparison.
Peer Critique (10/30)
Worksheet
Full Process Videotaping (10/30)
Natural Audio
Artificial (Comic) Audio
Setup Issues (10/30) - Pictured Below
There were multiple difficulties with setup, as it had to change from previous drafts shot on studio walls, since gravity was required to show the folds and hand motions of many steps. Getting enough control of the lighting, through use of studio lights, natural window light, and a desk lamp to the left was particularly difficult and resulted in a dim light that was enough to see but often messed up the focus of the camera and cast significant hand shadows. It was also difficult getting the correct orientation of the camera in such a way that would get the correct top-down view but would not cast a shadow. This orientation also made it nearly impossible to zoom or change angles at all while filming. The most difficult aspect, however, was probably creating a setup that allowed the hand model the right amount of hand space for them to make the fold movements as they normally would without any awkwardness.
***Time Issue: The full length process took up a total of 1 minute and 5 seconds in video time, including no conclusion and a shortened down intro. Even without the conclusion or planned introduction, this is still over time. Certain steps may have to be combined, implied rather than shown, or done in a much quicker manner → creasing in particular could be shown with a much faster movement, as could other steps.***
Overall Setup Progression
Overall Lighting Progression
Reflection
Throughout the project, as opposed to the previous Special Carriers assignment, I overall felt more in control of my time and the direction of my concept. This was mostly done by testing out ideas through the process of making, rather than just drawing out or thinking about ideas, and, more specifically, testing them out in small amounts instead of creating entire (time-consuming) drafts for each idea. For example, when deciding on natural vs artificial audio, I created test files for each kind of audio in different contexts of the process, which allowed me to narrow down my ideas quickly and efficiently. I followed this similar process with my setup (going from the studio wall, to studio tables, to the Margaret Morrison photo studio, and finally to a UC study room table) as well as my lighting, as shown above. Along with these more technical aspects, each draft tested different framing (height/zoom of the camera) and use of the hands, full palm versus single finger, etc. This made my process much more time-efficient, but did come at the cost of some helpful peer feedback, as many people who viewed it couldn’t form much critique on the smaller drafts in contrast to a full folding process video. For the future project, I intend to find a balance between the two approaches in order to gain helpful feedback while still testing approaches through creation rather than just ideation.