Editorial

Abstract

In the articles in this issue, we have two main foci: sound in animation, and national cinemas and styles. Sound is a formal element of animation (and other types of filmmaking) that, considering its emotional impact and affective power on audiences, has been underrepresented in scholarly research, although this has changed positively in the past decade. The first three articles pursue a shared interest in sound, albeit from very different approaches and positions (two include the often discussed method of ‘mickey-mousing’). In ‘Grains of Sound: Visual and Sonic Textures in Sand or Peter and the Wolf’, Amy Skjerseth begins by pointing out that animation studies needs new and up-to-date models for sound, and should pay similar attention to sound tracks as we do to the image track. Her attention is directed at one film and the director’s collaboration with her composer, to explore how and why the materiality of sound – specifically, sonic materials – enhances the vitality of films’ sand-formed figures and objects. Skjerseth’s proposal is that, rather than the mimicry of mickey-mousing, the film’s sound track emphasizes Eisenstein’s concept of plasmaticness, enhanced by her notion of granularity, through the artist and composer’s improvisations in their symbiotic creative processes. Her discussion has a valuable concentration on the actual manual and material workings of Leaf’s various under-the-camera techniques and the inherent performativity of the straight-ahead method it entails, in particular the fluid granularity of sand. After an explanation of the nuances of timbre, she then turns to an examination of the composer’s work and what she calls ‘grains of sound’ that are experienced multimodally; this is as comparably detailed in method, materiality (analogue and digital) and process as the analysis of Caroline Leaf. Considering the enduring and historical prevalence of tactile and fluid, crispy or crunchy artistic media used in animation, Skjerseth’s microanalysis of the audio and image tracks – and their creation – of single film is to be congratulated: it is detailed and comprehensive, and her notion of ‘granular modulation’ offers a valuable model for others. Indeed, she also suggests a number of experimental animators’ works that could be examined through a similar method. Her suggestion to view the work (and indeed any film) without the sound is one that teachers of animation should be encouraged to follow. An added delight in this article are the multiple word plays, metaphors and turns of phrase employing the lexeme ‘grain’. A Joseph Dial’s ‘“The Blackest Disney Movie of all Time!” A Goofy Movie and the Production of “Film Blackness”’ is less an investigation of Black representation, and more a proposition for how a Black reading of a film that does not work with visible representation of Blackness is possible. Dial does this through a set of approaches to and propositions on the 1995 film that include troubled stereotypes, the coding of reality and Disney’s hyperreal style, consideration of animators on the film as technical performers and what he describes as the ‘hidden history of minstrelsy’ in American cartoons. A focus is on the film’s use of Black music, read through the musician character of Powerline – the only character in the film readable as Black – that underscores a vibrant authenticity. Building on discussions from a range of authors, Dial challenges and clarifies concepts, terms and terminologies, such as making a distinction between what Blackness in the film represents monolithically in distinction to a rich, complex expression of race. Dial melds his 1056402 ANM0010.1177/17468477211056402AnimationEditorial editorial2021