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.