TECHNOLOGY — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

The ‘Unmasking Scene’ in the Student Films of Shofela Coker

Nigerian-born artist and illustrator Shofela Coker’s student films Oni Ise Owo (2007) and Iwa (2009) narrate tales of redemption at the intersection of divine will and the exercise of human agency. Iwa is a remake of the earlier animation completed as a Motion Graphics final project when Coker was an art student at the Memphis College of Art. This post reads a critical scene in both films to explore artistic creative agency at the intersection of traditional African art production and the digital provenance of animation.

EDITORIALMichael OshindoroApril 26, 2024SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, REPRESENTATION, BODY, TECHNOLOGYComment

Another Kind of Magic: Méliès, Mercury, and Machine Learning

The music video for Queen’s “Heaven for Everyone” from their then-final record Made in Heaven (1995) - and a song that originally appeared on Shove It (1991), an album by drummer Roger Taylor’s side project The Cross (and featuring Freddie Mercury as a guest vocalist) - includes somewhat surprisingly footage from Georges Méliès’ early ‘trick’ films A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).

EDITORIALChristopher HollidayMarch 8, 2024TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, VOICE, STARDOM, CELEBRITY, DIGITALComment

Rotoscoping Female Subjectivity and Emotion Work in Undone

This blog post about Undone (Amazon Prime, 2019-2022) functions as a coping mechanism in light of Undone’s cancellation after two seasons, but also sets out to shed light on fragmented selves and multiverses, tropes that have been particularly prevalent in recent women-centric US TV.

EDITORIALSarah LahmJanuary 19, 2024TECHNOLOGY, ROTOSCOPING, GENDER, REPRESENTATION, BODYComment

Pros & Cons of Marketing with Animation: 2D vs. 3D

Animation marketing is a type of video marketing that uses various types of animated content to convey ideas and concepts to an audience while also increasing traffic and sales for businesses. When precisely tailored to your target demographic, animation brings the power of imagination and creativity to your marketing strategies and has grown to become an effective marketing tool.

EDITORIALVideo CaddyApril 14, 2023MARKETING, TECHNOLOGYComment

Review: Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century (2021)

In Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century, Nea Ehrlich discusses a growing body of works broadly called animated documentaries. For the purposes of this open-access monograph, Ehrlich employs Sheila Sofian’s definition of the form as “any animated film that deals with non-fiction material” (36), expands it beyond the cinematic space and considers the use of animation outside of the theatrical setting.

BOOK REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaFebruary 3, 2023DOCUMENTARY, TRUTH, REPRESENTATION, TECHNOLOGY, CULTUREComment

The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Superhero’s Ambivalent Relationship with Technology

EDITORIALDavid G. HughesMay 10, 2019SUPERHERO, MARVEL, FANTASY, ANIMATION, TECHNOLOGYComment