Yen-Jung Chang – Strategies for a Reduction to 2D Graphical Styles in 3D Computer Graphics with Hybrid Aesthetics

In this paper, I present the development of conceptual strategies and technical ideas to create images and an animation with 2D graphical styles by using 3D computer animation tools. With an initial idea of reduction, a hybrid aesthetic was created through directly referencing animations produced by traditional hand-drawn technique. UPA’s (United Production of America) animation style, Japanese anime and a contemporary French animated short are the primary inspirations to achieve the hybridization in the imagery of this project. My approach is related to the category of Non-photorealistic Rendering (NPR) to distinguish from realistic oriented computer image processes. A set of strategies were induced through the visual experiments and the production of an animated short, Sophie’s Secret (Chang 2008). 3D computer techniques associated with this animation project are described and still images of this project are also presented.

Nea Ehrlich – Animated Documentaries as Masking

When Exposure and Disguise Converge Since the 1990s there has been a rise in the use of documentary materials in film and visual arts, most commonly referred to as “The Documentary Turn” (Nash, 2004). The complexity of what defines realities and the questioning of epistemological limits is part of the contemporary fascination with the documentary. […]

Sheuo Hui Gan – The Transformation of the Teenage Image in Oshii Mamoru’s The Sky Crawlers

The postwar emergence of manga and anime as mass media directed at children emphasized the importance of shōjo and shōnen (boys and girls) characters that encouraged its targeted audience to achieve easy identification. As teenagers gradually became the intended key audience, an increasing range of imagined lives were displayed in these visual narratives. From the […]

Samantha Moore – Animating unique brain states

This paper will look at the term which Chris Landreth has coined for the way in which animation can depict internal realities; psychorealism. The term will be re-interpreted by the author and applied to her recent work. The paper will look at the challenges of working with subjective brain states and the ways in which the information collected can be verified. The paper will show how by dislocating elements of realism and re-placing them into the realm of animation psychorealism allows the audience to engage with the material differently.

Shannon Brownlee – Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or, SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff

This article examines how distinctions between animation and live action correspond to distinctions between childish polymorphous perversity and adult masculinity in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (Stephen Hillenberg, 2004).

Maria O’Brien – The Secret of Kells (2009), a film for a post Celtic Tiger Ireland?

Maria O’Brien – The Secret of Kells (2009), a film for a post Celtic Tiger Ireland?   The Secret of Kells (2009) (dir. Tomm Moore) is a feature length animated film that plays with myth, truth and fiction to propose an originating story for the Book of Kells, a highly decorated 8th century  insular book […]

Aimee Mollaghan – “An Experiment in Pure Design:” The Minimalist Aesthetic in the Line Films of Norman McLaren

During the 1960s Scottish animator Norman McLaren undertook a series of inquiries into the nature of the line that culminated in three films, Lines Vertical (1960), Lines Horizontal (1962) and Mosaic (1965). Although McLaren has always been associated with innovation in animation technique and aesthetics, often times his more formal concerns have remained overlooked, underexplored, […]

Hannes Rall – Tradigital Mythmaking: New Asian Design Ideas for Animation

Introduction “Tradigital Mythmaking” might seem to be an unusual venture at first—a German animator and animation scholar working with young Asian artists to create new concepts for animation that are based on Asian mythologies and artistic traditions. An excursion into my own artistic and research background will establish the project in a wider context and […]

Colleen Montgomery – Woody’s Roundup and Wall-E’s Wunderkammer: Technophilia and Nostalgia in Pixar Animation

“Two words: ‘Sput-nik.’ Once the astronauts went up, children only wanted to play with space toys.” – Pete the Prospector, Toy Story 2 Although Pixar Animation’s corporate identity has long been tied to the studio’s advancement of digital animation technologies, many of Pixar’s films paradoxically seem to highlight, and even champion, disused, archaic and obsolete […]