The Origami Museum Video Library
The Museo del Origami Videolibrary adds new videos about paperfolding, its history, creators and interpreters.
The Magic Hoop (1908) - Émile Cohl (France)
"Le Cerceau Magique", silent short made by French animator Émile Cohl in 1908. A magician gives a girl a new hoop after her own has broken. The "magic hoop" changes in size and about halfway in the sequence, it hangs itself on the wall and the events happen to occur within its limits. Cohl toys with stop-motion animation, with some of the special effects involving pieces of paper being folded into origami shapes. Due to the extreme deterioration of the print, a good part of it is hard to make out, but the Spanish "pajarita" appears in all its splendor and becomes multiplied in a cascade of many more.
The Origami Museum thanks José Tomás Buitrago (Colombia) for having found and shared this interesting material.
A letter by Isao Honda and how to fold an ancient dragonfly
September 12, 2020
This week’s video starts with a letter signed “for” Isao Honda (that means, Honda produced the letter and a translator wrote it in English). The letter, dated 1959, contains four dragonflies, presumably folded by Honda himself (or a disciple with the approval of the master). Also in the envelope, there was a base with few foldings, showing the initial steps for the most ancient one of the set. The video follows the instructions and recreates the ancient tombo.
On YouTube Settings, choose English or Spanish subtitles)
Giuseppe Baggi (1914-1972), a paper globetrotter
August 27, 2020
The adventures of Giuseppe Baggi, an Italian globertotter born in Faenza, who made his living out of folding all types of discarded materials. For this video, Mick Guy from UK lent his voice to read a chronicle about Baggi, published in The New York Times in 1959. The video has images and original works by Baggi from the museum's archive.
On YouTube Settings, choose English or Spanish subtitles)