SOCIETY FOR ANIMATION STUDIES NEWSLETTER

Volume 13, Issue 1 Summer 2000

President’s Report

We are now well into the year 2000. The conference thought. This should therefore be a discussion point in Norway with the theme ‘Digital Challenges B during the SAS Annual General Meeting in Expanded Boundaries’ will start in August and there Trondheim. There are currently forty paying will be 25 papers presented. Unfortunately, Rune members, far too few to warrant sending out Kreutz has fallen sick and may not be able to Newsletters and supporting a homepage. complete his task, but others have taken it over so the conference can go ahead. We wish Rune a speedy In the last Newsletter I announced that SAS is recovery. Earlier experience has also taught us that going digital, exchanging news through E-mail. In organizing a conference are a very hard task, usually this newsletter, Maureen Fumiss tells us something done as well as our normal work. We wish the about the start of the Animation Journal E-mail organizers every success with the final stages. Group. An example of a medium, which SAS should embrace? The amount of information that The conference is the most important activity of the I’ve gathered through this E-mail group is more Society for Animation Studies. It is where we meet than could be placed in five Newsletters. each other and where ideas and research results are exchanged. This is highlighted by the fact that, up to Jeanpaul Goergen writes a regular e-mail with news now, very few reactions have been received through to the European SAS members. He has now made the Newsletters to settle the membership fees. A an overview of all the European members, including number of members paid their contributions during addresses and e-mail. A pilot project for the whole the conference last year, which gives food for of SAS? Have you passed on your E-mail address yet? Do it now, to [email protected].

Further to my proposal to set up a fund for translating important books on animation film, IN THIS ISSUE Giannalberto Bendazzi has an interesting suggestion for getting the fund off to a good start. President’s Report 1 You see that there are various interesting topics that are now under discussion in view of the continued 2-4 SAS Conference Trondheim Presentations existence of the Society for Animation Studies. It is up to you to carry things through by paying your 5 Bendazzi, Williams & Animation Journal E-group contribution if you have not already done so. See you in Trondheim, Norway.

6 MGM book & Arte Animazione Ton Crone

SAS Newsletter 1 Digital Challenges - Expanded Boundaries SAS Conference Norway, 5-9 August 2000

Notice that the conference dates have changed: The conference in Trondheim will begin on Saturday 5 August and last until Wednesday 9 August. The Animated Tour is planned for Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 August.

The theme of the 2000 conference is ‘Digital Challenges – Expanded Boundaries’. The main focus will be directed to the future. However, this focus can easily be blurred without a proper historical foundation and understanding of evolutions of the past. How will new technology influence aesthetics, individuals, and institutions? How can previous technological and esthetical (r)evolutions help us understand the changes going on today? New technology is creating a situation where production costs can be reduced to levels not seen before. Does this increase in technological access lead to improved conditions for animators or will counteractions prevent this from happening? What will happen with classic animation techniques in the future? The debate on motion capture techniques has been going on for some time, and the question whether this can be regarded animation or not reveals new challenges. Do we need new definitions and frameworks to understand animation? Animation is gaining importance in new fields. Both in film production, web-design, video art, and computer games it is now a common technique and tool. This means that research from different branches will be of interest for the conference. We hope to present broad perspectives that reflect the diversity within the current use of animation techniques.

For more information contact: Norsk Animasjonsforum/Animerte Dager Brittania P.O.Box 1405 N-1602 Fredrikstad Norway tel: +47 69 316924 ; fax: + 47 69 300934 ; email: [email protected] Presentations

DIGITAL TOPICS

Keith Bradbury (Griffith University) Towards a Spiritualist Aesthetic: Boundaries in Cyberspace? The paper explores what might be meant by a spiritualist aesthetic, the importance of the body in such an aesthetic and how such an aesthetic might create boundaries in cyberspace.

John Southall Expanding Boundaries - Setting Boundaries: The Role of Theory and Paradigms in Understanding Developments in Animation The paper will offer some thoughts on the current impact of technology on film and animation; both from the view point of the film produced and of its reception by audiences. It will argue that the idea of expanding boundaries is a constant and one that plays a role in the creative and social development of any medium.

Roger Palmer The Animated Image: Tradition versus Technology Down-Under The Animated Image: Tradition versus Technology Down-Under presents a brief overview of the Australian animation industry with attention to popular expectations for applied electronics and computer aided imaging systems.

Pedro Faria Lopes, Amélia Muge and Maria Moreira (Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa) 2D Computer Morphing Animation for ‘Transgressing the Norm’ This paper describes the challenges and approaches developed to produce a Betacam SP video, 4’ 26” long, for TV broadcast, that implied a multidisciplinary interaction between live action production, with singing and dance choreography, and computer animation development and integration.

SAS Newsletter 2 Laura Knight (Staffordshire University) From Flip to Zip: Patterns of Delivering Animation Education to Pre Degree Students as Part of a School Curriculum What are the direct and meaningful links between the Flipbook and Zip Drive to the educationalist? The presentation will include screenings and examples of work, which will illustrate the variety, method of presentation and potential of animation within the curriculum for pre degree students.

Alastir Herron (University of Ulster) Digital Challenges, Expanded Boundaries While the new technologies present animation with the possibilities for quicker, more convergent forms of media presentations does this ongoing change also enhance a deeper understanding of classic animation techniques, like for example, drawing?

John Grace (Loughborough University) Everything Changes, Nothing Changes Developments in desktop animation and telephony will give animators total control of the production path and freedom to distribute their work widely via the internet. To take advantage of existing and dazzling new opportunities student animators need to master key skillsets – technology comes to the rescue with on-line learning.

Robert Hamilton (Karlstad University) Interactive Animated Projections Animation is a medium that necessitates a careful and precise consideration of each of its elements. Time, movement, lighting; every technical aspect of a work is carefully considered. By its very nature animation is lean. One cannot afford to render superfluous images. Every frame is calculated and meditated upon. This is true of animation now, as it was 100 years ago. Like many other areas of filmmaking, animation has greatly changed and generally benefited from all things digital.

Lucy Childs (University of Luton) The Ghost of Happy Accident How do digital puppeteers work? What are the differences between real and virtual puppetry? Using texts and examples old and up-to-the minute Lucy Childs will explore the question ‘are digital accidents possible?’ in relation to puppets and puppetry.

Marina Estela Graca (Universidade do Algarve) Physiology: towards Animation Poetics This essay regards animation as a physiological response to the mechanisation of the senses, a phenomenon that occurred the minute machines were able to take over, and largely exceed, the limits of human sensing capability. Animation would represent a way to physically respond in a wider and multidimensional context, according sensory impressions – which we could never directly feel – with movements and attitudes that we could never directly do.

OTHER TOPICS

Mark Langer (Carleton University) Class and the Body in Fleischer Films, 1930-40 Paper will investigate the thesis that as the class orientation of Fleischer films changed over the decade from working- class to middle-class, there was a subsequent re-inscription of the body. The morphology of human corporeality shifted from being on the interstitial point between the animal and human realms to one that was clearly delineated as outside the animal realm.

Gunnar Strøm (Volda University Highschool) The Animated Documentary: a Performative Tradition By tracing the history of the animated documentary Strøm argues that performative or poetic documentaries are not new phenomena of the 1980s and 1990s but part of an ongoing tradition since the 1920s. The animated documentary never died.

SAS Newsletter 3 Pierre Floquet (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electronique et de Radioélectricité de Bordeaux) Animated Characters: Actioned, or Actors ? Long before Lara Croft and others, the cartoon character - as understood by Avery - proved to be ‘somebody’ more than a mere animated figure, shaped into a personality and acts of ‘its’ own.

Richard J. Leskosky (University of Illinois) J. R. Bray’s 1916 Animation Patent John Randolph Bray applied for and received patents on most aspects of the cartoon animation process. In the 1916 patent discussed here, Bray laid claim to a process more or less identical with the slash technique, developed by Raoul Barre in part to circumvent Bray's earlier patents.

Robin Allan Fantasia Now and Then: an Exploration of the New Fantasia 2000 compared with its 1940 Forerunner An examination of the new seven pieces of Fantasia 2000, compared with the first film of 1940 and its original eight sections. Robin Allan questions why the new film uses none of the sections intended by Disney as additions

David Williams A Line in Your Lap Video/Paper: A visual survey of various ventures into stereoscopic animation beginning with the Norman McLaren’s Now is the Time (1950) and ending with Paramount’s Casper (1954).

Susanna Szabo Let’s teach animation! Teaching animation for children can be part of their creative art education. After keeping a course for kids aged 12-13, I’d like to share my experiences with art teachers, animators or anyone interested, via a video documentary and discussions.

ASIA PANEL

Panel chairman John A. Lent will present the paper Animation in Bejing by Xu Ying and Animation in South and Southeast Asia.

K. Hee OH Holmen (CalArts) Cross Cultural References in Japanese Animation: A Survey on Kiki’s Delivery Service with Scandinavian Audience With increasing access to internet and mass media, cultural boundaries has been thinner than ever. What are cross cultural and universal conventions in animation filmmaking? How do they work and what are the consequences and possibilities? The paper will present the final result of the survey regarding anime, Kiki’s Delivery Service, with audiences from Trondheim, Norway. With Scandinavian audience, what has been working and what has not, and why, will be discussed. Many of the topics are not limited to Japanese animation, but also all cross-cultural related filmmaking.

Masao Yokota, Masashi Koide, and Koji Nomura (Nihon University) Psychological Dependence in Japanese Animation films: A Case of Rin Taro A key concept in Japanese animation films should be psychological dependence; it has implicitly appeared. Rin Taro’s feature animation films clearly depicted the psychological dependence as a trait of the Japanese people.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION

Mette Peters & Egbert Barten Mostly Hidden Away: Animation Film in the Netherlands 1940-1945 Presentation of research for recently published book about the animation film culture in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation. With assistance of the national-socialist government and the German authorities, but also thanks to commissions from organisations as Philips, Albert Heijn or the Netherlands Railways, studios were built and some important footage could be created. The presentation will include screenings of newly restored films from the period.

SAS Newsletter 4 Dear Colleagues, with a small group of television enthusiasts intent on As many of us know, and as our president has pointed furthering this new scientific discovery has today out in our last Bulletin, a problem we have to face is that become the Royal Television Society, representing the only books written in English or in French are actually most important communications medium in the world. distributed and read by scholars all over the world. We The Society was granted its Royal title in 1966 and now can’t change the world, nor learn Dutch, German, Italian, represents over 4,000 members from the entire Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, spectrum of the broadcasting industry. No longer just Spanish, Croatian, Bulgarian (I’m mentioning only an engineering society, RTS members can now be languages that I’m sure were used for animation books: found in all parts of the ever widening industry. The as I have them in my archive). Therefore the most RTS is the only Society exclusively devoted to reasonable thing to do is to translate some books into television and, as the industry undergoes significant English. change, it stands as a unique, central, independent Now, my proposal is this: let’s concentrate on one book. forum where the art, science, business, craft and Let’s find money from the industry, the publicity, the politics of television can be discussed by national organizations, let’s beg on the streets; but let’s representatives from every branch of the industry. find the budget for translating and publishing that first During the past twenty-five years, David Williams has book. Later, it might be easier to find money for the been a committee member of the North east and second, the third and so on. I have been studying world Cumbria Branch of the Society, and for the last 13 animation since 1969. There are a lot of black holes. The years has been chairman and organiser of a Festival for blackest one, in my opinion, is animation in Soviet Young Videomakers sponsored by the Branch and by Union, for a lot of reasons that many among us know North East Development Organisations. He was a but too well. The last, but not least, was my (our Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer and Head of westerners’) ignorance of the Russian language. Now, the Department of Film and Television Studies at The book I would like to focus our endeavours on is College of St. Hild and St. Bede in Durham University ‘Risovannyi Film’ (1950) by Ivan Ivanov-Vano. Of between the years 1965 and 1979. He then moved into course it is old, but some Russian friends answered my the area of Special Education and looked after a curiosity questions by saying that it is a perfect portrait of diagnostic Closed circuit Television Unit. After taking how animation functioned in these years in Moscow, early retirement in 1996, he began teaching traditional how the Russian animators felt towards the outer world’s animation methods to computer students. His productions, and so on. In other words, a document. It fellowship citation honours his involvement as a could be completed by an introduction from a Russian pioneer in Film and Television Studies and his work for contemporary scholar, who could describe who in truth the local branch of The Television Society. It would was, artistically and politically, that ‘tsar’ (1900-1987) of appear that he is the first Media Studies academic to be his time and his country animation. I met Ivanov-Vano honoured in this way. The Fellowship will be presented many times, but he pretended he couldn’t speak any at a dinner on July 27th, 2000 at the British Academy language except Russian, so any discussion was of Film and Television Arts in London. impossible. My only endeavour with him was to refuse in the kindest possible way the vodka and the cucumbers he Animation Journal E-group. In March 1999, I offered me every morning at every festival. (I am a received an invitation to join an e-mail list from a teetotal). But I remember that any countryman or his, friend, Larry Cuba, whom I consider to be very and the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs etc. as well, obeyed knowledgeable about new developments in digital him without discussion. Anyway, this is my own media and communications. Not being one of those candidate. I don’t exact I am right and we can decide for people myself, I had not heard of ‘e-groups’, but his anything else. But I repeat and stress: let’s be concrete, invitation immediately gave me an idea. I went to the decide for one book, and make it. Why? Because we can’t main site, www.egroups.com, and decided to form a list allow ourselves distractions, metropolitan legends, black for Animation Journal, though it would not be linked holes, under- or over-evaluations. In many (all?) the to the publication in a specific way. My aim was to meanings of the word we are needy; therefore we have to provide a forum for discussion of animation studies use thoroughly what we actually possess. topics on the web. After I formed the group, I invited Giannalberto Bendazzi 30 or so people to join, using addresses of individuals I corresponded with via email. I established the policy David Williams has become fellow of the Royal that anyone can join and originally the list was not Television Society. The Television Society was formed moderated; however, while membership remains free on 7 September 1927, nine years before the first public and open to all, I started moderating messages within a service broadcast from Alexandra Palace. What began few months. Fortunately, the volume is low, with 2 or 3

SAS Newsletter 5 messages a day being an average high rate (though days same way as Norman McLaren or Oskar Fischinger? can go by with no messages at all). Membership is now ‘Incontri Arte Animazione’ (art animation meetings) just over 350, where it seems to be resting. The liveliest held in Turin from the 19th to the 20th of December discussions have surrounded topics such as the value of a '99 and organized by Chiara Magri for Asifa Italia, liberal arts degree to students who wish to be animators wanted to address this topic with screenings, round (spend 4 years on it, or move right to a specialized tables, meetings. It was appropriately held at the animation program?), building a list of documentaries Conference Room of the Civic Gallery of Modern Art. about animation, and the future of the internet. You can Presenting the first screening Carlo Montanaro (from read the list's archive at www.egroups.com. You can also the University of Venezia) said that, in the beginning, join there or on the Animation Journal website, art was the hard work of craftsmen. In the beginning of www.chapman.edu:animation (click on the icon that cinema neither Thomas Alva Edison nor the Lumière appears at the bottom of the page). brothers looked for the artistic. From the Enchanted Maureen Furniss Drawings (1900) by James Stuart Blackton to Colour Sequences (1943) by Dwinell Grant there is the birth of Les Dessins Animés de la Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. the artistic idea in animated films, passing through Patrick Brion, éditions de la Martinère, 1999. One lavish Emile Cohl, Winsor McCay, Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye book, if any! 95% of it is colour plates, most of which are and (why not?) Walt Disney, or to be more exact, Jack full page. As a consequence, only 5% is text... Actually, King; the short presented was The (famous) Spirit of ‘43. Brion is not known for his reflection but for his In the round table about ‘Animation: language for art’, compilation of pictures that sell. The time span Gianni Rondolino (writer of an important history of considered covers the years 1934, with reference to the animated cinema published in 1974) proposed changing earlier 1931-1934 period, to 1970. He has managed to the name from animated movies to manipulated sort out meaningful periods, with such titles as ‘Arrivée movies because modern technology has changed the et départ de l'Ecureuil Fou, 1943-46’ (Arrival and existing borderlines between live action and animation. Departure of Screwy Squirrel), or ‘l'Age d'or, 1947-48’ Maria Grazia Mattei used this thesis to support the (the Golden Age). Within each chapter, which are not technological and digital researches of the cinema of listed down, Brion applies the structure he used in his the future. The undersigned put forward the problem first book on Avery (Patrick Brion: ‘Tex Avery’, éditions of the positioning of artistic animation: which screens du Chêne, 1984). That is to say the chronology of the (only festivals?), televisions (which palimpsest), coming out of cartoons: a one or two page introductory videotapes or DVD, artistic galleries or other media for text, followed by a review of every cartoon issued during artistic, often abstract shorts of different length and not that period. The same pattern is at work here again: a very easy reading. Perhaps the problem is, first of all, small picture, the name of the cartoon, the credits, and a finding or creating a faithful audience. Bruno Di (very) short synopsis with some comment when we are Marino (from the Museum of Contemporary Art of the lucky. You will have gathered that I did enjoy the ... color Unversity of Rome) presented a screening as a sort of plates! My ego was equally satisfied with my name introduction to the experimental Italian animated appearing in the selected bibliography related to Tex cinema with the rare projection of shorts made by Luigi Avery. I was also pleased to see that the Italian book on Veronesi in the Forties. Under the perfect co- Avery (‘What's up Tex?’, edited by Michele Fadda and ordination of Alfio Bastiancich (director of the Fabrizio Liberti, Torino, Lindau 1998) was also ‘Cartoons on the Bay Festival’) a round-table meeting mentioned, all the more so as I did participate in that was conducted in the afternoon of the first day with book... together with Brion himself! To conclude: one many Italian animated film makers (Enzo D'Alò, more beautifully illustrated French made book, that Alberto D'Amico, Roberto catani, Giulio Gianini, everyone will enjoy even if they don't read French (there Vincenzo Gioanola, Leonardo Carrano) plus Ruth is so little to read anyway...), and if they can afford the Lingford from the United Kingdom and Georges cost! Schwizgebel from Switzerland. Every author spoke Pierre Floquet about his own different experiences; some earn a living from their work with animated films, while others have ArteAnimazione: Art and Animation meeting in to augment their incomes with other jobs teaching Italy. The boom in the animation market is under animation and/or painting etc. A lively discussion everyone's watchful eye. More and more television series, ensued with regard to the narrative aspects of a film. feature-length animated films and video games are being The animated film seems to be born to tell a story but, produced and released all over the world. In this paradise at the same time, it is the perfect way of proposing a of moving images, where is artistic animation's rightful completely abstract cinematic experience. The audience place, for artists who intend to live animated films in the is used to receiving a story, so the former (when well

SAS Newsletter 6 done) is easier than the latter, to draw attention and Newsletter Society for Animation Studies popularity. But the purpose of art (and of this meeting, too) is to open the doors to all opportunities to make Volume 13, Issue 1, Summer 2000 art as well as films. Art is also freedom of choice. So it was very interesting on the second day of ArteAnimazione, the meeting was about ‘Animation, The Society for Animation Studies Newsletter is art, craft: the artistic training’ with many teachers and published five times yearly by the Society. authors co-ordinated by Laura Fiori (Asifa-Italia president). Ruth Lingford spoke about her work in the Newsletter correspondence should be addressed Royal College of Art in London, showing a wonderful to: Ton Crone or Mette Peters selection of the shorts produced in that College and of Netherlands Institute for Animation Film her own work, strangely moving and touching, and P.O. Box 9358 coming from a very witty person. The United Kingdom 5000 HJ Tilburg is considered the perfect country for short animated The Netherlands films but the best situations always come from people who make the right decisions and never back down, as Phone: + 31 (0) 13 5354555 is often the case. Marina D'Amico exposed the changes Fax: + 31 (0) 13 5800057 for the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema (National School Email: [email protected] of Cinema), ex Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Also contact for more membership information, The School gave a course of animated artistic cinema address changes and inquiries. held by Giulio Gianini in Rome. Beginning in the new year this course will take place only in Turin, turning its SAS Newsletter subscriptions are free with attention to narrative animation and to computer membership in the society. animation as well. Roberto Catani recounted his Regular membership USD 35.00 / 32.70 Euro pleasant experience as a teacher in the Istituto Statale di Joint membership USD 45.00 / 42.00 Euro Urbino (State Institute of Urbino). The pupils' films Student membership USD 20.00 / 18.70 Euro were very short, but showcased very good taste and ability. Presenting his movies, Georges Schwizgebel Institutional Membership USD 60.00 / 56.00 Euro spoke about his experience as an animator in Switzerland. For his professional activities he can rely Membership dues should be sent to: on some state grants to continue making short Maureen Furniss, treasurer dollar region animated films that are viewed and appreciated all over 43 Satehouse Place the world. However, in the case of Vincenzo Gioanola Irvine, CA 92602-0727 from Turin, he is a well-known author of movies drawn USA directly on film. His films competed at the most Jeanpaul Goergen, treasurer Euro region important international festivals, receiving prices since Groβbeerenstraβe 56-D 1982. Gioanola revealed to the audience at the meeting D-10965 Berlin the secrets of his work, but at the same time he showed Germany a sad pessimism about his future as an animator; unfortunately, in these last years he has had to work on jobs that have nothing to do with animation or cinema. SAS Board In a very friendly atmosphere and a cold but beautiful Ton Crone (president) [email protected] Turin by night (some parts of the town were David Ehrlich [email protected] wonderfully lit up by various Italian artists) Pierre Floquet [email protected] ArteAnimazione was closed with a special meeting with Michael Frierson [email protected] Giulio Gianini and Emanuele Luzzati, two great Maureen Furniss [email protected] masters of dècoupage and colour. With their shorts La Jeanpaul Goergen [email protected] Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie1974) Pulcinella Roger Palmer (1973), Il Flauto Magico (The Magic Flute1978) they demonstrated how music and images can live together, SAS Website explaining that art, as animation, is subtle, joyful and http://asifa.net/sas intense play. Luca Rafaelli

SAS Newsletter 7 SOCIETY FOR ANIMATION STUDIES NEWSLETTER

Volume 13, Issue 1 Summer 2000

Society for Animation Studies C/o P.O. Box 9358 5000 HJ Tilburg The Netherlands

SAS Newsletter 8