Posts tagged ANIMATION
Animation vs Automation: Labour, Artificial Intelligence, and the Silent Crisis in the Animation Industry
Animation vs Automation: Labour, Artificial Intelligence, and the Silent Crisis in the Animation Industry

In 2009, Vivian Sobchack asked: “what might it mean to bring together the concepts and practices of ‘animation’ and ‘automation’”? At the time Sobchack was writing on the visibility of labour within a modern computer-generated cinematic framework, where computers have become advanced enough that they appear to “have a life of their own” (2009, 375). In her examination of Pixar’s computer-animated film WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008), Sobchack notes that it is the machines, the robots like WALL-E and EVE, who are imbued with “the movement of life,” while the humans are left motionless.

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EDITORIALOliver VigniANIMATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, LABOUR, HOLLYWOOD, INDUSTRYComment
Review: Stella Hockenhull and Frances Pheasant-Kelly (eds.), Tim Burton’s Bodies: Gothic, Animated, Corporeal and Creaturely (2021)
Review: Stella Hockenhull and Frances Pheasant-Kelly (eds.), Tim Burton’s Bodies: Gothic, Animated, Corporeal and Creaturely (2021)

Tim Burton’s Bodies provides a distinctive body-centric approach to the analysis of Burton’s back-catalogue of animated and live-action films (see Fig. 1 for book cover). Tim Burton is an internationally celebrated filmmaker, animator and artist who has worked in the industry since the 1980s. His work is commercially and critically acclaimed and is mostly associated with the fantasy horror sub-genre, the macabre and spectral, animated corpses and grotesque outsider protagonists.

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BOOK REVIEWAnna BlagroveTIM BURTON, STOP-MOTION, GENDER, FEMINISM, ANIMATIONComment
Rethinking the Disney Renaissance
Rethinking the Disney Renaissance

The Disney Renaissance is one of those curious constructs that circulates among the Walt Disney Company and its fan communities, entering academic studies of Disney animation largely unchallenged. What, exactly, was the Disney Renaissance? One of the many pleasures and privileges of being an animation scholar is not only to think about Disney, but to think about how we think about Disney. And unsurprisingly, a lot of the critical discourse on Disney is shaped by Disney itself.

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EDITORIALPeter C. KunzeDISNEY, HISTORY, ANIMATION, CEL ANIMATION, HOLLYWOODComment
Star Wars: Visions (2021): “The Duel”
Star Wars: Visions (2021): “The Duel”

Star Wars: Visions is an anime anthology series created by Lucasfilm and originally released on September 22, 2021. As an anthology series, the episodes of Star Wars: Visions are all independent from each other, both in plot and production, however even with the narrative and stylistic variety in the series, one episode stands out from the rest visually: the first episode, “The Duel” directed by Takanobu Mizuno and produced by the animation studio Kamikaze Douga.

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EDITORIALCameron WalshSCIENCE-FICTION, STAR WARS, ANIMATION Comment
Rider On The Storm: a stop-motion animated film
Rider On The Storm: a stop-motion animated film

In the ever-evolving world of animation, one independent studio dares to push the envelope. Located on a mountain top, surrounded by fields and forests Grateful Motion Studios’ unique setting provides the freedom and space to create exceptional works of art. The latest project from Harrison Killian, founder of Grateful Motion Studios, is an animated short film Rider On The Storm.

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EDITORIALHarrison KillianSTOP-MOTION, ANIMATIONComment
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's "Hellfire"
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's "Hellfire"

Adapted from Victor Hugo’s gothic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1996) tells the story of bellringer Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), born with a physical deformity that gives him a hunched back. The Disney animated film first depicts Quasimodo as a baby, when he was stolen from his Romani parents by Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) during one of his nighttime raids on the streets of Paris. The judge reluctantly raises Quasimodo as his own child, but keeps him locked high in a belltower away from all outside contact, until one day, a Romani dancer named Esmeralda (voiced by Demi Moore) enters Quasimodo’s life.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISAlyson HendersonVILLAINY, DISNEY, ANIMATION, MUSIC, HOLLYWOOD, ADAPTATION, GOTHICComment
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Posthumous & Posthuman Animation Online Seminar
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Posthumous & Posthuman Animation Online Seminar

Last week the BAFTSS Animation SIG presented another stellar online event. This time the SIG offered to explore the uncanny territories of posthumous and posthuman animation. Organized by Dr. Sam Summers (Middlesex University) and featuring works-in-progress by a doctoral student Alice Giuliani (University of West London) and Dr. Christopher Holliday (King’s College London), the Posthumous & Posthuman Animation seminar took place on Zoom on May 10th 2023.

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EVENT REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaPOSTHUMANISM, DIGITAL, ANIMATION, HOLLYWOOD, POLITICALComment
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event

The first event of the new BAFTSS Animated SIG was a very spooky one. Threading the often-unexplored relationship between animation and horror and organized by Dr. Sam Summers (Middlesex University), “Animated Horror: An Online Mini-Event” (Fig. 1) took place online on October 19, 2022. Even though it was a short one, the seminar offered a great deal of varied richness on issues of liminality, transformations, and the overlapping of horrific and seemingly innocent content, within animated horror.

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EVENT REVIEWJuliana VarelaHORROR, ANIMATION, DISNEY, HOLLYWOODComment
Review: Noel Brown, Contemporary Hollywood Animation: Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology Since the 1990s (2020)
Review: Noel Brown, Contemporary Hollywood Animation: Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology Since the 1990s (2020)

Noel Brown provides an engaging and well-researched account of contemporary Hollywood feature animation, here defined as from the 1990s onwards. Noting the recent significance of animation to both the Hollywood studios, their parent conglomerates, and popular culture more broadly, he aims to outline the “form and poetics of the mainstream animated feature” (Brown 2020, 2), with chapters devoted to their narrative and thematic focus on family and friendship, aesthetic shifts, and changes around their representations of identity.

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BOOK REVIEWJason ScottHOLLYWOOD, ANIMATION, STYLE, GENRE, POPULAR CINEMA, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment
Review: The Cuphead Show! (Dave Wasson, 2022)
Review: The Cuphead Show! (Dave Wasson, 2022)

Many videogame players awaited the release of Netflix Animation’s The Cuphead Show! (Dave Wasson, 2022). The show is based on the videogame Cuphead (Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, 2017), which was noted for its unique aesthetics within the gaming world. The game’s innovation lay in its inspiration in early 20th century American animation.

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TELEVISION REVIEWDevon DouiebTELEVISION, NETFLIX, HOLLYWOOD, ANIMATION, NOSTALGIAComment
Review: Two Decades of Shrek - An Academic Symposium
Review: Two Decades of Shrek - An Academic Symposium

The well-rehearsed statement that animation is nothing more than a medium ‘for children’ that is ‘not taken seriously’ enough is troubling on two counts. Firstly, it is clearly an assumption that is wide of the mark, as anyone working in the fields of film, media, or animation studies will tell you.

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EVENT REVIEWChristopher HollidayHOLLYWOOD, ANIMATION, DREAMWORKS ANIMATION, STYLE, PARODY, MUSIC, POPULAR CINEMAComment
Review: Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay, The Simpsons’ Beloved Springfield (2019)
Review: Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay, The Simpsons’ Beloved Springfield (2019)

Since its first full-length episode, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” (1989) (Fig. 1), The Simpsons (1989-) has been nominated for a plethora of awards. It is the first animated series to win an esteemed Peabody Award (1997), which was created to honour powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in media, and it has won 34 Emmy Awards across all areas of its production, which is an impressive result for an animated TV series.

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BOOK REVIEWAmy HarrisTELEVISION, COMEDY, STORYTELLING, ANIMATION, THE SIMPSONSComment
Review: Ray Harryhausen - Titan of Cinema
Review: Ray Harryhausen - Titan of Cinema

When it comes to the subject of the relationship between fantasy and animation, few bodies of work are as pertinent to the conversation as the special effects of Ray Harryhausen. The Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema exhibit was set to open in Edinburgh in the summer of 2020 at the National Galleries of Scotland.

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EVENT REVIEWToby JungiusCHARACTER, STOP-MOTION, ANIMATION, FANTASY, LABOUR, CREATIVE PRACTICE, MONSTERS, PUPPETRYComment
Contagion Animation as Contagious Animation
Contagion Animation as Contagious Animation

There is no accounting for taste at the best of times, but this past month’s constant stream of dire global pandemic news and projections has wreaked havoc on streaming algorithms, as quarantined audiences scramble to keep themselves occupied with a wide variety of new content. While many have opted to dive headfirst into big cat-themed true crime, others are eschewing escapist entertainment in favor of a morbid fascination with newly relevant fictional contagion narratives.

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EDITORIALMihaela MihailovaANIMATION, NEWS, REPRESENTATION, VISIBILITY, POLITICALComment
"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy/animation?" Music, Mimicry and Multitudes in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Rocketman (2019)
"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy/animation?" Music, Mimicry and Multitudes in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Rocketman (2019)

Two recent big screen biopics released within a few months of each other between October 2018 and May 2019 offered notably contrasting portrayals of popular musical icons. But if the lukewarm critical reception surrounding recent Freddie Mercury/Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018) put the genre under scrutiny for its questionable re-appropriation of real-life, then Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) seemed remarkably immune to such criticisms.

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EDITORIALChristopher HollidayFANTASY, BIOPIC, CGI, SPECIAL EFFECTS, ANIMATIONComment