Featured image: Rachel Ryle, January 1 2019, Happy New Year from New York…, Instagram, viewed 1 May 2019, <https://www.instagram.com/p/BsER6KdFVWx/>.

Who is the practitioner and when were they practicing?

The practitioner’s name is Rachel Ryle. Ryle is a self-taught artist, illustrator and animator who was able to turn her hobby into a full time job and uses social media to promote her work. She uses the social media platform Instagram, to post quick 15 second stop motion videos, revolving around her art and animations to her audiences. Ryle’s first video animation, titled ‘Make Something & Grow’, was published in July 2013.

What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?) 

The Instagram video that I have chosen to analyse begins with the caption ‘Happy New Year from New York…’. The Link for the video can be found here.

With the photo or video, you are examining when was it produced (date)?

The video that I have chosen to analyse was posted on 1 January 2019.

How was the photo or video authored?

Rachel Ryle uses stop motion animation to create her videos. What is really interesting is how she makes it seem as though she is moving the 2D drawings or art around the frame, which is really clever and engaging for an Instagram audience. Each individual short video has different small elements that tell the story, which change and by the end of the video eventually lead to a bigger picture. Ryle says that she looks around at everyday items as inspiration for her videos, which in this case the video had a holiday theme connecting it and the audience directly to real time events. For this particular video it starts off with the snow globe that appears to move to reveal the Christmas Tree and presents – where the snow globe gets put into – cars moves into the frame and the presents flip around to reveal writing on the back, the background becomes darker to transport the audience into nighttime where the drawings of New York city pop up and the lights flash on and off for the eventual countdown.

Ryle’s videos heavily rely on post-production processes. For this video she added the music Auld Lang Syne by The David Richard Big Band which added a holiday, festival and jazz vibe to the video. This is a common theme in all of her videos that she will add music and sound effects to tell the story in a creative and fun way for her audience. Ryle plays the sound effects of groups of people counting down too and shouting happy new year. An Instagram user would understand what this video is about without needing to read the caption, even the snow globe reads ‘Happy Holidays from NYC’. While a user would be able to know what the message of the video is without reading a caption Ryle still includes one. She wishes her audience a happy new year, while also going into details about New York and a little bit of behind the scenes information of her creating the video. She also including hashtags underneath the caption, which revolves around the setting of the videos such as #NewYork and her craft such as #StopMotion. Ryle hasn’t stated what particular camera she uses, but it is most likely an iPhone (she uses this to take other photos for other accounts and evident in video interviews) set up overhead of her own drawings. Stop Motion is very timely and she would also have to be extremely careful not to move or touch the camera so that the frame is consistent and if she were to make mistake than would have to start from again from the beginning. She disclosed to Ryan Creamer from Mashable that “on average, each animation takes 15-20 hours from the beginning concept to final editing” (Mashable Australia, p. 1, 18 January 2016).

How was the photo or video published?

This video was published on Ryle’s Instagram account @rachelryle to her one million followers. Ryle keeps her Instagram videos to a maximum of 15 seconds long. While Ryle has other a website and social media accounts such as Facebook or You Tube the content she posts there are different and much longer than what she shares on Instagram. With Instagram you need to capture the audience attention quickly and maintain it, this is therefore why she users shorter videos as they are preferred on this social media app. This therefore encourages her audiences are to follow her Instagram account. Ryle’s account only contains videos and on average she posts these about once a week.

How was the photo or video distributed?

Ryle doesn’t share her Instagram videos with social media sites, like You Tube or Facebook as they generally have longer content, however, she does upload the same video on to her Twitter page. The caption for the Twitter account is also different to the one on Instagram. The caption on Instagram seems more personal and networked whereas the Twitter caption is shorter and less conversational which is an interesting comparison. Ryle does not feature her website or any other social media links in Instagram, relying only on the platform itself.

References:

about.me n.d., Rachel Ryle: Illustrator and Animator in Boulder, Colorado, about.me, pp. 1, viewed 4 May 2019, <https://about.me/rachelryle>.

Alicia Wallace December 28 2013, Instagram animations by Boulder’s Rachel Ryle fuel burgeoning startup, Daily Camera, p. 1, viewed 2 May 2019, <https://www.dailycamera.com/2013/12/28/instagram-animations-by-boulders-rachel-ryle-fuel-burgeoning-startup/>.

Ryan Creamer 18 January 2016, Rachel Ryle’s Instagram animation skills are a shot of inspiration, Mashable Australia, p. 1, viewed 2 May 2019, <https://mashable.com/2016/01/17/rachel-ryle-instagram-animation/>.

@rachelryle n.d., Happy New Year from New York!…, Instagram, 1 January, viewed 1 May 2019, <https://www.instagram.com/p/BsER6KdFVWx/>.

rachelryle.com n.d., Rachel Ryle, blog, sections: Home p. 1, Meet the Artist p.1, viewed 1 May 2019, <http://www.rachelryle.com> .