Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231187112
Spencer Roberts
This article develops a comparative analysis of Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten, and Eva Szasz and Robert Verrall’s Cosmic Zoom, seen through the lenses of Bergsonian and Deleuzo-Guttarian philosophy. The author claims that, despite similarities with respect to their subject matter and modes of production, there are significant stylistic differences between these films that are suggestive of divergent ontological, epistemological and political commitments. Of particular importance is the foregrounding of objectivity in the case of Powers of Ten and subjectivity in the case of Cosmic Zoom – a distinction that is reflected in their respectively quasi-indexical and expressive modes of representation. This fundamental tension similarly conditions their differently inflected approaches to time, space and measure, drawing attention to the strange intertwining of representation, abstraction and affect that is characteristic of much animated film. Ultimately, it is proposed that, in the context of Powers of Ten and Cosmic Zoom, animation’s capacities for abstraction and expression are differently distributed, resulting in a cosmopolitical opposition which can be aligned with the Deleuzo–Guattarian distinctions between major and minor language, and royal and nomadic science.
{"title":"Cosmic Zoom, Powers of Ten and the Contested Politics of Sense","authors":"Spencer Roberts","doi":"10.1177/17468477231187112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477231187112","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops a comparative analysis of Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten, and Eva Szasz and Robert Verrall’s Cosmic Zoom, seen through the lenses of Bergsonian and Deleuzo-Guttarian philosophy. The author claims that, despite similarities with respect to their subject matter and modes of production, there are significant stylistic differences between these films that are suggestive of divergent ontological, epistemological and political commitments. Of particular importance is the foregrounding of objectivity in the case of Powers of Ten and subjectivity in the case of Cosmic Zoom – a distinction that is reflected in their respectively quasi-indexical and expressive modes of representation. This fundamental tension similarly conditions their differently inflected approaches to time, space and measure, drawing attention to the strange intertwining of representation, abstraction and affect that is characteristic of much animated film. Ultimately, it is proposed that, in the context of Powers of Ten and Cosmic Zoom, animation’s capacities for abstraction and expression are differently distributed, resulting in a cosmopolitical opposition which can be aligned with the Deleuzo–Guattarian distinctions between major and minor language, and royal and nomadic science.","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48653156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231187029
Luke Holmaas
While often unacknowledged, gags and gag comedy remain a vital part of Hollywood cinema. Following the runaway success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), an increase in the production of films combining live-action and animation has helped them become a central venue for gag comedy. However, while live-action/animation hybrids can be enormously successful, they are also extremely difficult and risky ventures, both in terms of their technical challenges and production costs. Given this, what is the rationale behind combining live-action and animation for comedy at all? As the author argues, both theoretical considerations of animation and hybrids as well as the discourse from creators of such films frame live-action/animation as particularly well suited for gag comedy due to its ability to balance the freedom of animation with the grounding realism of live-action. Films such as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) serve to highlight the interaction between cartoonish animation and realistic live-action as well as key tensions that arise in combining the two forms. Examining the opportunities and challenges provided by these combinations helps explain why hybrid films remain a common vehicle for gag comedy today and an important subset of Hollywood comedy as a whole.
{"title":"Implausible Possibility: Freedom and Realism in Live-Action/Animated Gag Comedies","authors":"Luke Holmaas","doi":"10.1177/17468477231187029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477231187029","url":null,"abstract":"While often unacknowledged, gags and gag comedy remain a vital part of Hollywood cinema. Following the runaway success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), an increase in the production of films combining live-action and animation has helped them become a central venue for gag comedy. However, while live-action/animation hybrids can be enormously successful, they are also extremely difficult and risky ventures, both in terms of their technical challenges and production costs. Given this, what is the rationale behind combining live-action and animation for comedy at all? As the author argues, both theoretical considerations of animation and hybrids as well as the discourse from creators of such films frame live-action/animation as particularly well suited for gag comedy due to its ability to balance the freedom of animation with the grounding realism of live-action. Films such as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) serve to highlight the interaction between cartoonish animation and realistic live-action as well as key tensions that arise in combining the two forms. Examining the opportunities and challenges provided by these combinations helps explain why hybrid films remain a common vehicle for gag comedy today and an important subset of Hollywood comedy as a whole.","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45631346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231182910
Byron Fong
This article uses the walk cycle to simultaneously place movement in video games within the history of animation, and to show how the walk cycle has been adapted for the video game medium. Dating back to the pre-cinematic toys of the 19th century, the walk cycle is an animation technique that depicts a character’s walking animation as a self-contained, reusable loop. Video games import this technique into a new context with different affordances. A comparative analysis of the video games Prince of Persia (1989) and Ninja Gaiden (1988) explores different methods of implementing the walk cycle and reveals a trade-off between verisimilitude of movement and responsiveness to user input. Prince of Persia’s walk cycle, inspired by full cel animation, foregrounds fluid movement, while Ninja Gaiden utilizes limited animation techniques to prioritize responsiveness. Thus, this article argues that interactivity becomes a site of tension between movement and responsiveness, with video games drawing on older forms of animation to negotiate this tension.
{"title":"Animating for Interactivity: The Walk Cycles of Prince of Persia (1989) and Ninja Gaiden (1988)","authors":"Byron Fong","doi":"10.1177/17468477231182910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477231182910","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses the walk cycle to simultaneously place movement in video games within the history of animation, and to show how the walk cycle has been adapted for the video game medium. Dating back to the pre-cinematic toys of the 19th century, the walk cycle is an animation technique that depicts a character’s walking animation as a self-contained, reusable loop. Video games import this technique into a new context with different affordances. A comparative analysis of the video games Prince of Persia (1989) and Ninja Gaiden (1988) explores different methods of implementing the walk cycle and reveals a trade-off between verisimilitude of movement and responsiveness to user input. Prince of Persia’s walk cycle, inspired by full cel animation, foregrounds fluid movement, while Ninja Gaiden utilizes limited animation techniques to prioritize responsiveness. Thus, this article argues that interactivity becomes a site of tension between movement and responsiveness, with video games drawing on older forms of animation to negotiate this tension.","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48080303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231182914
Muyang Zhuang
From the early 1950s to the mid-1990s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) produced numerous science education films. Many utilized animated effects, such as illustrations, maps and cartoons, to promote the reception of scientific knowledge and ideological messages by audiences. Current scholarship on Chinese animation history stresses films made by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, neglecting animation created by filmmakers in science education film studios. In this article, the author argues that the history of useful animation in science education films provides a different approach to understanding Chinese animation as the animation of experiment. Animation functioned as scenes of experiment that enabled science education films to deliver messages of knowledge; they also inspired amateur experiment with animated filmmaking and experimental animation practices in the post-socialist era. This article analyses animation for science education films, amateur animation practices and experimental works inspired by, or that benefited from, science education filmmaking. It will enrich the scholarship on Chinese animation and shed new light on the history of Chinese animation and film culture in the PRC.
{"title":"Animation of Experiment: The Science Education Film and Useful Animation in China","authors":"Muyang Zhuang","doi":"10.1177/17468477231182914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477231182914","url":null,"abstract":"From the early 1950s to the mid-1990s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) produced numerous science education films. Many utilized animated effects, such as illustrations, maps and cartoons, to promote the reception of scientific knowledge and ideological messages by audiences. Current scholarship on Chinese animation history stresses films made by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, neglecting animation created by filmmakers in science education film studios. In this article, the author argues that the history of useful animation in science education films provides a different approach to understanding Chinese animation as the animation of experiment. Animation functioned as scenes of experiment that enabled science education films to deliver messages of knowledge; they also inspired amateur experiment with animated filmmaking and experimental animation practices in the post-socialist era. This article analyses animation for science education films, amateur animation practices and experimental works inspired by, or that benefited from, science education filmmaking. It will enrich the scholarship on Chinese animation and shed new light on the history of Chinese animation and film culture in the PRC.","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44145078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231182911
Patryk Oczko
Whilst the origins of Polish animation go back to the inter-war years, its rapid and consistent development did not occur until after World War II, and was therefore influenced by and directly dependent on the socialist system. The aim of this article is to identify the nature of the links between the then prevailing ideology and the content and form of animated films that created it, and to further discuss the main trends in this respect. The late 1940s were a time of a kind of creative freedom, which came to an end with the imposition of socialist realism. Transferred from the USSR to Poland, the doctrine began to lose its momentum as early as 1953, gradually embracing modern visual solutions. The complete rejection of socialist realism came in the wake of the political thaw of 1956. These contexts meant that the role of animation evolved and so, too, did its character. Examples used in this article include selected cartoons, puppet and cut-out films made in all the production centres active at that time. They are presented according to content and form, which has made it possible to further discuss the various aspects of the subject under discussion, and to indicate its development milestones. It seems a safe assumption that animation in its modern form was born twice in Poland. Initially, as a part of intuitive pioneering experiments and, later, having gained a wealth of practical and ideological experience following the political thaw of 1956.
{"title":"Between Art and Propaganda: The Rise of Polish Animation 1946–1956","authors":"Patryk Oczko","doi":"10.1177/17468477231182911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477231182911","url":null,"abstract":"Whilst the origins of Polish animation go back to the inter-war years, its rapid and consistent development did not occur until after World War II, and was therefore influenced by and directly dependent on the socialist system. The aim of this article is to identify the nature of the links between the then prevailing ideology and the content and form of animated films that created it, and to further discuss the main trends in this respect. The late 1940s were a time of a kind of creative freedom, which came to an end with the imposition of socialist realism. Transferred from the USSR to Poland, the doctrine began to lose its momentum as early as 1953, gradually embracing modern visual solutions. The complete rejection of socialist realism came in the wake of the political thaw of 1956. These contexts meant that the role of animation evolved and so, too, did its character. Examples used in this article include selected cartoons, puppet and cut-out films made in all the production centres active at that time. They are presented according to content and form, which has made it possible to further discuss the various aspects of the subject under discussion, and to indicate its development milestones. It seems a safe assumption that animation in its modern form was born twice in Poland. Initially, as a part of intuitive pioneering experiments and, later, having gained a wealth of practical and ideological experience following the political thaw of 1956.","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41854690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-12DOI: 10.1163/18781527-bja10071
Suzanne H. Buchan
The use of animation in hybrid and transmedia works offers a rich complex resource and object of study for our field in that they implicate animation in other media forms, as the first two articles in this issue demonstrate. Live action in combination with animation film has been used with great success over close to a century, from the Fleischer Bros. Out of the Inkwell cartoons in the 1910s onwards to popular pre-digital features at the end of the 20th century and continuing into digital and CGI productions. These hybrid works are scrutinized in terms of a vehicle for gags and comedy by Luke Holmaas in ‘Implausible Possibility: Freedom and Realism in Live-Action/Animated Gag Comedies’. Holmaas points out how comedy is a genre that often figures in other genre films, and how it is problematized in discussions of narrative, before establishing a structure for his undertaking that aims to demonstrate how animation and live action hybrid films are effective in creating gag comedy. After an historical review of the key hybrid films, he works through relevant details of various elements of film industry technologies and production, demonstrating a tension between the two techniques – the freedom of animation and the realism of live-action – further suggesting this tension is also observable in non-hybrid films. From drawn and cel animation to CGI works, Holmaas convincingly argues why and how hybrid films are suited to gags and comedy, and what is at work with the audience watching them that supports this. He then concentrates on three feature films, applying what we have learned and providing an analysis of why the comedy works, concluding with observations on why hybrid films are and will remain to be important in the Hollywood industry. Besides their historically primary use in animated shorts, features and advertising, animated media have long been the visual interface and creative basis for a range of other types of media, from video games to developments in the experiential immersive worlds of AR and VR. In ‘Animating for Interactivity: The Walk Cycles of Prince of Persia (1989) and Ninja Gaiden (1988)’, Byron Fong focuses on a basic, essential, central element of character-based animation: the walk cycle, often the first repetitive, looped animation anyone will make. Declaring an interest in establishing its use in video games within animation history, Fong approaches this animated ‘action’ as an historical form of animation with examples reaching back to 19th-century philosophical toys. He then examines how games artists use this concept, reveals what he calls a tension between verisimilitude of movement and player control, and explores what they have to do to ameliorate the effects of interactivity and linearity of games on walk cycles. Fong undertakes close comparative analyses of his own experiences of two games, chosen in part for their stylistic affinities with full (fluidity, verisimilitude, less gamer control) and limited animation (te
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Suzanne H. Buchan","doi":"10.1163/18781527-bja10071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18781527-bja10071","url":null,"abstract":"The use of animation in hybrid and transmedia works offers a rich complex resource and object of study for our field in that they implicate animation in other media forms, as the first two articles in this issue demonstrate. Live action in combination with animation film has been used with great success over close to a century, from the Fleischer Bros. Out of the Inkwell cartoons in the 1910s onwards to popular pre-digital features at the end of the 20th century and continuing into digital and CGI productions. These hybrid works are scrutinized in terms of a vehicle for gags and comedy by Luke Holmaas in ‘Implausible Possibility: Freedom and Realism in Live-Action/Animated Gag Comedies’. Holmaas points out how comedy is a genre that often figures in other genre films, and how it is problematized in discussions of narrative, before establishing a structure for his undertaking that aims to demonstrate how animation and live action hybrid films are effective in creating gag comedy. After an historical review of the key hybrid films, he works through relevant details of various elements of film industry technologies and production, demonstrating a tension between the two techniques – the freedom of animation and the realism of live-action – further suggesting this tension is also observable in non-hybrid films. From drawn and cel animation to CGI works, Holmaas convincingly argues why and how hybrid films are suited to gags and comedy, and what is at work with the audience watching them that supports this. He then concentrates on three feature films, applying what we have learned and providing an analysis of why the comedy works, concluding with observations on why hybrid films are and will remain to be important in the Hollywood industry. Besides their historically primary use in animated shorts, features and advertising, animated media have long been the visual interface and creative basis for a range of other types of media, from video games to developments in the experiential immersive worlds of AR and VR. In ‘Animating for Interactivity: The Walk Cycles of Prince of Persia (1989) and Ninja Gaiden (1988)’, Byron Fong focuses on a basic, essential, central element of character-based animation: the walk cycle, often the first repetitive, looped animation anyone will make. Declaring an interest in establishing its use in video games within animation history, Fong approaches this animated ‘action’ as an historical form of animation with examples reaching back to 19th-century philosophical toys. He then examines how games artists use this concept, reveals what he calls a tension between verisimilitude of movement and player control, and explores what they have to do to ameliorate the effects of interactivity and linearity of games on walk cycles. Fong undertakes close comparative analyses of his own experiences of two games, chosen in part for their stylistic affinities with full (fluidity, verisimilitude, less gamer control) and limited animation (te","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46041249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231155801
D. Feeney
Within the fields of animation, media archaeology and film, much attention is placed on the image and the viewer. This article will broaden this focus to explore the moving image as a form of time in an expanded context of animation which triangulates the device with the image and viewer. The devices discussed form part of optical image system artworks that the author has researched and developed. These devices project moving images of light and have diverse historical and opto-mechanical underpinnings. The systems present their own form of optically generated time, not of minutes and hours, but of movement and light, which the author terms time-light. The article explores how revealing the mechanism generating the moving image can establish a new ontology for the device by critically engaging the viewer in how time is constructed, mediated and experienced. Being both ‘object’ and a ‘subjective experience’, time is deeply connected to our human and post-human relationship with technology. The subjective experience of the moving image in conjunction with its decloaked device can therefore make explicit our techno–human relationship with time.
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231155546
Zeke Saber
Metamorphosis is frequently cited as an inherent feature of animation, but scholars who make this claim have routinely disregarded the influence of Goethean morphology on animation practice and theory. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s initial conception of morphology, as outlined in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, has had a significant effect on our understanding of the transformative nature of animation. In this article, the author engages with the theory and practice of figures including Sergei Eisenstein, André Bazin, Alla Gadassik, Caroline Leaf and others in order to insist upon animation’s critical but hitherto unacknowledged role in an ongoing history of morphological reception. Morphology’s sensitivity to the continuous coming-into-being of form allows us to think through, in newly productive ways, the intrinsic practices, aims and intimations of animation, not to mention the sometimes vexed discourse about its place in cinema studies.
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477231163421
Suzanne H. Buchan
This issue brings you a set of interdisciplinary articles in unanticipated dialogues with each other, often through a long view, of histories of art, natural science and (pre-) cinema. For this reader, there is also an undercurrent throughout of pioneering media (an)archaeologist Zielinski’s (2006) Deep Time of the Media, that should be required reading for all interested in animation – and cinema as a whole – before and after the invention of photochemical processes. Zielinski’s challenges are to ‘an anemic and evolutionary model [that] has come to dominate many studies in so-called media’ (p. vii) and to a dominant orthodox historiography (pp. vii–viii). He is clear that the field of media archaeology ‘faces numerous issues to evolve histories of technologies, apparatuses, effects, images, iconographies, and so forth, within a larger scheme of reintegration in order to expand a largely ignored aspect of conventional history’ (p. ix). As an academic journal, we also encourage authorship that engages with expanding our field, including in the ways Zielinski proposes. Some of the articles in this issue develop ontological, media-archaeological or philosophical approaches to our understanding of animation and move beyond the concept of the illusion of life often used to define the form. Others are seeking distinctions and new ways to approach specific sets of works or techniques, apparatuses and technologies. Most engage with the phenomena described by Colin Williamson of magic ‘hidden in plain sight’ that is the main title of his (2015) monograph, that ‘focuses on the “long” shared history of magic and the cinema’ (p. 18). The journal’s scope, since 2006, is to address all animation made using all known (and yet to be developed) techniques, from 16th-century optical devices to contemporary digital media. Considering the direction and expansion that Animation Studies has been taking in recent years, it is time to responsively expand our scope into a longer-reaching techno-scientific and historical past and, with paradigm-shifting, disruptive new technologies into the speculative future. In the late 18th century, as one of a number of movements following on from the European Enlightenment and challenging its rational restraint, the German Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was known for its focus on subjectivity and emotions. A key figure in this music and literary movement was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; yet this polymath’s contribution far exceeded the arts, with wide-ranging – what we would now call interdisciplinary – investigations into everything from colour theory to the natural sciences. One of the latter is the focus of Zeke Saber’s ‘Animating Goethe’ in which he takes one of the main terms used to describe a defining feature of animation – metamorphosis – to unfold and complicate this through Goethe’s aesthetic, philosophical and scientific considerations of the botanical phenomenon of morphology. Saber’s aim is ambitious: to propose a the
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