Abstract: Studies
of animation visual styles, industrial processes and histories are well advanced, but the contribution of music to animation film is still often marginalized, forgotten or trivialised. This paper provides a brief survey of the field of animation film music analysis and approaches to research. Critical engagement with the industrial practices, texts and auteurial forms of animation film music has barely caught up with experimental historical precedents, much less the current era of converged animation productions. The paper argues that animation music studies must evolve with the form to engage with animated forms of the future. Biographical Statement: Dr Rebecca Coyle is Director of Research for the School of Arts and Social Sciences and teaches in the Media Program at Southern Cross University, Australia. Her Drawn to Sound: Animation Film Music and Sonicity will be published by Equinox (UK) in 2009, and has recently edited a special issue of Animation Journal (published 2009) on sound in animation film and television. She has edited two anthologies on Australian cinema soundtracks, Screen Scores (Allen & Unwin, 1998) and Reel Tracks (John Libbey, 2005), and is currently researching film music production within an Australian Research Council funded project.