The Blackest Crow

My First Crankie

I wanted to start this journey with a song without a chorus that I have memorized and with plenty of imagery throughout. The Blackest Crow fit this criteria. According to the Folkslinger's website, "The origin of The Blackest Crow is hard to pin down. It’s also known as My Dearest Dear and The Time Draws Near. The tune was heard in both the Appalachians and the Ozarks after the Civil War, though no recordings of it are found in the early years of commercial music."

I also wanted to create this first crankie without too much fuss, as a proof of concept that I could actually do it. It is a sketch, a first draft. The paper is not fancy, some of the scroll is taped together, I used marker and a very loose drawing style.

The Making

Creating the Box

I followed this tutorial for creating a basic cardboard crankie box. This is a fantastic tutorial to start with to just get the hang of the basic concept.

My first crankie box is fairly flimsy, as I was using an old mailing box I had on hand. I substituted pencils for dowels and used a wrapping paper tube as instructed. I couldn't find my glue gun so substituted duct tape. Construction took about half an hour once I had all the materials gathered.

Storyboarding

I started with a storyboard of the song. Each line is aligned with an image and each image flows into the next. It is not drawn to scale but helps to determine what image will be paired with the lyrics as it is sung and turned. The pacing of the scroll is something that you have to pay attention to during the performance but the storyboarding process helps to think through that a bit in advance.

I sketched the storyboard from memory and forgot one line so I had to squeeze it in afterwards but luckily caught it before making the real thing!

The Story Scroll Illustration

I had a roll of thin craft paper handy so I decided to use that for this sketch. I measured the front opening of the crankie box and then estimated the length of the paper to cut. At the start of each box area, where I knew a sketched line from the song would go, I put a small pencilled mark to help guide the sketching.

I ended up having to splice three pieces together to create the full scroll, as I was running out of paper. I wasn't as careful as I could have been cutting a straight edge on the paper roll but my messy work is hidden behind the box window!

I used a pencil to draw the scroll out and then simple markers for inking, working fast. It took about an hour to complete the sketching and inking.

Recording

After assembling, I simply recorded the video of the performance using my phone camera on a tripod. I experimented with a headlamp pointed at the back for illumination but decided that for this one it wasn't quite right. The sound quality is basic, as is the video production. It's a start.

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