Over the next month or so I’m taking part in the ’23 Things for Research’ initiative at University of Surrey in a bid to re-activate my latterly dormant blog. Here’s to more musings on all things documentary, animation and related!
An article I wrote about the use of animated segments in live action documentary has been published in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. I think the article is free access at the moment. Otherwise get in touch and I’ll be happy to share the accepted copy with you.
The article is one that I’d been wanting to write since I finished my book, in which animated segments get a short mention but I didn’t have the space to explore further. Seeing as this use of animation in documentary is becoming increasingly common, I was happy to have the opportunity to think more about how these animated segments work.
I’m revisiting animated documentary in two upcoming talks this May and June. I’m giving keynote addresses at the following events, do come along if you’re in the area!
Ecstatic Truth: Animated Documentary Symposium at the Royal College of Art in London on Saturday 27th May
Animation and Memory conference at Radboud University in the Netherlands, 22-23 June
Animated Documentary has won the 2015 McLaren-Lambart Award for Best Book on Animation Published 2013-14 by the Society for Animation Studies. It’s such an honour to be recognised by this association, which has been a great source of support and inspiration for this book from its very earliest days as my PhD research.
Here’s what the award committee said about the book:
The paperback version of Animated Documentary is now available! Hopefully this new, much more affordable version will make the book more accessible.
Available from the publisher here
It’s just been confirmed that the paperback version (aka a much more affordable one) of my book Animated Documentary is in production and should be released in February or March. I’ll post info here when I have more details.
Finally, nearly two years after my book was published by Palgrave, a review! This is in the great online journal Alphaville.
I related news, Palgrave are interested in publishing a paperback (i.e. much more affordable) version of the book. Updates on that to follow…
The blog has been quiet of late, as my time is taken up with new research projects that move away (but not entirely!) from animated documentary. I have been keeping a note of new publications though and have updated the animated docs info page. If you’ve published something on animated docs, or know of something that’s not on the list, please let me know.
Finally, I wanted to belatedly congratulate the teams involved in the Silent Signal project in winning a large project grant from the Wellcome Trust. The project brings together animators and scientists, including two of my favourite animated documentary makers: Samantha Moore and Ellie Land. This work is of real relevance to one of my new areas of research and I can’t wait to see the finished films.
Still from Loop (Samantha Moore)
Those of you who check in with my blog will have noticed it’s been a bit quiet recently. The main reason is pretty adorable (and she turns one in a few weeks), but it’s also because now that my book is out there and doing its thing, I’m beginning to move on to new research and writing projects (well, as much as that nearly-1-year-old will allow). However, animated documentaries are never too far from my thoughts – I’ll be talking about them, in part, in a keynote I’m giving at the St. Andrews postgraduate Film Studies symposium next week: Approaching Animation and they’ll feature in a presentation I’m giving on animated dance at the Society for Animation studies conference in Toronto in June. I’ll also be updating the Animated docs info on this blog soon with information on recent publications in the field.
Meanwhile, I did manage to escape the nappies briefly during my maternity leave when I snuck out to watch the animated documentary screenings that were part of the London International Animation Festival. One film really caught my attention – Carla MacKinnon’s Devil in the Room, made as part of her MA at the Royal College of Art. The film is about sleep paralysis and I think it makes the most of the specificity of different textures, techniques and materialities of animation to evoke this sleep disorder. We’re increasingly being reminded how animation is now everywhere – from the devices we carry in our pockets to the ‘invisible’ special effects in mainstream Hollywood movies. In the face of that ubiquity, films like MacKinnon’s remind us of the importance of considering what is unique about specific styles of animation. MacKinnon used a combination of live action, compositing, stop-motion and CGI to create her film. I found the puppet animation particularly, creepily, evocative. You can watch the film below and read more about the project of which it forms part here
My book, Animated Documentary, has now been published by Palgrave.
You can order from Palgrave’s UK website, with 50% discount (enter WANIMATED2013a) or from Palgrave’s US website with 20% discount (enter XP356ED). I also have a discount order form for those in Australia – just get in touch via the ‘contact me’ form on the About page and I can email you the form.
Animating Documentary 