Posts tagged CREATIVE PRACTICE
Empowering Inclusion through Animation: Pioneering Digital Resources for Cultural Competency at King’s College London
Empowering Inclusion through Animation: Pioneering Digital Resources for Cultural Competency at King’s College London

The story began with discussions with colleagues about cultural competence content to train staff and students. I appreciated the unique insights I had on these perspectives, both as an outsider (experiences I had as a non-native) and as an insider (working as an academic in the UK for the past 17 years). Driven by a desire to address this issue, I began exploring the less overt forms of bias, i.e., microaggressions. While explicit biases are widely acknowledged for their impact, implicit biases are subtler and vary significantly based on individual backgrounds, education, and conditioning.

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EDITORIALMandeep Gill SagooEDUCATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, CREATIVE PRACTICE, DIGITAL Comments
The Man of Carton
The Man of Carton

The Man of Carton (2021) is a music video project that uses forms of fantasy and animation to provide a metaphor for, and representation of, a specific type of human behaviour related to psychopathy, exploring the relationships between emotion, empathy, and behaviour. Psychopathy’s most significant and dominant characteristics are traditionally understood as the reification of humans, a perceived lack of emotion, a need to corrupt or cause harm or pain to others, and a complex relationship to modes of innocence.

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EDITORIALA. MartiCREATIVE PRACTICE, MUSIC, MUSIC VIDEO, PRODUCTIONComment
What does fantasy sound like? Finding a new sound for the Fantasy-Animation podcast
What does fantasy sound like? Finding a new sound for the Fantasy-Animation podcast

Imagination is deeply intertwined with sensorial experience. One sensorial perception can prompt us to imagine a whole setting to go with it, and function as a catalyst for both simple and extremely complex cognitive processes (Berger, 2016). Sound can be a powerful tool to invite the audience to experience something that is not actually there, and because of this, it has been extensively used for world-building and character development within a range of animated and fantasy media.

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EDITORIALFrancisca NaranjoTHEME, MUSIC, SOUND, SOUND DESIGN, CREATIVITY, CREATIVE PRACTICE Comments
The Transition from Subject to Producer: Longhorn Miao’s Participatory Collaboration in Animation
The Transition from Subject to Producer: Longhorn Miao’s Participatory Collaboration in Animation

The development of animated documentaries has expanded the functions of animation art, including recording the culture and life of ethnic minority communities or particular social groups and conveying their voices. Animations like The Stitches Speak (Nina Sabnani, 2009) and They Call Us Maids: The Domestic Workers' Story (Leeds Animation Workshop, 2018) endeavoured to make animation content represent the subjects’ views more accurately.

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EDITORIALYijing WangDOCUMENTARY, LABOUR, CREATIVE PRACTICE, ASIAN ANIMATIONComment
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
Review: Tze-yue G. Hu, Masao Yokota and Gyongyi Horvath (eds.), Animating the Spirited: Journeys and Transformations (2020)
Review: Tze-yue G. Hu, Masao Yokota and Gyongyi Horvath (eds.), Animating the Spirited: Journeys and Transformations (2020)

Fantasy storytelling reached a new level of cultural visibility and mainstream popularity with the immense success of Game of Thrones (2011-19). As Game of Thrones rose to prominence, it inspired The Simpsons creator Matt Groening to develop a new animated series, his first major new series since Futurama (1999-2013).

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BOOK REVIEWSteven GilNARRATIVE, FANTASY, HIGH FANTASY, CREATIVE PRACTICEComment
Review: Kotatsu Animation Festival - 10th Anniversary (2020)
Review: Kotatsu Animation Festival - 10th Anniversary (2020)

During October 24th-26th 2020, the Kotatsu Animation Festival held its 10th anniversary festival. Sponsored by Japan Foundation London and hailed as Wales’ premiere event for Japanese animation, this year’s event was held online due to the Coronavirus pandemic, with showings of the festival films live on the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival YouTube channel and several Zoom Q+A’s and workshops were held.

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EVENT REVIEWAnastasia Marika WilliamsANIME, JAPAN, CREATIVITY, CREATIVE PRACTICEComment
Art and Science in Animation
Art and Science in Animation

Quantum LOGOS (vision serpent) is an immersive reactive film that uses Mesoamerican culture as inspiration for design ideas that explore the basics of quantum mechanics. This project uses abstract animated imagery to metaphorically represent the quantum world. I use this approach because of the parallels that are evident between Mesoamerican art and philosophy and the quantum mechanics vision of the nature of reality.

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONMark ChavezINTERACTIVITY, ENVIRONMENT, ENGAGEMENT, CREATIVITY, CREATIVE PRACTICEComment
Anti-Racism in Fantasy/Animation and Academia
Anti-Racism in Fantasy/Animation and Academia

At Annecy 2020, Women in Animation held a digital summit on the theme ‘Reimagining the Future: Race, Solidarity and the Culture of Work’. At the panel ‘Black Women in Animation: Looking to the Future’, moderator Jamal Joseph from Columbia University asked, ‘What needs to happen now? How do we get more women in animation and how do we get more women of colour in animation and film?’

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EDITORIALKodi MaierDIVERSITY, INCLUSION, RACE, CREATIVE PRACTICE, ACADEMIA Comment
Fostering Empathy and Compassion through Fantasy/Animation
Fostering Empathy and Compassion through Fantasy/Animation

During the production of my animated film Anna, I began to contemplate questions about the intersection between empathy, animation and fantasy, and how they feed into the value of storytelling through film. The further into production I went, the more interesting and complex this became as I saw how fantasy and storytelling could play a powerful role in developing empathetic sensitivities in both filmmakers and viewers.

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONJess MountfieldCREATIVE PRACTICE, FILMMAKING, EMPATHY, EMOTIONComment
Review: Todd James Pierce, The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation (2019)
Review: Todd James Pierce, The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation (2019)

Despite working at the Walt Disney studios during the Golden Age of American animation, Ward Kimball is in some ways an odd choice of subject for a biography. The animator worked mostly behind the scenes, never directed a feature film, most of his work on famous films was cut, and he was never a household name in his own lifetime. On the other hand, he is as fascinating a subject as a biographer could hope for: a talented, creative craftsman, an eccentric who built a stretch of railroad and drove a steam train around his suburban backyard, and a skilled musician who played trombone in a long-running Dixieland jazz band.

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BOOK REVIEWJohn A. RileyDISNEY, CREATIVE PRACTICE, HOLLYWOOD, INDUSTRY, CARTOONComment
Bloomers
Bloomers

Bloomers is an animated film that had an unlikely gestation. It started as a commission from a contemporary music orchestra in Vienna (Klangforum Wien) as a response to Christian Felber’s economic manifesto The Economy for the Common Good, a sustainable alternative to greed-based capitalism published in 2010. The manifesto is to change the ultimate goal of business solely from making money, to a meaningful, fulfilling and dignified life for all the participants.

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONSamantha MooreLABOUR, CREATIVE PRACTICE, PRINTING, INTERVIEWSComment
Animation Archives
Animation Archives

As academics we find it easy to converse about the complete, those films that have made their way onto the screen and given audiences pleasure and academics room for discourse and assessment. The ‘completed’ animation finds itself venerated the world over and as a medium, or art form, it appears capable of fitting almost any brief, defying the shackles of live-action and capable of producing, from a visual point at least, works of both realism and fantasy that are only limited by the imagination and skills of the creator.

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EDITORIALSteve HendersonFESTIVAL, FILM PRACTICE, CREATIVE PRACTICE, ANIMATION, ARCHIVESComment
R.E.M. by Danny Nichols
R.E.M. by Danny Nichols

My name is Danny Nichols and I have been drawing and painting all of my life, primarily as a comic book artist. Growing up in South London, I am fascinated with grime as well as beauty. My previous comics include an Inspector Morse parody Tales of an Alcoholic (Fig. 1) as well as a book about the British unemployment system called Creeps & Underdogs, for which the great Alan Moore (V For Vendetta, Watchmen) wrote a foreword. I have also produced a self-published picture book called Insomnia (Fig. 2) as well as doing bits and pieces for magazines and comics like Viz..

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONDanny NicholsFILM PRACTICE, CREATIVE PRACTICE, FANTASY, ANIMATIONComment
Niggun by Yoni Salmon
Niggun by Yoni Salmon

Niggun is a science-fiction hand drawn animated film that mixes the theme of spiritual quest with a space odyssey. It takes place in a post apocalyptic future where earth is gone and Jerusalem has become a legend. The original idea for the film began with a small illustration I made of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, depicting major Tom floating in a tin can. The theme of being lost in space representing some kind of existential crisis made me look for a story behind that astronaut (Fig. 1). In my point of view, Jews were never meant for space travel.

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONYoni SalmonANIMATION, CREATIVE PRACTICE, FANTASY, RELIGION, SCIENCE-FICTIONComment
Review: Experimental & Expanded Animation
Review: Experimental & Expanded Animation

43 years after the publication of the first edition of Robert Russett and Cecile Starr’s seminal text Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology, experimental animation seems to be finally experiencing a very welcome surge of public interest and critical attention. Over the last few years there has been a rise in the number of screenings, performances and academic publications related to the multifarious art form, including the recent edited collection Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practices (2018).

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EVENT REVIEWLILLY HUSBANDSEXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION, EXPANDED ANIMATION, PERFORMANCE ART, CREATIVE PRACTICE Comment