In the introduction of the recently published anthology Coraline: A Closer Look at Studio LAIKA’s Stop-Motion Witchcraft, editor Mihaela Mihailova writes, “Like witchcraft, puppet craft remains poorly understood and frequently branded as a relic of a bygone era — and…
Since 1958, when the game “Tennis For Two” was first exhibited, the question of animated representation entered the field of video game development. How could one represent a tennis match using external electronic inputs from pushing computer buttons? Developer William…
While all productions have some element of set design, Andre Bazin would distinguish directors focused on mise-en-scene from those who preferred naturalism and fluid editing: the former would meticulously construct shots to produce distinct, if occasionally artificial imagery (Konigsberg 1998,…
Food represents the culture and identity of a society, region or country and its depiction within an audio-visual work allows creating a connection with the audiences of those regions, as well as those who love to try these cuisines. Today,…
One could enjoy quite a feast from the buffet of stop-motion history. You can find eggs in Charley Bowers’s Believe It or Don’t (1935), an array of fresh fruits and vegetables in Disney’s A Symposium on Popular Songs (1962), beans…
Until recently, the narrative of the American Thanksgiving meal has been about togetherness. Inspired perhaps by the Norman Rockwell painting Freedom from Want (1943), which depicts the archetypical American family sharing the archetypical American Thanksgiving feast. The traditional Thanksgiving meal is classic…
The Breadwinner is a 2D animated film about an Afghan Muslim girl’s desperate attempt to support her family. The film follows an 11-year-old girl, Parvana, who cuts her hair and dresses up as a boy to work for the family…
Mythology, as a reference to looping, serves as a new narrative origin, since it enables the narration of the story behind eternal punishments. These Greek heroes betray the trust of some god and are therefore punished with repetition. Duration is…
The animator is often seen as a God controlling all time and space in the animated film. Yet, in our shared world of human life, the animator is as helpless as everyone else, and must die. After a serious acute…
The giant journalist G. K. Chesterton observed that “as God made a pigmy-image of Himself and called it Man, so man made a pigmy-image of creation and called it art” (Chesterton, 264). J. R. R. Tolkien argued that all artists…
