Finally, Mola Mola Project is happy to introduce our Praxinoscope Theatre to you all. The video on the left shows how it can be packaged and assembled. And the animation played in the theare is made from the photos taken by Rolleiflex camera.

Hi! We hope you didn't forget us. After the performance Tokyo/Olympics, we've been with Port B again for the production of their latest performance Sunshine 62 which has just finished last month. And now, both mariko and dokko are back in Mola Mola Studio to finish the incomplete works from last year and to prepare for new projects.

Photos left: Our Praxinoscope Theatre waiting for the completion. right: A view from the opening in the lid of the Praxinoscope Theatre. You can see the animation with a background image.

As previously announced, our new praxinoscope videos are now ready for streaming via YouTube. We titled the left one Back Somersault and the right one Fishing. Enjoy!

In the meantime, our latest project Praxinoscope Theatre is near completion. It's almost fully functional and the remaining processes will be done as soon as our new year holiday is over. We hope to upload some photos before the holiday.

Hi, folks!

We just started making a new optical device known as Praxinoscope Theatre. As you can imagine, it's a descendant of Praxinoscope with a great feature which enables the spectator to view animations with a background image.

Currently, we're working with a dummy machine to figure out the dimensions and mirror angle to reflect the background image exactly behind the animation. We hope to show you the finished one by the end of this year.

In addition, we've just taken two videos of our original films played on the praxinoscope. We'll upload them to YouTube as soon as editing is done.

Sorry for not updating Mola Mola News more frequently, but both mariko and dokko have been extremely busy with the production of Port B's tour performance Tokyo/Olympic. Anyway, here's what happened a few weeks ago...

One evening, mariko brought in a cartoon box to our studio. dokko wondered what it was and raptured when he finally found out it was an 8mm film editor. However, mariko said, "Don't get overjoyed, dokko. It's broken and we need to repair it. Oh, don't be disappointed. We can at least take it apart and pick up some parts for our own machines even if we fail to repair it."

Now you can see the photo which shows dokko succeeded in fixing it. Hats off to the diehard craftsman!

A new device in our studio, Rolleiflex 3.5E.

Look at its state-of-the-art form. It's really in a good condition and works perfect. We are sure no digital device can reach the warm gradation presented by the 6 by 6cm format film. So, what are we going to do with this? We are planning to use it as a movie camera, not as a still photo camera. Kinda crazy certainly...

Added a few photos from the making process of praxinoscope. We have taken lots of pictures while making praxinoscope and will add some more soon. We hope these photos will help those who are curious enough to decide make one by themselves.

Although it's still not enough, we believe this web site has prepared minimum contents for public viewing. It's just a begining as we have much more to put here and interesting plans for the future. For the time being, please enjoy our praxinoscope page and please come back soon as we'll make our best efforts to update as frequently as possible. Thank you!

A New Experience of Motion Picture

Going through the history of cinema, one might come up with questions like;
- Is there any other way to see movies than theatre or video monitor?
- Why all movies have fixed aspect ratio?
- Can there be other media to print images?
- etc...

To find answers to these questions, mariko and dokko Littlething started Mola Mola project in March 2007. Our first task was to reproduce Praxinoscope, a pre-cinema device invented by Emile Reynaud in 1877. The result satisfied us enough to discover the possibilities of motion pictures in quite different ways from today. As our project proceeds, we hope to offer you a new experience of motion pictures.

On the other hand, however, we're not collector-minded retro maniacs but explorers of a pure essence of entertainment with an expectation for the harmony of sound and vision.

Well, enough said but still missing something? Here are brief profiles of mariko and dokko...