The Computer-Animated Film The Computer-Animated ‘Holliday persuasively argues that contemporary computer animation feature films constitute a genre in their own right. Re-positioning genre through fresh configurations of how computer animated films relate to each other, he analyses their ideologically charged formal and technical characteristics, successfully revealing new systems of textual properties and affordances. Insisting that the very “animatedness” of computer animation invokes a revision of the traditional cartoon, conventional film tropes and digital moving images, Holliday properly traces the influence of animation in the re-invention of mainstream movies per se.’ Paul Wells, Animation Academy, Loughborough University Widely credited for the revival of feature-length animated filmmaking within contemporary Hollywood, computer-animated films are today produced within a variety of national contexts and traditions. The Computer-Animated Film covers thirty years of computer-animated film history and analyses over two hundred different examples, persuasively arguing that this body of work constitutes a unique genre of mainstream cinema. Informed by wider technological discourses and the status of animation as an industrial art form, the book not only theorises computer-animated films through their formal properties, but Christopher Holliday The also connects elements of film style to animation practice and the computer-animated film’s unique production contexts. Christopher Holliday teaches Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King’s College London. Computer- Cover image: Computer models of Marlin and Dory, Finding Nemo, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, 2003, Image courtesy of Walt Disney Productions/Photofest Animated Cover design: www.paulsmithdesign.com INDUSTRY, STYLE ISBN 978-1-4744-2788-3 AND GENRE Film edinburghuniversitypress.com Christopher Holliday The Computer- Animated Film Industry, Style and Genre Christopher Holliday Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting- edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Christopher Holliday, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Monotype Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 2788 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 2790 6 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 2791 3 (epub) The right of Christopher Holliday to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Figures iv Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 1. Falling with Style? The Computer- Animated Film and Genre 24 2. Towards a Journey Narrative Syntax 41 3. Notes on a Luxo World 63 4. Computer- Animated Films and Anthropomorphic Subjectivity 85 5. Object Transformation and the Spectacle of Scrap 109 6. Pixar, Performance and Puppets 127 7. Monsters, Synch: A Taxonomy of the Star Voice 144 8. From Wile E. to Wall- E: Computer- Animated Film Comedy 165 9. DreamWorks Animation, Metalepsis and Diegetic Deconstruction 187 10. The Mannerist Game 205 Conclusion: Satisfying a Spirit of Adventure 224 Bibliography 232 Index 257 Figures 1.1 Frame grab from Hoodwinked 31 2.1 Frame grab from Flushed Away 43 2.2 Frame grab from Over the Hedge 46 3.1 Frame grab from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn 76 3.2 Frame grab from Happy Feet 79 4.1 Frame grab from Bee Movie 101 4.2 Frame grab from Ratatouille 102 5.1 Frame grab from Antz 112 5.2 Frame grab from A Bug’s Life 119 6.1 Frame grab from The Croods 132 6.2 Frame grab from Toy Story 2 139 7.1 Frame grab from Shark Tale 154 7.2 Frame grab from Fly Me to the Moon 159 8.1 Frame grab from Monsters, Inc. 178 8.2 Frame grab from The Incredibles 185 9.1 Frame grab from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 191 9.2 Frame grab from Despicable Me 2 202 10.1 Frame grab from Sing 212 10.2 Frame grab from Surf ’s Up 214 10.3 Frame grab from Bolt 220 Acknowledgements This book grew out of a doctoral thesis undertaken within the Film Studies department at King’s College London, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I thank both for giving me the opportunity to study the computer-animated film. Deepest gratitude is reserved for my superlative PhD supervisor Michele Pierson, whose unwavering intellectual generosity and care for the project (as well as her trusty blue ink pen) made the work much better than it ought to have been, and the whole experience even more so. The seeds of this book were first sown whilst studying as an undergraduate student at the University of Warwick. I would therefore like to give wholehearted thanks to my very first film and television teachers José Arroyo, James Bennett, Charlotte Brunsdon, Stella Bruzzi, Richard Dyer, Ed Gallafent, Iris Kleinecke-Bates, Rachel Moseley, Amy Sargeant, Ginette Vincendeau and Helen Wheatley and for creating such an inspirational and encouraging environment all around me, and to V. F. Perkins for showing me first-hand the sheer enjoyment of it all. Though he won’t know it, Steve Allen’s last-minute decision to screen Toy Story instead of Jurassic Park on a first-year film history course caused a small lightbulb to turn on somewhere in the back of my mind that is luckily still burning bright. My thanks must also go to Tom Brown, another influential film teacher at Warwick and friend, and Jon Burrows, whose words of reassurance and supervision greatly shaped both the BA and then MA dissertations at Warwick that helped to further cultivate something of my animated enthusiasms. I continue to benefit immensely from the intellectual support of numer- ous teachers, colleagues and friends at King’s College and beyond, many of whom have delivered welcome moments of scholarly inspiration and clarity as this book came to fruition. Alice Haylett Bryan, Malcolm Cook, Amy M. Davis, Ivan Girina, Annabelle Honess Roe, Chris Pallant, Luke Robinson, Martha Shearer, Ben Tyrer and James Whitfield all offered their time, friendship, advice, honesty, recommendations and encouragement when I needed them most. I also wish to acknowledge the following people for their guidance and support that has come in many forms: Mark Betz, Jinhee Choi, Sarah Cooper, Victor Fan, Rosalind Galt, Hannah Hamad, Lawrence Napper, Mark Shiel, Belén Vidal and Catherine Wheatley. In addition to these names, I must add three people in particular. Edward Lamberti and Alexander Sergeant have been a constant source of friendship, and I am vi the computer-animated film enormously grateful to them both for contributing conversation, offering passionate defences of some of my early ideas that otherwise might have fallen by the wayside, keeping me focused, and then taking my mind off it all at just the right times. Sincere thanks also goes to Lilly Husbands, who provided unbeatable intellectual support during the turbulent emotions of writing and rewriting, and who continues to offer treasured friendship and characteristically excellent scholarly advice delivered with precision and humour. The opportunity to test out ideas at multiple conferences and in class- rooms has been vital in seeing this project to its completion. I would like to thank in particular the many undergraduate and postgraduate students at King’s College London, London South Bank University, University of Kent and University of Surrey who have given me so much to think on and to question – their input and insights have been integral to the shape of my research. Gillian Leslie at Edinburgh University Press has been hugely supportive and enthusiastic about the project right from the start, and I thank too the reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of the manuscript. Earlier versions of Chapters 3 and 4 were previously published as ‘Notes on a Luxo world’, Animation Practice, Process & Production 4: 1 (December 2014), pp. 67–95, and ‘“I’m not a real boy, I’m a puppet’: Computer-Animated Films and Anthropomorphic Subjectivity’, animation: an interdisciplinary journal 11: 3 (November 2016), pp. 246–62, respectively. Some of the arguments in Chapter 6 appear in ‘Toying with performance: Toy Story, Virtual Puppetry and Computer-Animated Film Acting’ in Noel Brown, Susan Smith and Sam Summers (eds.), Toy Story (Animation: Key Films/Filmmakers) (London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2018), pp. 87–104. I am tremen- dously grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on these articles and chapters, and to the editors and publishers for the opportunity to further develop my thoughts around the computer-animated film. In addition, Barry Langford and Paul Wells were extremely forthcoming in the project’s early stages, with highly constructive feedback and advice when I was trying to mould everything into something that resembled a book on animation. I would also like to thank Anna Robertson, whose patience and encouragement during the writing made me believe that what I had to say might be worthwhile. Finally, I wish to make a special dedication to my parents, Frances and Robert, the best people I know. Their decision in the winter of 1992 to take me to see Walt Disney’s Aladdin as my very first film at the cinema probably explains a lot of what was to follow. To my siblings Doug, Emmajo and Louisa, for the love and laughter, I am grateful to each of you for allowing me to take over small parts of our childhood (and then even larger bits of our adulthood) with all things animation.