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Crossing Boundaries: Communities of Practice in Animation and Live-Action Filmmaking
Abstract: T
his paper uses the social practice theory to examine historical barriers faced by live-action filmmakers attempting to go into animation, and how these barriers have been increasingly breached in recent years due to the introduction of digital technologies. In particular, the authors will use the theory of communities of practice first enunciated by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991, which, according to Wenger, involves the study of “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”Biographical sta
tements: Harvey Deneroff, a Professor of Animation at SCAD-Atlanta, has a special interest in labor-management issues, including the history of animation unions. The first editor of Animation Magazine and Animation World Magazine, he edited and published The Animation Report, and his writings have appeared in Film History, The Hollywood Reporter, Animatoon, Sight and Sound, and in several books. He wrote The Art of Anastasia (1997) and helped Fred Ladd write Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas (2008). He was Festival Director of the Week With the Masters Animation Celebration, in India, organized the Ojai Animation Conference, and founded SAS in 1987.
Victoria Deneroff is an Assistant Professor of Middle Grades Education at Georgia College & State University, in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she heads the M.A.T. Program in Middle Grades Education in Mathematics and Science. She earned her PhD in Urban Schooling at UCLA, focusing on anthropology of education. Her research interest is the development and application of social practice theory to increase understanding of the work of teachers and animation artists. She has presented her research at numerous national conferences from 2001 through the present, including the American Educational Research Association and the National Association of Research in Science Teaching.
Animation scriptwriting and transmedia tension.
Abstrac
t: While the worlds created through mainstream animation share similar orthodox discourses as traditional live action narratives, animation’s propensity for exaggeration often attempts to open or at least renegotiate the meanings formed. This paper will discuss the distinctiveness of the animated narrative through an examination of the script development for the animation short, Fallow as it forms amid a transmedia storyworld; exploring the narrative tensions of creating a transmedia universe from the perspective of the scriptwriter of animation, and how we might explore story and script as it relates to animation where expectation and the assurance of authenticity is questioned.
Biographical statement: Brian Fagence is a lecturer of Critical Studies for Animation, and Animation Scriptwriting in the Division of Animation at the Cardiff School of Creative Industries University of Glamorgan. He has lectured for ten years in moving image studies with a focus on theoretical approaches to animation and their practical integration. He is a storyteller and scriptwriter and his current PhD research into the distinctiveness of the animated narrative, explores how story and script engages with animation, its production and its transmedia development.
Etch-a-Sketching in 3D: Technological Optimization and Technophobia in Pixar’s Toy Story and Monsters Inc.
Abstract: The
popularity and ubiquity of digital animation has radically altered contemporary animated filmmaking/viewing practices. Pixar is a crucial nodal point in this reimaging of the animated film. Yet inasmuch as it represents a technological optimization of digital animation, Pixar simultaneously inscribes within its narratives a critique of the technological retooling of labour and production. This paper will discuss how Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and Monsters Inc. (Pete Docter, 2001) illustrate this duality, articulating both a fear of the technological assimilation of individual labour and a nostalgia for archaic/obsolete technologies.
Biographical statement: Colleen Montgomery is an MA candidate at the University of British Columbia currently completing her thesis on Pixar, vocal performance and intertextuality: “Pixarticulation: The Voice in Contemporary Animation.” Her primary research interests lie in Disney, Pixar and animation studies, as well as in translation studies. Recent publications include “Post Soviet Freakonomics: Balabanov’s Dead Men and Heritage Porn” in Cinephile 5.1, with forthcoming work to appear in Paradoxa 22.
his paper uses the social practice theory to examine historical barriers faced by live-action filmmakers attempting to go into animation, and how these barriers have been increasingly breached in recent years due to the introduction of digital technologies. In particular, the authors will use the theory of communities of practice first enunciated by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991, which, according to Wenger, involves the study of “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
tements: Harvey Deneroff, a Professor of Animation at SCAD-Atlanta, has a special interest in labor-management issues, including the history of animation unions. The first editor of Animation Magazine and Animation World Magazine, he edited and published The Animation Report, and his writings have appeared in Film History, The Hollywood Reporter, Animatoon, Sight and Sound, and in several books. He wrote The Art of Anastasia (1997) and helped Fred Ladd write Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas (2008). He was Festival Director of the Week With the Masters Animation Celebration, in India, organized the Ojai Animation Conference, and founded SAS in 1987. 
