Following the success of the first ‘Animation and Public Engagement Symposium’ (APES), which ran in association with the Bradford Animation Festival in 2014, APES 2015 touched down at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle for this year’s installment. Coordinated by Society…
Adult Animation
The Adult Appeal of “Steven Universe”
by Kodi Maier • December 2, 2015 • 0 Comments
Subtle, endearing, and wonderfully complex, Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe has been charming kid and adult audiences alike since its pilot aired in November 2013. Each eleven-minute episode slowly reveals the life and world of Steven Universe, a ten-year-old boy who…
Adult Animation
Maturing Animation on Cartoon Network
by Jacqueline Ristola • November 27, 2015 • 4 Comments
In writing about Cartoon Network and its successful television blocks [adult swim]* and Toonami, I find three intertwining ideas that help elucidates the network’s distinctive style and success in its adult animation, and will briefly explore them here. “Just for…
Adult Animation
The Tedium is the Message: How Adult Animation Visualizes Monotony
by Evelyn Hielkema • November 20, 2015 • 1 Comment
Escapist animation aimed at both children and adults tends to bracket out “dull moments” for the sake of narrative efficiency. Sometimes, escaping from monotony becomes the subject of lengthy animated sequences, especially in works like the Wallace and Gromit shorts,…
Adult Animation
Articulating Interiors of longing and Desire: “Asparagus” (1979) by Suzan Pitt.
by Chloe Feinberg • November 11, 2015 • 2 Comments
In Suzan Pitt’s 1979 animated film Asparagus, we follow a faceless doll-like figure as she moves through sensuous domestic interiors; as she defecates asparagus stalks into a toilet bowl, as she watches a forest of tangled exotic plants and flowers…
Fantasy/Animation
In your face, Princess.
by Meike Uhrig • November 1, 2015 • 0 Comments
If eyes are the “mirror of the soul”, Disney’s princess Sofia the First might be the incarnation of film histories stereotypical “woman without secrets”. This predominantly female protagonist, often found in romantic comedies, portrays a lovable, clumsy character displaying an…
Fantasy/Animation
Mac Orlan’s ‘Social Fantastic’ and Animation
by Barnaby Dicker • October 22, 2015 • 0 Comments
My small contribution to the Fantasy/Animation proceedings has been to think through animation’s place within what Pierre Mac Orlan (pseudonym of Pierre Dumarchey, 1882-1970) termed the ‘social fantastic’; a concept he developed, principally, over the 1920s and 1930s. At the…
Fantasy/Animation
The challenges in creating a CGI art house movie for the masses
by Paul Charisse • October 16, 2015 • 0 Comments
Making feature films is expensive and making animated CGI feature films is very, very expensive. Films that fall under the banner of “Art House” traditionally don’t have the budget of their blockbuster counterparts. So does a film that attempts to…
Fantasy/Animation
How can we understand Lotte Reiniger’s fantasy fairy-tales in context?
by Caroline Ruddell • October 9, 2015 • 1 Comment
In 1923 Lotte Reiniger began production on her animated feature film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which was finally released in 1926. It has often been noted that her friend and collaborator Walter Ruttman is said to have been upset…
Children's Animation
Early Years Animation as Ambient Experience
by Joe Darlington • October 2, 2015 • 0 Comments
You can imagine the scene – perhaps you’re living it now – with the infant sat captivated by the shifting shapes moving on the screen and the parent behind them, busy with another task, not concentrating on the screen but…