Experimental Animation: From Analogue to Digital, focuses on both experimental animation’s deep roots in the twentieth century, and its current position in the twenty-first century media landscape. Each chapter incorporates a variety of theoretical lenses, including historical, materialist, phenomenological and scientific perspectives. Acknowledging that process is a fundamental operation underlining experimental practice, the book includes not only chapters by international academics, but also interviews with well-known experimental animation practitioners such as William Kentridge, Jodie Mack, Larry Cuba, Martha Colburn and Max Hattler. These interviews document both their creative process and thoughts about experimental animation’s ontology to give readers insight into contemporary practice. Global in its scope, the book features and discusses lesser known practitioners and unique case studies, offering both undergraduate and graduate students a collection of valuable contributions to film and animation studies.

This book discusses developments and continuities in experimental animation that, since Robert Russet and Cecile Starr’s Experimental Animation: Origins of a New Art (1976), has proliferated in the context of expanded cinema, performance and live ‘making’ and is today exhibited in galleries, public sites and online. With reference to historical, critical, phenomenological and inter-disciplinary approaches, international researchers offer new and diverse methodologies for thinking through these myriad animation practices. This volume addresses fundamental questions of form, such as drawing and the line, but also broadens out to encompass topics such as the inter-medial, post-humanism, the real, fakeness and fabrication, causation, new forms of synthetic space, ecology, critical re-workings of cartoons, and process as narrative. This book will appeal to cross and inter-disciplinary researchers, animation practitioners, scholars, teachers and students from Fine Art, Film and Media Studies, Philosophy and Aesthetics.

Once the realm of a few stalwart artists, animating with sand, clay, and wet paint is now accessible for all filmmakers with an experimental frame of mind. Created directly under the camera with frame-by-frame stopmotion, this "fluid frame animation" provides a completely unique visual world for animators. While pioneering animators such as Caroline Leaf, Alexander Petrov, and Ishu Patel paved the way, the availability of frame capture programs, compositing software and digital workflow is opening up new avenues of exploration for artists of all experience levels. This book will walk you through setting up your studio, choosing and working with your materials, and combining the physical under-the-camera production with digital compositing and effects to enhance your animation. · Firsthand advice from experimental animation veterans and rising stars in the field · Covers the digital aspects of experimental animation, including the latest techniques in After Effects CC · Tutorials and source files for under-the-camera approaches and After Effects enhancements on the book’s companion website In addition to the practical advice, you’ll find historical and contemporary examples of successful films, step-by-step tutorials for working under the camera and working with the footage digitally, and interviews and tips from artists who are currently pushing the boundaries in these experimental mediums. Stacked with information and images from over 30 artists, this book is an indispensable resource for both the student and professional wishing to get their hands dirty in an increasingly digital world.

Cecile Starr (1921-2014) dedicated her life to the recognition of film as a visual art. She worked, as a writer, educator, and curator, to raise awareness of experimental film in general and women film artists in particular. This book includes her contributions to Experimental Animation, originally published in 1976, as well as a collection of her other writing on the historical roots of avant-garde film. It is prefaced by the personal reflections of a number of artists and curators on her impact on their lives.

Packed with examples from classic and contemporary films, The Fundamentals of Animation presents each stage of the animation production process in an engaging visual style, whilst providing an historical and critical context for four core disciplines: drawn/cel; 2D/3D stop-motion; computer generated; and experimental animation. With insightful commentary from leading animators, Wells and Moore also introduce you to the many different career paths open to aspiring animators, from storyboard artist or character designer to VFX artist or writer and director. They also provide you with key tips on producing engaging portfolios and show reels. - Illustrated with over 300 images, including preliminary sketches, frame-by-frame analyses and shots of animators at work. - Now explores the animated documentary genre and the role of visual effects and gaming in contemporary animation. - Features more than 20 interviews with a range of international practitioners including Pete Docter, Director, Monsters, Inc. (2001), Up (2009) and Inside Out (2015). Featured Artists Sarah Cox, ArthurCox Lluis Danti, Media Molecule Pete Docter, Pixar Paul Driessen Eric Fogel Cathal Gaffney, Brown Bag Films Adam Goddard Philip Hunt, STUDIO AKA The Brothers McLeod Bill Plympton Ellen Poon, Industrial Light and Magic Barry Purves Joanna Quinn Chris Randall, Second Home Studios Maureen Selwood Koji Yamamura

A brand-new, comprehensive history of world animation