The Society for Animation Studies Newsletter

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The Society for Animation Studies Newsletter Volume 19, Issue 1 Summer 2006 The Society for Animation Studies Newsletter ISSN: 1930-191X In this Issue: Letter from the Editor Perspectives on Animation Studies Greetings! 2 ● To Animate in a Different Key As a new SAS member, I have found the Jean Detheux Society to be an active, welcoming, and 5 ● Simple Pivot Hinges for Cut-Out stimulating place where experienced and Animations young scholars alike can share their Mareca Guthrie passion for Animation Studies. 9 ● Czech Animation in 2005, An Artist's The SAS Newsletter represents a Journey supportive and convenient forum for our Brian Wells community to contribute to this growing News and Publications academic field and to get to know each other better. It offers an opportunity for 19 • Introductory Issue of Animation: an members to voice our ideas (Perspectives Interdisciplinary Journal on Animation Studies), to promote our Suzanne Buchan recent accomplishments (News and 22 • The Illusion of Life II and New Essays Publications), to learn what the SAS is Alan Cholodenko working to achieve (SAS Announcements), 24 • Between Looking and Gesturing: and to stay in touch with other members Elements Towards a Poetics of the (Membership Information). Animated Image Having no prior editorial experience, I am Marina Estela Graça deeply grateful to SAS president Maureen 25 • Frames of Imagination: Aesthetics of Furniss, webmaster Timo Linsenmaier, Animation Techniques each of this issue’s contributors, and many Nadezhda Marinchevska others for their indispensable help as I SAS Announcements navigated this exciting learning curve. As the Newsletter is only distributed to SAS 27 ● Animation at the Crossroads: 18th members, it can and ought to be tailored to SAS Conference, 7-10 July 2006 fit the needs of its select readership: you. Suzanne Williams-Rautiola So as you enjoy this issue, please 33 ● Report from the Treasury consider how futures issues can be André Eckardt improved and send me your comments: I Membership Information appreciate it! 34 ● Current Members 36 ● Incoming SAS Board and Contact Sincerely, Victoria Meng The articles in the SAS Newsletter are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Contributions are copyrighted by authors and remaining information is ©2006 Society for Animation Studies. Society for Animation Studies © 2006 SAS Newsletter, v19n1, p.1 To Animate in a Different Key other projects. These decisions put in danger the status of author and don’t Jean Detheux respect the NFB’s mandate to produce and distribute distinctive, A few thoughts on how commercial daring and pertinent audiovisual agendas influence the creative potential works that reflect on the cultural of an extraordinary art form: animation. diversity and which represents Canada to the world from an Even the National Film Board of Canada is authentic Canadian viewpoint. making huge changes in the way it approaches animation film production: the We, citizens who love cinema, situation is serious when one hears rumors demand that the authorities change that there will be fewer original and in- this script and give back viability and house productions, and a lot more buying autonomy to the production studios, of shares of outside productions historically leaders of the Canadian supposedly in order to have the NFB logo author cinema. on as many films as possible. Certainly this decision will result in more visibility but I really don’t want to enter the world of less original content. politics, but having just had the opportunity Full-time NFB directors have been recently to make two films (“Liaisons” and let go and only a few remain, on a “Rupture”) with the NFB, I feel very much contractual basis. Many of the excellent compelled to throw in my two cents. technicians and support people have also The commercial system of production been let go, with the few remaining being imposes many constraints on creative spread across the English and French work. Such constraints greatly reduce the studios. reach of the animation work, gnawing at its artistic potential. A "Coalition Cinema" was created a while ago in order to try to rally independent While art would demand one take risks (an filmmakers and start to contest what the absolutely necessary condition as far as I Canadian federal government continues to am concerned), the commercially driven do to the arts in general, and to the cinema work has to be predictable, on time, and in particular: on budget. <http://www.coalitioncinema.ca/en-ca> I have often accused most animators The Coalition circulated a petition involved in linear uni-level storytelling of addressed to Beverley J. Oda, the current being mere "plumbers," not artists, and I Canadian Heritage Minister (akin to posit that the works done in this manner “Minister of Culture”), and to Jacques are mere products manufactured for fast Bensimon, Government Film consumption, the "fast food" of animation. Commissioner and NFB Chairperson. The The production houses, big and small, petition reads: that abide by the commercial set of The National Film Board of Canada priorities are doing us all a great at the point of ruin disservice. Instead of aspiring to Paul The NFB has decided to heavily cut Cézanne's "Art is about the elevation of productions grants in order to invest in thought," we cater to the lowest common denominator. Society for Animation Studies © 2006 SAS Newsletter, v19n1, p.2 Much too often, the animators who are even such animation films are too often doing genuinely original work are doing so approached as product-oriented ventures. in precarious situations. They have to The most important aspect of the creative finance their own work even if, as is so journey is too often resisted, even fought often the case, what they unearth will against. eventually be exploited by commercial studios for the making of commercial I have written at length about my sense products. that animation, in its habitual form, is stuck. And I submit that until the art form I have written at length on these topics for undergoes a “positive disintegration” akin Animation World Magazine (see my six to what painting went through several “Notes from the Underground” articles, times already (Impressionism, Cubism, <http://mag.awn.com/>). I don’t need to and possibly most importantly, Abstract repeat all that here. Expressionism), we will continue to drown But I can expand a bit on one aspect of the in linear cute/cynical/juvenile works that creative work that is too often swept under are far from doing justice to an art form the carpet in commercial productions: with a fabulous potential, a potential that artists have known, for a very long time, has barely been touched. that the best work comes through when I believe that most independent the doer no longer knows what to do but directors/animators are merely trying to do carries on, doing his/her best what the major studios are doing, only with nevertheless. less money. These moments of reaching the point of I posit that it is high time to “animate “not knowing what to do” I have called different” and to explore, “à la Picasso,” “little deaths.” More often than not, these that which has never been seen, that moments bring about a very different look which needs us to become visible. to the work being attended to, often driving it to unpredictable vistas. I do not believe for a moment that this renewal will be possible under the “boot” of This need/obligation to be available for the the commercial animation dictatorship, I unpredictable when it manifests itself has even doubt it will be possible under the been very well summed up by Pablo dictates of “representational imagery.” Picasso when he said: “What saved me is that I became more interested in what I In order to be reborn, animation has to go found than in what I was looking for.” through a positive disintegration, and I can’t think of a better way to do that than This pivotal moment in the creative to allow our images to go through one or process is precisely the one that is to be several cycles of “de-differentiation – re- avoided if one works in the confines of differentiation,” the likes of which will never commercial animation. It is understandable be permitted in works driven by that within the parameters of a commercial storyboards and commercial operation, one can’t change the looks and considerations. aim of a project too often (that is bad for the bottom line). In auteurist animation, Auteur animation has never been more this should not be the case. However, essential and yet, it very often seems to fall short of its potential. Too many directors/animators could but won't let the Society for Animation Studies © 2006 SAS Newsletter, v19n1, p.3 work make itself through them, their Jean Detheux was born in Belgium, desire/need to make it into festivals is still where he received his academic training at more important than their commitment to the Académie royale des beaux-arts de create what they alone can create, to Liège and Institut supérieur d'architecture serve what needs them in order to become de Liège. In 1971, Detheux immigrated to visible. Canada. He taught at Alberta College of As long as animation festivals continue to Art, Concordia University in Montreal, cater to the predictable agenda of habitual Algonquin College in Ottawa, New York linear storytelling animation, there will be University, Parson School of Design inNew no audience for the animation that needs York and the New York Studio School of to be.
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