Footnote #24 - Hyper-Realism

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

The podcast's first engagement with questions of ‘realism’ in animation takes centre stage in Footnote #24, where Chris and Alex historicise and interrogate the function of realism and hyper-realist traditions within a multitude of media and aesthetic traditions. Topics include hyper-realism’s place in relation to painting and sculpture; the uncanny quality of hyper-realist art and issues of resemblance; the parameters of Disney’s ‘hyper-realist’ animated style against earlier ‘plasmatic’ sensibilities; and how animation’s capabilities for authentically portraying the real are fundamentally tied to its status as a technology of creative representation.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Suggested Readings

  • Pallant, Chris. 2011. Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation. London: Bloomsbury.

  • Thomas, Frank, and Ollie Johnston. 1981. Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. New York: Abbeville Press.

  • Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantREALISM, REPRESENTATION, TECHNOLOGY, AESTHETICS, SPECTATORSHIPComment