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Defining Animation & Placing it within Cinema
DEFINING ANIMATION AND PLACING IT WITHIN CINEMA
by Robert M. Zywietz Z.
Introduction
Animation is “_______________________________________________”.
Here the reader should take up a pen, complete the sentence, define the term as she understands it and subsequently keep in mind what she has written as a reference as she progresses through this preface. Chances are, the reader will have some kind of notion as to what the word means; perhaps something along the lines of drawings that move, or magically bringing inanimate objects to life. Maybe the reader has certain films or television series in mind. Or she is informed by a particular cartoon character, an internet website or a video game, even.
Animators and academics suggest a multitude of definitions: “art form” ; “Special Technique” ; “graphic design” ; “graphic art” ; “film form” ; “genre” , et cetera. Also, as Stefan Kanfer observes, “[a]nimators have always been fond of quoting the dictionary definition of their art” before doing so himself and duly offering his own derivative hypothesis, which, like the rest all the rest of them, takes an entirely different view on the subject. Seemingly, animation has a lot of different meanings, each one leaning towards a different aspect of animation, which perhaps shows its range and versatility. For now, we can take animation to mean all of these things.
Something that most people do agree on, however, is the nature of the processes known to be employed in animation. David Lipman describes animation as “considered primitive for being so labour intensive” . Paul Wells, commenting on the history of animation, concurs: “[t]he very craftsmanship of the animated film became its inhibiting factor at a time when the immediacy of the photographic image was its novelty and its passport to industrial legitimacy” . In the same breath, he highlights another defining aspect of animation: the “Animator’s Plight”, as I have dubbed it. The authors of Animation Unlimited put it nicely – “…some animation directors remain a little hurt that their status as artists isn’t always entirely appreciated…” . The long suffering nerdy animator genius sitting in a quiet corner, hunched over his lightbox at his desk, obsessing over thousands of cels for years and showing neither fame nor fortune for his efforts, is a well know stereotype, even beyond the scene and recently epitomised by the documentary Ryan .
This figure is the literal manifestation of, as many see it, the “neglect of animation” in society as a whole and many writers lament the cultural standing of animation. John Grant complains: the “…identification of animation as ‘merely’ for juveniles has dogged the medium since about the 1930s” . This, though, is the cliché; those who have recently pushed agendas like “…animated film [is] an important art form in its own right” , have managed to bring it (the cliché) to the attention of the general public as being passé. Since the early 1990s, animation has been enjoying a rise in popularity, peaking with the release of Disney’s The Lion King . All manners of instances featuring animation have sprung up none of which have much to do with children, commentators liking to cite The Simpsons in particular as proof. The internet, having established itself at a time when animation was resurging, is full of it and is, indeed, perhaps one of the reasons for the proliferation. Specialist film festivals celebrating the animated film have sprung up across the world. Education has been filling the gap in curricula, an ever-increasing number of animation courses now operating. Award ceremonies acknowledge an animation industry with designated awards.
Despite all these seemingly positive steps towards animation recognition, I still feel, however, that the current buoyant state that the Scene finds itself in is a false sense of security, built upon a lot of shouting, hype and marketing. The Scene is smitten by animation, outraged by its constant ostracisement and hell-bent on pushing animation by every means possible – a sure way to marginalise it once again and effecting the exact opposite as to what they are aiming for.
The underlying problem that I see with the Scene and its Cause is that nobody in it is able to define animation. The anecdotes offered by authors are often arbitrary and confusing, usually resulting in perpetuation of myths and misconceptions, the reason being that their definitions are usually tailored to support their main body of work. That is not to say that their writing ought to be discounted – common themes and general direction are perceptible – only, up until now, there has never been a correlation of definitive definitions for a term which has come to mean so much and nothing. For animation to be given the full recognition it deserves it needs to be defined – how can people advocate the validation of something if they do not know what it is?
With this text, I aim to establish the place of animation in society through clear and plain definition. As Donald Crafton states: “seldom is there any discussion of animation’s relationship to cinema as a whole; rather it is treated as autonomous or as a mutant strain of graphic art” and that “…the animated film is a sub-species of film in general” . This is very much the stance I will be taking in this analysis. Unfortunately Crafton’s study focuses on the pre-sound era of cinema, but it is clear to me that animation is not an art form or industry in its own right and not equal to, or running parallel to film art or industry – it is firmly subordinate. This statement is not to be confused with animation being subordinate to live-action film-making as this kind of statement would diametrically oppose the “Animation Cause”, which I sympathise with, though do not recognise as being very useful.
To address the definition, I have identified three areas of animation that characterise it and help in the understanding of the wide-ranging nature of it. Madsen’s dissection shows that “[e]very motion picture may be defined in three ways – physically, optically and conceptually” . Adapting and building on this, and together with the experiences I have made in the Scene and my research, I have surmised the headings ‘Content’, ‘Mode’ and ‘Aesthetics’ as being the areas of distraction from which, through scrutiny, definition can be gained.
At this point, before embarking on deeper examination, I should mention that there is a need to employ certain terms which the reader should familiarise herself with in order to make full use of the text. The terms I have come up with derive from the learning of my research and, in a sense, already enforce my definition, though are in a transient state. Essentially the rest of the manuscript is a means to explain and develop these terms further.
film: encompassing all motion pictures regardless of mode;It should be noted that I am drawing my frame of reference from literature on animation (part of the Scene), and not from literature on film because I want to show that the evidence pointing towards the subordination of animation to come from the Scene itself, though I will be using Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art to define what film is, discounting their section on animation since in it, they “…recognise…animated films” on the level of film form, yet do not acknowledge this in the rest of their document. Also, I am writing in the context of predominantly commercial western film, mostly fictional and of narrative form. Although this is a relatively small portion of film in general, its inform was more than adequate for my purposes, simply because the progress of the subject in question can be largely traced within that sphere, and it is this prevailing trend that informs the public.
animation: film-making mode;
live-action: film-making mode;
cartoon: slapstick comedy;
Animation Scene: sector of individuals in society who claim to recognise and/or claim to be part of an animation industry.
The popular belief is that “[comic strips] may be seen as prototypic of later animated forms” , as Wells demonstrated here. Crafton’s study, on the other hand, tells how the development of animation and live-action are indistinguishable in the beginnings of cinema. His distaste as to such supposed origins are apparent: “There is a widespread misconception that comic strips were somehow intimately related to the inception of animation” .
While this may be true in terms of ‘Mode’ and ‘Aesthetics’ it is not applicable to ‘Content’, with respect to this essay, and Crafton goes on to acknowledge that “[t]he comic strip did, however, make a primary contribution to the cinema by providing a virtually unlimited supply of gags and story material…” , the stress being on the influence on cinema as a whole. Indeed, general film history tells us that “[e]arly comedy films were almost exclusively composed of gags” . The point is that “[t]he comic strip was to help provide some of the initial vocabulary for the cartoon film” and, as a result, the slapstick gag-orientated type of humour that operated both in animation and live action, stuck with animation, and has since often been read, inaccurately, as animation film language: “…the animated film possesses distinctive narrative techniques that inform its uniqueness as a form of expression” .
“During the 1920s the hegemony of the comic strip waned, and characters developed exclusively for the screen…began to thrive” , but the devices and conventions culled from the comic strip were retained. From this point on, it could be said that all animated cartoon films that came after were developing and pushing the boundaries of slapstick comedy. The problem with this was that no other forms of film were being made using the animation mode by this time, so naturally audiences assumed animation and cartoon to mean the exact same thing.
Recognising the expressive potential of animation, Walt Disney’s films increasingly challenged the notion that animation had to be cartoon, though it would always be a struggle. “Still smarting from ‘demeaning’ references to Snow White (to him, the film was ‘no more a cartoon than a painting by Whistler is a cartoon’), Walt wanted his second full length movie to be purely and simply a work of art” . By the time of his third release, Fantasia, Disney had left no doubt of what animation was capable of, pushing the mode so much further with each film that his name Disney came to mean animation for many. Technically in a league of his own, Disney’s content on the other hand was all too often identified as less than mediocre. His cute, family-orientated musicals brought new, negative connotations to the term animation, which became the mainstay.
Those who rebelled against Disney’s long industrial dictatorship, attempted to assert the view that animation can be for adults too. Academics often cite the likes of Ralph Bakshi (who made the x-rated Fritz the Cat ) as mavericks and staunch upholders of the Animation Cause. The problem I see with this type of animated film is that far from showing variety, individuality or revolution, it is intrinsically informed by Disney, even the variety offered by Warner Brothers and MGM, as they often opted to ridicule and parody the style instead.
By this time, the state of animation was thus: “[c]artoons had always provided a large and tempting target; they always would. They could be portrayed as too dark or frightening for the young, or as too superficial and prettified to be taken seriously, Either way, the reviewers could enjoy a field day and congratulated themselves on their role as moral or aesthetic guardians of the audience” , showing that the producers were unlikely to make a departure from established content codes and risk a flop, and that audiences had a firm idea of what an animated film should be. Animation turned into a creative wasteland, regurgitating formulas, unable to find a way out. Shamus Culhane, legendary animator of that time rants:
“It is only after seeing twenty or more animated films from the so-called Golden Age in one evening that one begins to understand that American theatrical animation, at its best, had a very narrow scope from a literary point of view. “This may be lèsé majesté, but as a writer I find very little difference between Mighty Mouse and Mickey Mouse. A pratfall by either rodent is still just a pratfall, even if the Disney version is far better written and animated.”and:
“Can the humour in these cartoons compare in diversity with the writings of Aristophares, Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Anatole France? The answer is a resounding No!”There was worse to come.
UPA was a small company, and unable to compete with Disney financially, came up with a new concept. The stylisation of aesthetics led to a minimalist approach to technique. Head Fritz Freleng admonished less movement, more talking to cut production costs. “Freleng’s work is ‘more about the changing role of cartoons, from film toward more obviously consumer-driven television” . When UPA went bankrupt, Hanna-Barbera stepped into their shoes and took animated film to the brink. “The Hanna-Barbera factory relied on actors and scriptwriters. Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw suffered from the same shortcomings, and when Chuck Jones described them as ‘radio with pictures’, the professionals, recalling the days of real cartooning, nodded in sad agreement” .
The age of mass-manufacture and consumerism came at the expense of art, at least from an animation point of view. Television had much to do with it, families entranced by their sets, and programmers needed to fill the schedules and of course “[s]ponsors wanted a sure thing: cartoon versions of highly rated live shows, including The Addams Family, The New Adventures of Gilligan and The Oddball Couple” and suchlike flourished. The advertising nature of television just about finished animation off: “[i]n America ‘children’s programming allowed 16 minutes (of commercial programming) per hour. In fact the disproportion was greater than that, since the main characters frequently acted as pitchmen in the ads, making the commercials and the entertainment indistinguishable’” . It is this shallow content which informed people’s notions of what animation stood for, right to the present day. Even though there has been a resurgence of animation thanks to technology, the content debate has been largely sidelined while the Scene gets to grips with new practices.
A quote from Wells sums this section up: “[t]his scenario…defines the animated film as a ‘cartoon’ and sustains the view of animation as something that merely fills time in the schedules, or appeals to marginalised tastes” . He further specifies: “[t]he cartoon seems part of an easily dismissed popular culture; ‘animation’ as a term at least carries with it an aspiration for recognition as art and, indeed, the proper evaluation of other animated forms” . Wells more or less hits the nail on the head, understanding that content has downgraded firstly the mode of animation and secondly the aesthetic of the mode, though like so many others, he interprets this as the key issue – there remain important problems concerning aesthetics and technique that make up the bigger picture.
Concrete definition that is identified from this, Part One, is that animation can be, though need not necessarily be, cartoon. More importantly cartoon is not animation and leads to the proving of the definition of cartoon as slapstick comedy, which would make Laurel and Hardy just as much a cartoon as Donald Duck.
“Animation replaces live-action with the simulated movement of models, drawings or other inanimate objects” . This definition implies that anything that does not move of its own accord can be manipulated to appear to do so. At the other end of the ‘magical scale’, it also means something as arbitrary as an effect like a fade out. The process, by which such apparent motion is created, is so connected to the presence of the frame. By using frames as a tool we gain the process of giving apparent motion to something that ordinarily does not – now the misconception is that the ‘something’ we give motion to is the object of manipulation. It is not the object that moves, it is the projected frame; the motion picture. This is not only the process of animation; it is the process that defines all cinema.
Animation is a method of producing a succession of progressive images. When watching live-action, it is all too easy to forget that it is also not continuous – it is merely made up of a number of stills. By themselves these pictures do not inform movement, it is only through their successive projection that the illusion materialises. It is “[w]hat happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame” as Norman McLaren said.
Through gaining an understanding of the manipulation of movement, expression – art – is possible. The stars of the silent era, in particular Charlie Chaplin, were all masters of this and it is the same skill that is commonly associated with the so-called animator. In the early days of cinema and its comic strip content, characters ran around getting up to all sorts of bizarre visual antics – the gag was central; anything for a laugh. However, they “…didn’t have the invisible ‘magic’ ingredients to make them really live and perform convincingly” and audience soon started to get bored.
“…Disney started a quiet revolution in his studio. He began to point out that the audience would really like some acting, instead of pie-in-the-face humour” . From when his feature film Snow White went into production onwards, he invested in the study of movement, and by “…1938, the Disney animators, Grim Natwick especially, left no doubt that the human figure could be animated” . The said studies were based on real world motion and the result was a realistic style of acting far removed from the slapstick of cartoons. Dick Williams fondly recounts how
“[t]he movie actor, Scott Wilson sat through [his] three-day San Francisco masterclass. To [Dick’s] surprise he came up at the end and said, “Of course you realise, Dick, that this whole thing has been about acting.” [Dick] said “What?” and Scott said “These are the exact equivalent methods, exercises and analyses we actors do in our acting workshops. So acting is intrinsically part of the whole” .
Shamus Culhane reiterates this point in his book: “[w]hen I first started to direct live-action TV spots, I decided to go to an acting class to see whether there was any difference between directing animators and live actors. I found that there wasn’t…” . Though there may not be a difference from a directing point of view, and an animator is generally regarded as employing the same skills as an actor, there is a difference in their method of expression. Whereas live-action performers usually exclusively use their bodies, animators can channel their acting into anything that will let itself be controlled. The tools of expression are different, but fundamentally the two do the same because the acting/expression is in the mind.
“Acting in the animated film is an intriguing concept in the sense that it properly represents the relationship between the animator and the figure, object or environment he/she is animating. The animator must essentially use the techniques employed by the actor to project the specifities of character through the mechanistic process of animation itself” . Here Wells hints that the animator is able to apply his acting outside the sphere of character acting. A live actor is obviously limited to the confines of her mode of expression – her body – while the animation actor is able to act the abstract as well as the figurative.
This is the true source for the acknowledgement of the surreal qualities of animation, the problem being that academics usually speak of this in terms of animation mode. It is not in the mode, it is in the acting. “Animation itself is not an art form” says Jan Švankmajer – it is a means of expressing it. The art of acting has progressed through the cinematic technique of animation.
In the past “[a]nimators…continued working in the medium, developing its forms and techniques, having to accept its apparently less credible position as a second cousin to mainstream cinema” . This is from where the Animation Scene spawns; from animators who try to elevate the status of their misplaced, unidentified art. The usual mode of implement is through the animator making her own films. The problem with this, is that the production roles are muddled in which the actor becomes the director, resulting in films being made from a skewed, untrained viewpoint, one that audiences perhaps do not identify with. “…[T]he director…knows what the pace, the form, and the flowering humour should be” . Traditionally “…the animator only knows about his own percentage of the picture” , id est, the acting.
Without proper definition, the Animation Scene continues to put forward the motion of an Animation Industry and is especially apparent in the education sector. Many colleges now offer animation courses, often presented as an alternative to film and TV courses as if it was a distinct discipline. What this brings to the word animation, in terms of definition, is a notion of bad film making, usually with special emphasis on the mode, rather than the significant over-riding film art.
In live-action, the actors know their place, but it is not so in the Animation Scene; the lack of clear definition of what animation is in relationship to the animator is the very reason why there is such frustration amongst those in the Scene. The term ‘animator’ itself is a big sticking point – what the animation actor does is subordinate, not equal, to an over-riding film-making process, spearheaded by a director. The lack of a definition for animation means the Scene struggles on trying to establish an industry without aim, to which the education branch is also pandering, perpetuating myth and misconception as it does so. The result is an ever widening gap between ‘animators’ and film-makers, which is not only harming film-making, but animated film-making in particular.
These issues can be dealt with through definition gained from the second section of the essay: animation is a cinematic mode akin to live action, id est, the creation of successive stills to facilitate movement upon projection; the animator, though he may also be a draughtsman, is an actor first and foremost. While these are not new concepts in themselves, together they should help explain the bigger picture…
As the previous parts of the essay have shown, there tends to have been this distinct notion in society, that animation is intrinsically different to live-action, after all one is live and one is dead. Generally, live action is associated with seriousness, credibility and validity, partly because it is the industry standard. Thanks to the content issues explored earlier, animation technique and the Disney dictatorship over it, animation is associated with cute furry animals, sentimentalism and untrained film-making.
On an aesthetic level, film is associated with real life because it looks like real life: “[f]ilm is reality at twenty-four-frames a second” Jean Luc Goddard carelessly said. And animation is associated with the visual arts because it looks like it has been created. There have been instances when animation has been mixed with live action, often being hailed as blurring the boundaries between cartoons and the real world, such as Who framed Roger Rabbit? and Mary Poppins . In truth they did nothing to dispel the myths because these films rely on the differences. “When animation interacts with live-action representations of the real world, it essentially defines the limits of space, the weight of objects and the incapacities of human beings, thus drawing further attention to the expressive qualities of animation” . Wells puts it positively here, but from an industry and audience point of view, it means that animation is further sidelined, in these cases, as a cartoon.
At a time when painters were trying to paint as lifelike as possible, “Daguerre was straining at the limits of realism that painting could achieve” . French poet “Baudelaire was soon able to pronounce, ‘[f]rom today, painting is dead’” . The photographic still came to mean reality from these documentary roots. When photography was given motion through cinematography, La Poste de Paris, on seeing Lumiére’s work in 1896, stated “[n]ow that we can photograph our loved ones, not only in stillness, but as they move, as they act, as they make familiar gestures, as they speak – death ceases to be absolute” . In the same year Maxim Gorky said of Lumiére’s La Mer that “‘you think the spray is going to hit you and instinctively shrink back’” . The attitude that photography is reality was largely dispelled very quickly. Film-makers creatively manipulated content and technique which were obviously unreal. However, even the highly stylised films of German Expressionism expose the ultimate limitation of photorealism: it would always retain documentary status on an aesthetic level, because photography refers to the same reality and laws as the viewer exists in and is subject to.
During Disney’s domination over the animation technique, he took it in a distinctive direction in terms of aesthetics also. He “subtly violated the character of the cartoon (which is a drawing on a flat surface) by giving it depth and, in a brilliant combination of artwork and machinery, substituted movement – remarkably lifelike – for animation” , demonstrating his hyper ‘realist-style’ . Far from being the opposite of live action, which so many people insist characterises animation, it was running parallel, complementing and echoing photorealism. Disney’s drive was to increase the photorealism in his animated films by inventing live-action equivalents for cel animation and as a direct result, photorealistic aesthetic was also the limitation of animation! It is the comparison (by the viewing public and the critics) of Disney’s hyper-realism, to the photorealism they were accustomed to that, apart from content, is the biggest contributing factor to the lowly status of animation.
“Disney’s attempts at realism were passé” by the 1960s at which time a small studio revolutionised the laborious practice of animation. “UPA’s attempts had turned a liability into a virtue. Its work was deliberately, self consciously flat” . What this meant, in terms of aesthetics, is illustrated by Kanfer: “[t]hese breaks from traditional cat-and-mouse cartoons astounded a group of young cinema and art students, and they founded their own animation studio in Zagreb two years later. They would make their films come alive ‘not through the copying, but the transformation of reality’” . This event has been identified with animated film only, and not fully understood as a departure from photorealism in cinema as a whole.
The revolution did not take hold in the live-action realm, the reason lying in the nature of the photographic image and its said limitation. Animated film technique and its aesthetic, or at least in the prevailing Disney hyper-realist style, had reached a crucial pinnacle in its development that the live-action photorealism is only beginning to reach presently. With the advancement of technology and special effects in the form of Computer Generated Imagery, it has been possible to breach the ultimate limitation of photorealism (notably through animation mode). And though for a while it has prolonged the aesthetic, and may do so for quite some time, it essentially renders the aesthetic obsolete, in terms of what its documentary roots stand for.
At this point we recall Norman McLaren’s quote which characterised technique (“What happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame.”). To analyse aesthetics, in terms of cinema as a whole (live-action and animation), we can adapt this; everything recorded on the frame is what counts. What this illustrates is that the live-action process is not ‘real’ in exactly the same way as films made through an animation process are not real. In the past live-action has retained this grain of documentary in it that meant truth. This is the reason why puppetry is often analysed as “…more closely related to live-action film work rather than it is to animation” , simply because it also showcases a documentary aesthetic. This is also where the misconception that the ‘art’ that people affiliate with animated film can be explained: the ‘drawing’ we associate with some styles is merely the aesthetic of the technique. The art of the technique of animation and live action, is, to use a phrase well studied and well known within the film industry, the mise-en-scene , and always has been.
The definition gained from this, the third section of my analysis, explains the reasons for popular misconception, is that there is no difference between what is staged by live-action technique and animation technique as they both constitute and are reliant on the cinematic technique of the frame and the resulting motion picture.
At the beginning of this text, I stated my aim to identify and define animation within cinema as a whole, based on the worry that a distinct Animation Scene and its Cause could further marginalise this diverse method.
In ‘Part One: Content’, I hinted that animation has the capability to do the same job as live-action in terms of content and that in the past animated film has been confined to cartoon slapstick, a type of comedy. In ‘Part Two: Mode’, I likened the animation actor’s role to that of a traditional live-action actor, highlighting the place of this craft as coming before the capturing on frame. ‘Part Three: Aesthetics’ was designed to elaborate on the significance of the understanding of the cinematic process and prove that live-action film-making is just as contrived as animated film-making, establishing that “[f]ilm – all film –is an illusion” . If animation is just a special effect, then live-action is too, the special effect being an impression of life.
Where this conclusively leaves the term of scrutiny is thus: animation is the most powerfully controlling mise-en-scene method available to the film-maker. Unlike live-action, animation makes maximum use of the fundamental properties of cinematography and could therefore be seen as the purest method of mise-en-scene in respect to the frames and their successive projection.
The biggest problem the film-maker has is that, when trying to re-create special effects in a way other than photographing them, the aesthetic of the mode rarely complements the photorealistic aspirations of the film-maker, a fact revealed by studying the history of special effects. In the past and still today, it has meant that the aesthetic of animation is generally seen as limiting the believability of the film, and especially so by photography purists, though it has been disproven time after time by animated or part animated films that entrance audiences on merit of content and technique. By letting the aesthetic dictate the technique, film-makers’s films will be judged on the wrong criteria. By taking the stance that “[a]udiences will accept any convention as long as it is consistent” , it is possible to fathom the scope of animation method.
What this conclusion is leading to is a number of solutions that I believe would be helpful towards, firstly, the re-aligning of animation to its proper place (as one of two mise-en-scene methods) and, secondly, audiences and film-makers in particular to start considering the method as not only valid, but progressive.
As far as content goes, I believe people involved in making animated films have to stop making animation and start making films. Since the focus in ‘animation’ is occasionally leaning towards the laborious process, sometimes to the ‘art of movement’, or usually informed by the cartoon, it is understandable that audiences and other film-makers discount such films as below par.
On the level of technique, film-makers should acknowledge the potential of animation has in all four “aspects of mise-en-scene” as outlined by Bordwell and Thompson. The animation actor should perhaps be given credit on the level of live-action actors so as to make clear what such an ‘animator’ actually does. This would also perform the function of low-lighting the animation actor’s connection to the visual arts. Although of course drawing skills (for example) cannot be sidelined, I believe that the animation actor would perhaps be better placed to learn his craft in a performance art orientated environment.
Following the above codes would mean that the current standing of aesthetics in film-making would fall to a lower level of importance automatically, since it is a product of technique. It is a commonly held opinion that “[a]nimation techniques…should be considered…to depict processes which cannot be visualised through live-action photography” . The coming of Computer Generated absolute photorealism, which may be a short while or a long while away, will awaken film-makers and the industry to infinite number of “realms” available to them and the position that Glen Keane holds will prevail: “I disagree with the argument that if it’s animation, it has to be subject matter that you can only do in animation” .
It should be stressed, though, that the focus should not be on the technique either; what is being communicated in terms of content is of ultimate importance, how it is communicated is the means. The subtlety of the relationship between the two is the art; the message comes from the content and then only in relation and reference to the experiences we all make in real life.
The adoption of animation method in mise-en-scene technique is an exciting prospect and challenge and I believe herein lies the future of film-making. Since the days of Lumiére who first understood the power of mise-en-scene, the technique has concerned itself largely with his live-action method. The people expert in the mise-en-scene aspects of setting, costume and lighting have the opportunity to progress their field by making use of the total control that animation offers in the same way staging (acting) has through the animation actor. “…UPA…emphasised this…” 40 years ago; their “…movement…in these stylised films accurately reflect a specific point of view” .
Far from regarding animation as a graphic art and propagating “[o]ur tendency to separate animation…from mainstream cinema” , film-makers have to realise animation is part of the same film art and that by employing it in the correct context with full understanding of its meaning, film-making will progress and cinema will maximise its potential.
Definitions -
animation: one of two modes of mise-en-scene technique, the other being live-action.
animation actor: individual who uses the mode of animation to perform.
animation acting: method of acting allowing the actor to channel expression through the inanimate; reliant on the properties of the frame in the cinematic process.
Bordwell, D. & Thompson, K., Film Art: An Introduction (New York, 2001)
Cheshire, D. & Knopf, A. A., The Book of Movie Photography (New York, 1979)
Crafton, D., Before Mickey (Massachusetts, 1982)
Culhane, S., Animation: From Script to Screen (New York, 1988)
Faber, L. & Walters, H., Animation Unlimited (London, 2004)
Grant, J., Masters of Animation (New York, 2001)
Kanfer, S., Serious Business (New York, 1997)
Madsen, R. P., Animated Film: Concepts, Methods, Uses (New York, 1969)
Wells, P., Understanding Animation (London, 1998)
Williams, R., The Animator’s Survival Kit (London, 2001)
Winder, C. & Dowlatabadi, Z., Producing Animation (Boston, 2001)
www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/35/norman_mclaren.html, 05.01.2006
Fritz the Cat (Bakshi, 1972)
Lion King, The (Allers & Minkoff, 1994)
Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964)
Mer, La (Lumiére, 1895)
Ryan (Landreth, 2004)
Simpsons, The (Groening, 1989-present)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Zemeckis, 1988)
© MMIX