AC Robots in Christmas Animation

AC Robots in Christmas Animation

Nothing is as good as Christmas in the Philippines. The spirit of Christmas is present every night. The way Filipinos celebrate can’t be described. All the parols, lights and decorations really give color and joy to every street. What I like about Filipinos is their perseverance. They would always come up or pursue things especially during Christmas. It would be in various ways but no matter what it is, you would see the will to celebrate.

Sometimes, there are people who work even if it’s Christmas season. Just like in COD, the people there spent time in creating a great show for every holiday. Christmas on Display or COD is an attraction in Cubao, Manila wherein a show of moving mannequins is done. “Actually they shy from the word robot. The figures are ‘mannequins,’ and the in-house word for moving displays is ‘animation’... So etymologically, animation can mean ‘the art of giving life to objects’.” (Ermitaño. 

2002, p. 25-26) 

         COD’s unique way of giving entertainment gives an impact to it's audience. “... robotics, while also a form of animation, involves things like computers, servomotors and pneumatic cylinders – technologies too rich for COD’s thinning blood. COD animation is motors and knife switches and aircraft landing lights salvaged from the junkyards of Clark. It’s cables and cranks and levers and bicycles stripped for their gears and pulleys chopped out of wood and okay, some puppetry.” (Ermitaño. A Clockworld Christmas. p. 26) You see, people in COD may not have brilliant knowledge in it but they still manage to make the show presentable to people. The manpower and labor will not be obvious in the show but the goodness of the show represents it. You would feel the passion in their every work and would you imagine that a show is a year in the making. “There have always been people who believe the money might be put to better use, but COD hasn’t missed a year since they put on the first show in Avenida ... Francisco Corpuz, the original COD animator, is not only tech to have grown and died working on the show” (Ermitaño. 2002, p. 26). So basically if there’s a will, then there would always be a way. If you love what you’re doing then that’s it.

Reference:

Ermitaño, T. (2002, December 2). A clockworld Christmas. FLIP: An Official Guide to World Domination (Vol. 1 Issue 5), pp. 24 – 27.