This post explores the way ideas of fantasy can provide new insight into animated advertising, and applies these to analyse the recent Ikea advertisement Ghosts (2018) and its use of digital animation. Exploring the long history of a particular form of fantasy, the phantasmagoria, allows a consideration of the ghostly iconography associated with it, as well as its use as a metaphor for the workings of capitalism.
Read MoreThe critical noise surrounding the recent release of horror film A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018) has largely served to amplify its considered (and sparse) application of sound. The film’s narrative certainly explores the implications of selective sound and image arrangement, with the complex interplay between each sonic component used in service of crafting the danger of (largely offscreen) fantasies.
Read MoreWhen researching my contribution to Christopher Holliday and Alexander Sergeant’s collection Fantasy/Animation, I examined a range of sources that demonstrated the enormous box office success, both in the United States and in the rest of the world, of fantasy and science-fiction movies, and of ‘animation’ (a category here understood to include live action films heavily reliant on computer generated imagery) in recent decades.
Read MoreThe Hollywood landscape into which Pixar’s twentieth computer-animated feature Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird, 2018) now sits is very different to the filmmaking climate of the original. Back in 2004 when audiences first glimpsed the superheroic exploits of the Parr family – Bob/Mr. Incredible and Helen/Elastigirl, alongside their three children Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack – the resurrection of contemporary superhero cinema was still very much in its infancy.
Read MoreFantasy and animation, especially when combined, are often associated within popular discourse with children’s media. Referring predominantly to stop-motion animation, this post offers some thoughts on what the intrinsic association between children, fantasy and animation might mean in the context of another genre that has a more problematic relationship with child audiences: horror. Although horror is rarely considered a children’s genre, horror films addressed to children do exist, and across various forms of animation and live-action: the stop-motion animated Frankenweenie (Tim Burton, 2012), CG-animated Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006), or the live-action Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega, 1993).
Read MoreThe title of Lilian Munk Rösing’s recent publication Pixar with Lacan: The Hysteric’s Guide to Animation (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016) contains many of my favourite words. With. The. Hysteric. But seriously, the blending of Jacques Lacan’s structuralist re-visioning of psychoanalytic theory with the stable of Pixar animation is both a provocative and insightful one. Lacanian theory – known by many as either as source of theoretical intrigue or frustration – offers a dense, abstract, often impenetrable but always insightful and innovative way of making sense of the world or, rather, a way of envisioning how we as subjects make sense of the world.
Read MoreIf a dragon were to suddenly swoop down from the clouds, spread its huge wings over London, and wrap its mighty body around Big Ben, it would certainly be strange. Unusual. Weird. Fantastic. Maybe even queer. Of course, such an incredible event is not about to happen. Dragons, faeries, wizards, elves, hobbits – all remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Read MoreWithin the limited space afforded here, it is impossible to do justice to the full scope (and, indeed, the many successes) of the recent Society for Animation Studies (SAS) conference, this year held at Concordia University between 19th–22nd June. Co-chairs Alison Reiko Loader and Marc Steinberg – as well as the rest of the wonderful Concordia team – deserve special mention for putting together a truly dizzying array of international speakers, animation workshops and screenings (including a climactic showing of the emotive Eleven Moving Moments with Evelyn Lambart by Donald McWilliams).
Read MoreThe history, theory and reception of visual and special effects occupies a significant place in recent film and media scholarship (Pierson 2002; Turnock 2015). This interest in CGI animation is not surprising given the reliance within the production practices over the past forty years of Hollywood filmmaking. Picking up where previous debates have left off, Bob Rehak’s More Than Meets the Eye: Special Effects and the Fantastic Transmedia Franchise (New York: New York University Press, 2018) seeks to make an important contribution to our understanding of the impact digital CGI effects have had on both the way films are made, and the way they are received by audiences.
Read MoreIn his review of the latest in the Marvel-backed behemoths to embark upon an all-out assault against our eardrums, wallets and box office records, BBC Radio Five Live and Observer film critic Mark Kermode described Avengers: Infinity War (The Russo Brothers, 2018) as a having a fundamental problem stemming from a “fundamental lack of consequence”. This, from a movie that takes place across multiple galaxies, deals with a villain hell bent on wiping out half the universe’s population and, in the process of doing so, leaves a trail of destruction across planets, kingdoms and franchises. The culmination of a story arc ten years in the making, Avengers: Infinity War is a move with cross-franchise implications that demands a seemingly galactic level of prior narrative investment for audiences to even understand the opening reel.
Read MoreSurprisingly only in its fourth full year since its inauguration as part of the Bradford Animation Festival in 2014, the annual Animation and Public Engagement Symposium is swiftly becoming a staple of the animation studies calendar. Wonderfully co-ordinated by Loughborough University's Melanie Hani and Roberta Bernabei, this year’s event was held at the imposing Beaumanor Hall, Woodhouse, Leicestershire, UK, and offered a vital glimpse into the impressive and wide-ranging work that is enveloping animation practices across a multitude of disciplines and intellectual fields.
Read MoreWelcome to Fantasy/Animation! Co-founded by Christopher Holliday and Alexander Sergeant, Fantasy/Animation seeks to examine the relationship that exists between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.
This network began as an edited collection Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres (Routledge AFI Film Reader, 2018). As editors, we worked alongside a number of world-renowned film and media scholars to produce a collection that examined a range of animated fantasy media, from the avant-garde experimental animation of Bret Battey to HBO’s Game of Thrones.
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