MD6001 Week 1 - Book summary (Updated from 30/9/14)
- ads0445
- Oct 21, 2014
- 3 min read
Prior to the beginning of the course, my course leader Mark Collington e-mailed me with a list of books to choose from and summarise. I chose Animation Genre and Authorship by Paul Wells (2002) because I am interested in finding out more about animation genre. Below is my summary:
Animation is arguably described as “the most creative form” of art of the 20th century. In contrast I find animation as creative and innovative as modern art because both can be produced in various types of medium such as collage and painting (p. 1).
Animation is ubiquitous since it appears in film, on television, on “display functions” and on the Internet. The way animation is produced is as versatile as the way it is shown (p. 1).
It has not been until fairly recently that animation has been recognised as an art form and contrary to several people perceiving animation as a medium that is only aimed at children, Wells argues animation has been “long dismissed as merely children’s entertainment (p. 1).” This is proven by the production of animated sitcoms such as South Park (1997 onwards), Drawn Together (2004) and Family Guy (1999 onwards) that are aimed primarily at an adult audience.
Wells mentions three major animation studios: Fleischer, which produced Betty Boop; Warner Brothers, which produced Looney Tunes; and MGM,which produced Tom and Jerry (p. 2). These are some of the most significant animation studios in America since the cartoons they produced are very popular.
While America is known for producing traditional hand-drawn animation and CGI animation, the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) is known for its production of marionette and stop-motion animation and Russia specialized in cut-out animation (p. 2). A notable example of Russian cut-out animation is Andrey Shuskov’s Invnetion of Love (2010, see Fig. 1) while a notable example of a Czech stop-motion animation is Jiri Barta’s Toys in the Attic (2009, see Fig 2).
Fig 1: Still from Invention of Love
Fig 2: Promotional poster for Toys in the Attic
Star Wars (1977) and Jurassic Park (1993) have had some post-production animation applied to them (p. 3). This shows that animation is used for live-action purposes as well as animation in its own right. CGI animation was used in Jurassic Park to re-create the dinosaurs (Peterson, 1994).
While Russian and Czech animation techniques were mentioned on page 2, other countries that have their specialist techniques are Japan for its anime and the UK for its stop-motion (p. 3). A notable example of an anime studio is Studio Ghibli that spawned such titles as Sprited Away (2001) and My Neighbour Totoro (1988) while a popular British stop-motion animation studio is Aardman, which produced the Wallace and Gromit television specials and the feature-length film Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Preston Blair described animation as a combination of cartoon work, illustration, fine art, screenwriting, music, camera work and motion picture direction (1994: 6, p. 4 in Wells). This is an accurate description since it uses similar techniques to live-action film production; illustration for storyboards, animatics, character designs, background designs and hand-drawn animation cels; and craft techniques. The techniques of “clay animation; puppet or model animation,” “sand on glass, cut-out and silhouette animation” all employ art and craft elements (p. 4).
Wells mentions two ways in which animation frames are made – ‘flip books’ where each frame of animation is drawn on each page and cel-animation where each frame is drawn and painted on each sheet of celluloid (p. 6). Flip books are more experimental whereas cel animation is well commercialized.
Web Source for information on animation in Jurassic Park
Peterson, J. (1994). Jurassic Park – The Illusion of Life [Online]. Available at:https://web.archive.org/web/20061011192636/http://silicon-valley.siggraph.org/MeetingNotes/ILM.html (Accessed: 30th September 2014)
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