Embarking on an all-Iraqi animation project within a country still recovering from the last few decades of upheaval presents particular problems and possibilities. Completing the short 3D animation Baghdad Night (2013), Iraqi/German artist Furat al-Jamil and her team were confronted…
"National" Animation
Animators in Exile
by Lauren Carr • May 19, 2014 • 2 Comments
Are animators in exile? Yes, as well as all the other positions that entail production for feature animation. August 2000 was my entry in the industry, the tail end of in-house traditional feature animation in California. Los Angeles had been…
"National" Animation
‘Irish’ Animation
by Harvey O'Brien • May 12, 2014 • 3 Comments
Each year I ask my students who has seen the Oscar-nominated indigenous Irish feature The Secret of Kells (2009). Each year just a few hands go up. This might be unremarkable other than that I teach at an Irish University.…
Miscellaneous
Why MLP (FIM)?
by Ewan Kirkland • May 5, 2014 • 0 Comments
The new My Little Pony show, subtitled ‘Friendship is Magic’, follows in the footsteps of recent reimagined franchises, from superhero comics, to digital game heroines, to science fiction and action television. While understandably rejecting the ‘dark’ reboot route, a distinct…
"National" Animation
Animation in the Middle East
by Stefanie Van de Peer • May 5, 2014 • 7 Comments
In the Middle East, historically, the relationship between art and religion is complex. Islam declares that Allah is the only image-maker, the only creative and shaping being with divine inspiration. In that context, figurative art has been avoided. Islamic art…
Norman McLaren Centenary: McLaren and Movement
A Reflection On Norman McLaren, George Balanchine And Absolute Ballet
by Aimee Mollaghan • April 28, 2014 • 1 Comment
Norman McLaren infamously posits that he probably became a filmmaker because he had been unable to be a dancer or choreographer. While one can argue that the underlying concern of his work is movement, one can also posit that McLaren’s…
Norman McLaren Centenary: McLaren and Movement
Animating Animation: Abstraction and Embodiment in McLaren’s films and dance tribute NORMAN
by Crystal Chan • April 22, 2014 • 1 Comment
Norman McLaren said “every film is a kind of dance”[1] and that “an abstract film has much greater affinity to music, ballet and dance than it has to any kind of abstract painting.”[2] He said he might have wanted to…
Norman McLaren Centenary: McLaren and Movement
3D or not 3D?
by Alison Reiko Loader • April 14, 2014 • 2 Comments
It seems unimaginable that Norman McLaren might have once relinquished animation for still imagery. Perhaps more shocking still, the illustrious Scot had already begun his decades long career at the National Film Board of Canada when a new non-moving vocation…
Norman McLaren Centenary: McLaren and Movement
Seeing Music Move: Norman McLaren’s Direct Animation and Jazz
by Lilly Husbands • April 7, 2014 • 0 Comments
Direct animation possesses certain inherent qualities, such as immediacy, accelerated kinesis, and improvisational flow that I would like to suggest can correspond isomorphically to the extemporised uptempo meters of particular forms of jazz music. Gestalt theorist Rudolf Arnheim describes the…
Health Issues and Animation
From one extreme to the other?
by Nichola Dobson • March 31, 2014 • 0 Comments
In the last few months in the UK, the mainstream press, and in particular The Guardian newspaper, have been campaigning to raise awareness of the issues of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Alongside Change.org, the movement has been keen to encourage…