Moving Panoramas

Tutorial created by Lucie von Schilling, with help from Kavita Premkumar, Joe Diemer, Jacqueline Kublik, Jane Nederlof, Kalea Raposo and Anne Hung

Online tutorial created by Priscilla Adebanji

Finished panorama by Lucie von Schilling, depicting the poem “Love Like We Used to Write” by Patricia Lockwood

 
 

During the Victorian era, moving panoramas, also known as a “cranky,” ranged in size and sophistication from gigantic, sprawling Siberian landscapes viewed from a stationary train car to give the illusion of travelling through a foreign country to small, handmade story-telling parlour games. A precursor to animation, the moving panorama encourages creative thinking and story telling. It is the perfect medium for re-imagining a favourite poem! The moving panorama allows for control over timing, mood, and imagery—just like poetry. This tutorial describes how to combine magazine collaging, poetry, and the moving panorama to make a one-of-a-kind treasure. However, the poetic moving panorama is no small feat. For those who are up to the challenge, the results are breathtaking and worth it.

Want to learn more about this craft? Click here for a list of scholarly readings, blogs and websites, instructional videos, extant examples, and 19th-century tutorials.

To read some makers’ reflections on this craft, and to see what they made, click here.

You will need

A stack of National Geographic magazines and a pair of scissors

  • A cardboard box

    TIP: A moving panorama can be made in any size of box, from matchbox to moving box!

  • Two dowels (e.g., chopsticks, curtain rods, toothpicks)

  • Something to hold the dowels in place (e.g., bottle caps, juice lids, nails if your dowels are hollow)

  • A knife/something to cut your box with (be careful!)

  • Base material to build your panorama on (e.g., a long piece of paper, parchment paper, fabric)

    • This is the material that will hold your poetic collage inside your box. As you move your dowels, your material will spool onto your other dowel. Make sure your base material is the right length for your selected box by measuring before beginning your collage.

  • A poem to adapt

    TIP: Choose a poem with lots of imagery that would translate well to collage. It can be an original piece or one by your favourite poet.

  • Magazines to mine images for your collage

    TIP: Thrift stores often have selections of National Geographic and other magazines at an affordable price!

  • Glue

    TIP: I recommend Mod Podge or strong crafting glue.

  • Scissors

Optional Items:

  • Glue gun (may be useful while attaching your base material to the dowels, especially if you’re using a thicker base material, like fabric)

For Instructors: Visit our Crafting in the Classroom page for information on embodied learning, or click here for further resources about this craft.

Step One:

Once you’ve selected your poem and gathered all necessary materials, begin to sift through your magazines to find the images that best represent your selected poem. Get creative! The images in your panorama can represent different aspects of your poem, like its mood, imagery, figurative language, or line length.

 

A pile of assorted images, including a leopard, a mountain range at sunset, and the silhouette of a smokestack

 
 

Step Two:

Once you have an idea of the images you’d like to use for your poetic moving panorama, carefully cut them out of the magazine. Depending on your desired length, you may end up with quite a few small cut outs.

 

A collage of cutout images—including a palm tree, two leafy trees, a child’s eyes, a hand (in black and white), some goldfish, and a TV showing close-ups of lips—on a white piece of fabric. Above the collage is a bottle of Mod Podge and a copy of Patricia Lockwood’s Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals.

 
 

Step Three:

Assemble and glue your collage onto your base material. It may be very long and awkward to paste down in one go. It’s okay to split it up into small sections! I suggest making your crafting as manageable as possible. As you can see from the image of my own poetic cranky, the entire collage ended up being quite long. To make the assembly more manageable, I glued my collage together in small sections. Leave room on either side of your base material so you have something to attach to your dowels. 

Please Note: When gluing down your collage, keep in mind the time that it takes to turn your poetic moving panorama! Space your images out according to how you want them delivered.

For my poetic moving panorama, I wanted my collage to mimic my chosen poem’s dense long lines, so my images are layered so they bleed into one another.

 

Step Four:

Once your collage is assembled and glued, turn your attention to your box. One side of your box will become your moving panorama’s “frame” or “window.” Use a pen to draw the desired shape and width of your frame onto the box for reference. Once you have a line to follow, CAREFULLY use a knife, scissors, or a box cutter to cut out your frame. 

Next, turn the box over to your panorama’s “backside”. If the “backside” is box flaps, your can leave these attached to prop your panorama up. If not, you will need to cut out the back as well so you can assemble your collage and dowels inside the box.

 

A cardboard box stood up with the bottom cut out and dowels poked through the edges on either side.

 
 

Step Five:

Create two holes in the top of your poetic cranky box for your dowels to sit in and spin. You may also use two bottle caps or nails (depending on your dowels) to hold the dowels in place on the inside. To do so, glue your bottle caps to the inside of the box and rest the dowels inside. It’s important to do this step before attaching your base material to the dowels. 

Please Note: Leave enough room on the inside of the box for your entire collage to wind up on either side of the moving panorama.

For example, if you’re using fabric, like I did, you will want to leave quite a bit of room between the dowels and the insides of the box so the entirety of the base material can scroll easily on each side.

 

The back of Lucie’s moving panorama. The fabric, which features the collage, has been wound around the dowels on either side of the cardboard box.

 
 

Step Six: 

Once the box is cut to your preference, attach your collage to the dowels one at a time. To do so, put a bead of glue along the base material and wrap it around the dowel. You may need to press and hold the material onto the dowel with your finger until it adheres. It’s important that the connection between the dowel and base material is strong so that it can hold while spinning. 

 

The top of Lucie’s moving panorama. This view reveals the tops of the dowels that one would twist to move the images below.

 
 

Once you’ve attached one side, you can then attach the other side. To do so, roll up the majority of your poetic collage onto your first attached dowel. This makes it easier to work with. Once you have a neat scroll, follow the same instructions for the second dowel as the first.

 

Step Seven:

Now that your poetic moving panorama is completely assembled, take it for a test spin! Also, now is the chance to polish your cranky! For example, I didn’t like the box border, so I used a piece of picture matting to create a frame. Don’t forget to celebrate the accomplishment of finishing an incredibly difficult craft!

 

Lucie’s completed moving panorama, from the front. The white frame features “Love Poem Like We Used To Write” on the top and “Patricia Lockwood” on the bottom, each spelled with letters individually cut from different magazine pages. The collaged image within the frame features a parking lot full of vintage cars, the back of a lamb, and four hands with “love poem” spelled across the fingers using individually cut out letters.

 

Please send us your own work-in-progress and/or finished creations! Email us at craftyvictorians@gmail.com, tweet us @craftyvictorian, or connect with us on Instagram @crafty_victorians.