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Unseen Hands: The Work of Stop Motion
Abstract
: This paper focuses on how the work of the animator’s hands is evoked (in implicit and explicit ways) in older and more recent examples of stop motion film. I concentrate on representations of work process in Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Henry Selick’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, arguing that both films enfold their celebrations of richly material hand-work within far more ambivalent considerations of the political economy of cinematic production and distribution.Biographical statement: I teach in the English Department at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. I am currently completing a book titled Writing is Work in which I analyze hands-on, below-the-line labor practices -- including editing, clerical work, typography, and print production -- that support the making of literary texts. Although the primary material in my study is largely text-based, prior studies of industrial practice and labor history in cinema more generally and in animation in particular have been absolutely crucial to my conceptualization of the larger project. In the course of my research my attention has been drawn repeatedly to media that combine older and newer technologies; these include stop motion animation. My proposed conference paper is a version of a longer essay that I have written on stop motion aesthetics and evocations of work process.
Bunraku’s Exploded View of Performance
Abstract: The pu
ppet represents a site of paradoxes that invite reflection upon the nature of performance and embodiment; puppets occupy a liminal space between life and death, motion and stasis, an interface between actor and character, between text and audience. With bunraku as its case study I will argue that puppets offer an “exploded view” diagram of performance, separating out the constituent parts of voice, body, actor and mechanism to allow a clearer view of how formal components are used to construct complete performances and, by allegorical extension, human subjects. Biographical statement: My research has previously examined the history and aesthetics of special effects in cinema, most extensively in my recent monograph, Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor (Wallflower Press, 2008). I am currently undertaking a study of puppetry and film, exploring the uses and representation of puppets onscreen. This will incorporate theories of performance borrowed from studies of theatrical puppetry, and a historical and formal account of marionettes, animatronics, motion-capture and other modes of “artificial performance”, with the aim of producing a model for the analysis of puppetry as a key component of film aesthetics within and beyond the field of animation.
“Liquid Color in Animation: Chromatic Paradoxes of Form and Abstraction”
Abstract: The 
arrival of subtractive color processes like Technicolor (II-IV) transformed animation, with color becoming central to animation’s kinesthetic and sensual appeal. Color attractions functioned as spectacles that offered product differentiation, affective appeal and perceptual play. This paper will examine color aesthetics and philosophy in relation to transformation sequences in Bottles (Ising, 1941, MGM), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and The Worm Turns (Sharpsteen, 1937), amongst others, in which “liquid color” in flasks, bottles, test-tubes and bubbles provide temporary physical (and narrative) forms for color functioning as hallucinogenic or magical.
Biographical statement: Dr. Kirsten Moana Thompson is an Associate Professor and Director of the Film Studies Program in the Department of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium (SUNY, 2007), and Crime Films; Investigating the Scene (Wallflower, 2007); as well as essays on a variety of topics in classical American animation, including Disney, Warner Bros, and animated comedy. Her new project examines the history of color aesthetics and production processes in classical American animation.
Drawing Animation
Abstract: Dra
wing is a key component of ‘traditional’ practice in classical animation that is sometimes seen as an outmoded form lacking in relevance to a digital age. On the contrary, using digital tools and virtual materials is still seen as problematic by some animators schooled in traditional methods. In contemporary art, however, there is an explosion of experimentation with different tools, processes and paradigms and a resurgence of interest in drawing around issues of time, performance and materiality, which can be applied to a deeper consideration of drawn animation. [N.B. This paper will be an illustrated, abridged version of an article that I am currently in the final stages of writing for Animation: an Interdisciplinary Journal].
Biographical statement: Birgitta Hosea is a digital artist, animator and Course Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Character Animation, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She is the author of the Easy Guide to Flash series (Focal Press, 2004/2006) and has published articles on performance drawing, digital materiality, online 'readership', animation and performativity. She is a member of Drawn Together, University of the Arts London performance drawing research collective, and is currently engaged on a practice-based PhD at Central Saint Martins in animation and performance.
: This paper focuses on how the work of the animator’s hands is evoked (in implicit and explicit ways) in older and more recent examples of stop motion film. I concentrate on representations of work process in Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Henry Selick’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, arguing that both films enfold their celebrations of richly material hand-work within far more ambivalent considerations of the political economy of cinematic production and distribution.
