The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory – ISSN 1930-1928
(Animation) began as something other than drama. It was not a story in three acts; it was a singular event, like an implausible trapeze act … (Norman Klein, 1993) “There is no interest in achieving the possible, but it is exceedingly interesting to perform the impossible.” “Astound me!” (Serge Diaghilev, 1909-1929; Director of The Ballets […]
Originating at the end of the nineteenth century, three-dimensional stop-motion animation has been an exclusively manual animation practice, in which the direct manipulation of handmade puppets and models allows a more tactile approach of the physical act of animating and a more sensuous perception of the tangible by the viewer, that is, the elicitation of […]
Is a digital image consisting of dots and lines and digital information, is it more real? Is a drawn image, talking with real sound, less true? Who can say? Who is to judge? (Ari Folman, 2008) We are practically drowning in the present; we are practically drowning in the past. (Nicholas Rombes 2009, p. 96) […]
All our senses have their own space area of reference, and normally when we perceive we combine them all, what we see, hear, touch and smell all into the one area of space where we live. (Lee, 1971 p. 17) This essay explores the animation practice of Australian filmmaker Michael Lee, whose career spans the […]
This paper considers the films of the Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer (b.1934) from the perspective of puppetry[1]. The majority of his films involve stop-motion animation[2], usually combined with live action. He often uses puppets, as both live action effects (e.g. actually pulling strings) and animated using stop motion techniques. This paper will explore his relationship […]
Anima: soul or vital force (feminine form) + Matrix: point from where something originates Factory Girls I started my professional life in a factory—an animation factory. Despite having completed a bachelor degree in the then brand new field of Media Design, which included video, photography, graphic design and animation, along with extensive studies in art […]
The continued evolution of film in the digital realm, and the increased reliance on CGI and VFX elements in Hollywood film, have made it imperative to analyse not just the effect of these on image production, but also on the narrative techniques within cinema. Contemporary films now contain a significant proportion of computer graphics; at […]
In 2000 the Mumbai-based commercial graphics firm Crest Communications acquired the struggling Hollywood studio Rich Animation. Five years later, the combined companies signed a three-picture deal with Lions Gate starting with the 2010 feature Alpha and Omega (Bell and Gluck 2010). This was an audacious move for the newly minted Crest Animation, a studio that […]
Through steps such as these we can understand how it is, that as soon as some melancholy thought passes through the brain, there occurs a just perceptible drawing down of the corners of the mouth, or a slight raising up of the inner ends of the eyebrows, or both movements combined, and immediately afterwards a […]
“A film is about feeling.” Jerzy Kucia A lifelong “emotional animated documentary” on the Polish landscape Polish animator Jerzy Kucia’s films are about journeys – ordinary men and women travel from one place to another by different means of transport, such as a train as in Return (Powrót, 1972), a bicycle as in The Barrier […]