Since the release of Toy Story (Lasseter, 1995) Pixar Animation Studios has become renowned for creating films that are both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. Collectively, Toy Story and its sequels have grossed over 1.9 billion dollars worldwide, and are…
Gender and Animation
Socialism and the Rise of the First Camerawoman in History of Chinese Animation
by Daisy Yan Du • December 3, 2014 • 3 Comments
Generally speaking animated filmmaking is gendered. Men usually work as directors, key animators, and photographers, while women take less important roles such as inkers and painters—jobs that demand repetitive and tedious manual labor rather than artistic creativity and high technology.…
Alternative/Forgotten Histories
Animation: A Different Way of Looking at the Past
by Victoria Walden • November 26, 2014 • 0 Comments
What do we mean by ‘history’? The term itself is much contested. History (with a capital ‘H’) is often reserved for ‘official histories’ of events, these are usually imbued with hegemonic priorities and neglect many voices that could contribute to…
"National" Animation, Alternative/Forgotten Histories
Getting closer into the heart of the Thai Thai-ness
by Millie Young • November 26, 2014 • 2 Comments
To get closer into the heart of Thai-Thai-ness and as a continuation from ‘Tracing the Heart of Thai Animation’, which opened the discussion on Thai animation’s cultural identity and outlined the key feature films in their short history, this post…
Alternative/Forgotten Histories
Mecki – A Hedgehog as Election Worker
by Sigrun Lehnert • November 18, 2014 • 1 Comment
Mecki the Hedgehog is a cartoon character originating in the 19th century, based on the tale of The Hare and the Hedgehog, from the brothers Grimm’s famous fairy tale collection. The fable tells the story of a hedgehog who tricked…
Alternative/Forgotten Histories
The Forgotten History of Animation in Film Studies
by Victoria Walden • November 5, 2014 • 4 Comments
“Cinema and media studies in the early twenty-first century needs a better understanding of the relationship between two of the film’s most unwieldy and unstable organizing concepts: ‘animation’ and ‘film theory’. As the increasing digital nature of cinema now forces…
Research in Progress
The Future is Bright…
by Aylish Wood • October 28, 2014 • 4 Comments
I’ve been researching software and animation. As part of that project, I recently thought it would be good to know more about where the algorithms that make up 3D animation software came from. We’re quite used to thinking about digital…
Miscellaneous
Some thoughts about the imagined and non-imagined animation communities
by Eliska Decka • October 21, 2014 • 1 Comment
It seems like that to become an independent animator isn’t as hard as to keep being one after one leaves the safety net of your animation department. During these past 2 years while conducting my PhD research about the creative…
Research in Progress
SOUND DESIGN: RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
by Kara Scott-James • October 13, 2014 • 2 Comments
1. Narrative Aesthetics – Sound Design in Story Development: A Case for Pre-AuralVis Recap – MFA (Production Research); work presented at SAS 2014 (Toronto) Despite an increasing awareness of sound design many filmmakers still neglect sound’s potentials, particularly within early-stage development. …
Research in Progress
Channelling Time for Over Time
by Birgitta Hosea • September 16, 2014 • 0 Comments
Building on her previous work on the concept of time, Over Time (overtimeart.org) is a practice-based research project curated by Anne Robinson (London Metropolitan University), culminating in an exhibition and series of performances in Greenwich during September and October 2014…