Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477211025664
Joshua D. Miner
Nonfiction has proved to be a long-term strategy of Native/First Nations filmmakers and, as this documentary tradition moves across contemporary mediums, one corner of its experimental aesthetics has focalized around animation. This article explores hybrid documentary approaches in Indigenous model animation across techniques and styles, namely digitally-supplemented stop-motion and game-based machinima. It begins by examining three principal characteristics of Indigenous animated documentaries: (1) they engage with the politics of documentary in the context of Indigenous and settler-colonial history; (2) they use animation to record stories and express ideas not authorized by the settler archive; and (3) they communicate via embedded Indigenous aesthetics and cultural protocols. A material analysis of Indigenous animation then accounts for how three Native artists centre re-mediation and re-embodiment in their work. These artists adapt new techniques in animation to documentary as a process of decolonization, precipitating a distinct hybrid aesthetics that travels across forms to question the veracity of settler documentary. Each reconstructs histories of settler colonialism – which has always chosen to record and authorize as ‘history’ some images and narratives and not others – with model animation practices and new media platforms. Indigenous animation expresses slippages between nonfiction and fiction by creating imagined documents, which strike at the legitimacy of settler institutions.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477211025667
Ahmad Zamzuri Mohamad Ali
Famously, Walt Disney once said, ‘I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse’ (Lucas, 2019: 12). Implicit in these words is the idea that Disney’s success began with the character of a mouse, namely Mickey, and that its success continues to be one of the world’s greatest icons in the history of animation. The history of Malaysian animation is indebted in a similar way to the character of the mouse deer, which featured in the first animated short film in Malaysia and has since become a local icon (Harun and Abd Rahim, 2010). Early Malaysian animation was heavily influenced by Malaysian folk tales, with tales of the Mouse Deer being the most notable among them. The first Mouse Deer short, Hikayat Sang Kancil (The Story of the Mouse Deer), made its debut appearance on television screens in 1983. This was followed by Sang Kancil dan Monyet (The Mouse Deer and the Monkey) in 1984 and Sang Kancil dan Buaya (The Mouse Deer and the Crocodiles) in 1987. These stories were incredibly successful not only because of their entertainment value but also because of their role in instilling moral and ethical values in children. Hassan Abdul Muthalib’s From Mouse Deer to Mouse (2016) is a 12-chapter book that details the history of how Malaysian animation has evolved over the last 70 years, starting with a traditional approach, such as drawn on paper, celluloid or on glass, drawn directly on film or on scratchboard, or simply cut out of paper, and gradually moving towards computer-generated animation. This transition from traditional to digital methods is implied in the pun in the title: the ‘Mouse’ refers not to Disney’s Mickey but to a computer mouse, which serves as a symbol of the technological age. Although a clear definition of animation still remains elusive (Linares Martinez, 2015; Wells, 2011), it seems Hassan applied the broadest definition when identifying the first animation made in Malaysia, i.e. to move or change an object on the screen display over a perceptible period of time. Specifically, Chapter 1 summarizes the animation concepts, techniques and technology that have been used in the industry both past and present. Overall, Hassan adopts a first-person narrative approach in writing the book, as he was involved in the local animation industry for 45 out of its 70 years and therefore has first-hand experience of it. Hassan begins the chronological history of Malaysian animation with the establishment of the Malayan Film Unit (MFU), a documentary film studio set up by the British in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, in June 1946. Gillie Potter, the British filmmaker, was the first person appointed to assist in the establishment of the MFU and to train emerging local talents. With Potter’s guidance and supervision, the Art Department was formed, which went on to produce numerous title 1025667 ANM0010.1177/17468477211025667AnimationBook reviews research-article2021
{"title":"Book review: From Mouse Deer to Mouse: 70 Years of Malaysian Animation","authors":"Ahmad Zamzuri Mohamad Ali","doi":"10.1177/17468477211025667","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477211025667","url":null,"abstract":"Famously, Walt Disney once said, ‘I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse’ (Lucas, 2019: 12). Implicit in these words is the idea that Disney’s success began with the character of a mouse, namely Mickey, and that its success continues to be one of the world’s greatest icons in the history of animation. The history of Malaysian animation is indebted in a similar way to the character of the mouse deer, which featured in the first animated short film in Malaysia and has since become a local icon (Harun and Abd Rahim, 2010). Early Malaysian animation was heavily influenced by Malaysian folk tales, with tales of the Mouse Deer being the most notable among them. The first Mouse Deer short, Hikayat Sang Kancil (The Story of the Mouse Deer), made its debut appearance on television screens in 1983. This was followed by Sang Kancil dan Monyet (The Mouse Deer and the Monkey) in 1984 and Sang Kancil dan Buaya (The Mouse Deer and the Crocodiles) in 1987. These stories were incredibly successful not only because of their entertainment value but also because of their role in instilling moral and ethical values in children. Hassan Abdul Muthalib’s From Mouse Deer to Mouse (2016) is a 12-chapter book that details the history of how Malaysian animation has evolved over the last 70 years, starting with a traditional approach, such as drawn on paper, celluloid or on glass, drawn directly on film or on scratchboard, or simply cut out of paper, and gradually moving towards computer-generated animation. This transition from traditional to digital methods is implied in the pun in the title: the ‘Mouse’ refers not to Disney’s Mickey but to a computer mouse, which serves as a symbol of the technological age. Although a clear definition of animation still remains elusive (Linares Martinez, 2015; Wells, 2011), it seems Hassan applied the broadest definition when identifying the first animation made in Malaysia, i.e. to move or change an object on the screen display over a perceptible period of time. Specifically, Chapter 1 summarizes the animation concepts, techniques and technology that have been used in the industry both past and present. Overall, Hassan adopts a first-person narrative approach in writing the book, as he was involved in the local animation industry for 45 out of its 70 years and therefore has first-hand experience of it. Hassan begins the chronological history of Malaysian animation with the establishment of the Malayan Film Unit (MFU), a documentary film studio set up by the British in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, in June 1946. Gillie Potter, the British filmmaker, was the first person appointed to assist in the establishment of the MFU and to train emerging local talents. With Potter’s guidance and supervision, the Art Department was formed, which went on to produce numerous title 1025667 ANM0010.1177/17468477211025667AnimationBook reviews research-article2021","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":"16 1","pages":"96 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17468477211025667","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46429308","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 : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477211025668
Chris P. Carter, Michelle Carter
From Mouse Deer to Mouse is an essential reference for animation and film scholars, students, historians and producers. In particular, the book clearly shows how technological developments and innovation have influenced the animation industry in the Malaysian context. In addition to its focus on animation production, the book extensively explores the aspect of animation storytelling and will appeal to readers with interests in either or both of those areas. Finally, the book suggests a strong approach to and method of conducting animation courses and training, an important contribution given that, in an era of technological advancement, a growing proportion of the younger generation has made animation their career choice.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477211025662
Jason Barker
In this article, the author returns to the study of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘cartoonism’ that appeared in animation 2(2) in 2007. The focus here, as in Chris Pallant’s original essay, is on how filmic live action in Tarantino’s work displays the diegetic conventions of the cartoon, namely, its (1) hyperbolic, (2) graphic novel and (3) comic strip violence. The article adopts Pallant’s interpretive framework in analysing Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time. . . in Hollywood (2019), only this time supplements the analysis with a consideration of the film’s dramatic content. Drawing on Aristotle’s Poetics the author explores whether cartoon violence in Tarantino’s film is inversely related to drama and, more generally, speculates as to whether the cartoon form is inherently non- or anti-dramatic through the ‘private’ and commercial manner of its consumption.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1177/17468477211030696
Suzanne H. Buchan
For the first time since its launch in 2006, the journal was unable to publish a scheduled issue, nota bene due to the upheavals of the global pandemic that have affected many personally, institutionally and professionally, with knock-on effects on workflows, systems and deadlines. We thank you for your patience and with this, our first double issue, we aim to fill the knowledge gap in new research and writing in our field that you may have felt in the interim. The articles in this issue attest to the ranges and approaches to animation that our authors engage with. The scope of animation: an interdisciplinary journal was and remains comprehensive: to address and include all animation made using all known (and perhaps yet to be revealed) techniques since the late 18th century up to the digital shift and beyond, to reveal its implications for other forms of time-based media expression – past, present and future – and to illuminate how these affect our lives. Back then we speculated the journal would be guaranteed longevity by the shift towards interdisciplinary practice and research. It is inspiring to see this speculation confirmed, due in part to the significant increase in PhD candidates submitting their research for consideration (three of whom have articles in this issue), and this also attests to the healthy expansion of our field in academia. This was evident at Animate Energies, this year’s Society for Animation Studies conference in Tulane, organized by Eric Herhuth. This double issue also celebrates the range of disciplinary approaches that are helping audiences to understand the semantic density available to artists working in this moving image form. Fifty years ago, Wolf Koenig of the National Film Board of Canada instigated an animation workshop with Inuit youth on Kinngait, Qikiqtaaluk (then known as Cape Dorset, Baffin Island). They created a set of films – Animation from Cape Dorset (1973) – that are remarkable animated documents of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In his ‘Experiments in Hybrid Documentary and Indigenous Model Animation’, Joshua D Miner examines the principal characteristics of recent Indigenous documentary approaches, specifically Native/First Nation peoples of North America, that have an emphasis on socio-historical, political, cultural and aesthetic features. The focus then is on techniques, including stop motion and machinima, and on hybrid material, Indigenous ‘craft’ artwork styles, and analogue and digital aspects of the works of three non-fiction filmmakers. Milner examines how these artists question, challenge and ultimately reconstruct and remediate the highly negative impacts and urgent need for accountability of settler colonialism through their practice and on a range of platforms. Both the 16mm Cape Dorset films and the works Milner discusses are direct, critical, often collaborative acts of agency. His article provides compelling insights into how many Indigenous artists are using recent tec
自2006年创刊以来，该杂志首次无法如期出版，这是因为全球疫情的动荡影响了许多人的个人、机构和职业，对工作流程、系统和截止日期产生了连锁反应。我们感谢您的耐心，这是我们的第一期双刊，我们的目标是填补您在此期间可能感受到的我们领域新研究和写作的知识空白。本期的文章证明了我们的作者所从事的动画的范围和方法。动画的范围：一本跨学科期刊过去和现在都很全面：涉及并包括自18世纪末以来，直到数字转型及以后，使用所有已知（可能尚未揭示）技术制作的所有动画，揭示其对其他形式的基于时间的媒体表达的影响——过去，现在和未来——并阐明这些是如何影响我们的生活的。当时，我们推测，通过向跨学科实践和研究的转变，该杂志的寿命将得到保证。看到这一猜测得到证实是令人鼓舞的，部分原因是提交研究供考虑的博士生人数显著增加（其中三人在本期文章中），这也证明了我们在学术界的领域正在健康扩展。这一点在今年由Eric Herhuth组织的杜兰动画研究学会会议Animate Energies上表现得很明显。这期双刊还庆祝了一系列学科方法，这些方法帮助观众理解以这种运动图像形式工作的艺术家所能获得的语义密度。50年前，加拿大国家电影委员会的Wolf Koenig在奇基克塔卢克的Kinngait（当时被称为英国电影学院多塞特角）与因纽特人青年一起发起了一场动画研讨会。他们创作了一系列电影——《多塞特角动画》（1973年），这些电影是有形和非物质文化遗产的杰出动画文献。Joshua D Miner在他的“混合纪录片和土著模型动画实验”中探讨了最近土著纪录片方法的主要特征，特别是北美土著/第一民族，这些方法强调社会历史、政治、文化和美学特征。然后重点放在技术上，包括定格和机械，以及混合材料、土著“工艺”艺术风格，以及三位非虚构电影制作人作品的模拟和数字方面。米尔纳研究了这些艺术家如何通过他们的实践和在一系列平台上质疑、挑战并最终重建和补救定居者殖民主义的高度负面影响和问责的迫切需要。16毫米的多塞特角电影和米尔纳讨论的作品都是直接的、批判性的，通常是合作的代理行为。他的文章令人信服地揭示了有多少土著艺术家正在使用动画形式的最新技术来应对定居者殖民主义的多方面、文化破坏性历史罪行的持续揭露，并开辟一条通往自治、自决和尊重的未来道路。我们已经发表了许多关于动画中声音的文章，但还需要更多的文章来更深入地了解音频对视觉轨迹的中心作用以及构成它的许多组件，如音效。这些是Patrick Sullivan的“Hanna Barbera’s 1030696 ANM0010.1177/1768477211030696动画的主题：跨学科期刊编辑社论2021
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Suzanne H. Buchan","doi":"10.1177/17468477211030696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477211030696","url":null,"abstract":"For the first time since its launch in 2006, the journal was unable to publish a scheduled issue, nota bene due to the upheavals of the global pandemic that have affected many personally, institutionally and professionally, with knock-on effects on workflows, systems and deadlines. We thank you for your patience and with this, our first double issue, we aim to fill the knowledge gap in new research and writing in our field that you may have felt in the interim. The articles in this issue attest to the ranges and approaches to animation that our authors engage with. The scope of animation: an interdisciplinary journal was and remains comprehensive: to address and include all animation made using all known (and perhaps yet to be revealed) techniques since the late 18th century up to the digital shift and beyond, to reveal its implications for other forms of time-based media expression – past, present and future – and to illuminate how these affect our lives. Back then we speculated the journal would be guaranteed longevity by the shift towards interdisciplinary practice and research. It is inspiring to see this speculation confirmed, due in part to the significant increase in PhD candidates submitting their research for consideration (three of whom have articles in this issue), and this also attests to the healthy expansion of our field in academia. This was evident at Animate Energies, this year’s Society for Animation Studies conference in Tulane, organized by Eric Herhuth. This double issue also celebrates the range of disciplinary approaches that are helping audiences to understand the semantic density available to artists working in this moving image form. Fifty years ago, Wolf Koenig of the National Film Board of Canada instigated an animation workshop with Inuit youth on Kinngait, Qikiqtaaluk (then known as Cape Dorset, Baffin Island). They created a set of films – Animation from Cape Dorset (1973) – that are remarkable animated documents of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In his ‘Experiments in Hybrid Documentary and Indigenous Model Animation’, Joshua D Miner examines the principal characteristics of recent Indigenous documentary approaches, specifically Native/First Nation peoples of North America, that have an emphasis on socio-historical, political, cultural and aesthetic features. The focus then is on techniques, including stop motion and machinima, and on hybrid material, Indigenous ‘craft’ artwork styles, and analogue and digital aspects of the works of three non-fiction filmmakers. Milner examines how these artists question, challenge and ultimately reconstruct and remediate the highly negative impacts and urgent need for accountability of settler colonialism through their practice and on a range of platforms. Both the 16mm Cape Dorset films and the works Milner discusses are direct, critical, often collaborative acts of agency. His article provides compelling insights into how many Indigenous artists are using recent tec","PeriodicalId":43271,"journal":{"name":"Animation-An Interdisciplinary Journal","volume":"16 1","pages":"3 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/17468477211030696","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48319719","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 : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1746847720974321
M. Bellano
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Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1746847720974971
Nea Ehrlich
Animation has become ubiquitous within digital visual culture and fundamental to knowledge production. As such, its status as potentially reliable imagery should be clarified. This article examines how animation’s indexicality (both as trace and deixis) changes in mixed realities where the physical and the virtual converge, and how this contributes to the research of animation as documentary and/or non-fiction imagery. In digital culture, animation is used widely to depict both physical and virtual events, and actions. As a result, animation is no longer an interpretive visual language. Instead, animation in virtual culture acts as real-time visualization of computer-mediated actions, their capture and documentation. Now that animation includes both captured and generated imagery, not only do its definitions change but its link to the realities depicted and the documentary value of animated representations requires rethinking. This article begins with definitions of animation and their relation to the perception of animation’s validity as documentary imagery; thereafter it examines indexicality and the strength of indexical visualizations, introducing a continuum of strong and weak indices to theorize the hybrid and complex forms of indexicality in animation, ranging from graphic user interfaces (GUI) to data visualization. The article concludes by examining four indexical connections in relation to physical and virtual reality, offering a theoretical framework with which to conceptualize animation’s indexing abilities in today’s mixed realities.
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Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1746847720974328
R. Greenberg
While most of Miyazaki’s references, like the Grimault one, are not exactly news to connoisseurs of the director, this is the first time they have been systematically discussed. Moreover, other than exposing the inner workings of Miyazaki’s narrative creativity, Greenberg’s research makes for a good historical contextualization of the director’s career. In this respect, the book can easily become a teaching tool for courses in animation history. The plentiful mentions of animated works can provide the students with a good picture of how Miyazaki is situated in relation to other important authors and studios, while also giving them a chance to get curious about less famous works that might not have been introduced in class. In all, Hayao Miyazaki: Exploring the Early Work of Japan’s Greatest Animator is a solid and enjoyable critical description of the roots of Miyazaki’s storytelling that will appeal to scholars, students and fans alike.
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Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1746847720969990
X. Ribes
YouTube has become a great showcase for audiovisual products and a source of income for a number of creators. Several pioneers of internet animation migrated to this platform to provide greater visibility and economic security for their productions. A group of YouTubers, so-called ‘Reply Girls’, achieved rapid economic benefits by publishing content without any value, neither artistic nor communicative, but that deceived YouTube’s remuneration system and prioritization algorithm. To fight this phenomenon, YouTube subsequently applied changes to its prioritization algorithm and monetization plans. In this article, the author examines more than 3,300 videos published by 25 animation channels between 2006 and 2018 with Digital Methods tools to analyse how the changes applied to the platform policies have influenced and shaped the evolution of animation production on the internet.
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Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1746847720976498
Suzanne H. Buchan
Deep archival research is the basis for the first article in this issue, ‘From Songfilms to Telecomics: Vallée Video and the New Market for Postwar Animation’, that reveals the complex interworkings of labour, commerce, production and distribution in a key period for broadcast television. Shawn VanCour and Chloe Patton trace the shift of animation workers, freelance and from other studios, whom Rudy Vallée’s company employed, from theatrical film productions made for cinemas to television. They observe how this shift was also informed by others in visual aesthetics and in production styles. Their research pulls together a vast US West Coast archipelago of studios, artists and producers into a coherent interconnected whole that is revealed as a conceptual pipeline responding to changes in economics and platforms for these forms of popular culture. The generous and comprehensive references list is a lodestone for future research. Changes in technologies of moving image platforms that have developed since broadcast television also affect economics and production today and, in the next article, this effect is shown to be one of suppression, mainly of freelance animators, as a result of a digital conglomerate’s monetization strategy. In ‘Is the YouTube Animation Algorithm-Friendly? How YouTube’s Algorithm Influences the Evolution of Animation Production on the Internet’, Xavier Ribes Guàrdia undertakes a quantitative and qualitative data analysis of thousands of mostly independent animation films – from Minecraft and machinima to low-quality amateur content – published on a set of YouTube channels. With a clearly outlined data collection approach and provision of these data as open source for other researchers, the findings also inform an evaluation of YouTube’s visual interface and relation to its monetization strategy. It is an informative uncovering of the deep workings of the influence of streaming networks that Ribes Guàrdia likens to censorship, and of counterstrategies employed by animation ‘streampunks’. The urban staging of technology in a possible future is the subject of ‘Batman and the World of Tomorrow: Yesterday’s Technological Future in the Animated Film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.’ With a distinct focus on early and mid-20th-century amusement spaces, parks and fairs, and a detailed analysis of analogous connections between the urban spaces of New York and its 1939 World’s Fair Futurama, and the fictional Gotham City and its World’s Fair Futureama, AnnaSophie Jürgens analyses modernist and utopian architectural elements in these exhibitions, proposing the technical and stylistic possibilities inherent in the animated form and how the animated spaces become dramatic agents. She also convincingly unfolds the relations and influences between the real-world stylized stagings of designer Norman Bel Geddes and the theatre designs of Edward Gordon Craig, aligning these to the emergent avant-garde animation of the 1920s and 30s, to conclude t
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