Gunnar Strøm

Watch and Listen! – The Website

Abstract: At the conference in Atlanta I presented the research project ’Watch and Listen! - Audiovisual language stimulation in schools and kindergartens’ which at that time was in its initial phase. Now a website with audiovisual texts like animated shorts and simple games are in development: http://www.nynorsksenteret.no/lesformeg/. The website will be tested in primary schools and kindergartens in Norway this spring. At the conference I will present the website, the first results from these tests and frame it in language stimulation and film phenomenology theory.


Biographical statement: Gunnar Strøm, (born 1955 in Trondheim, Norway). Associated Professor at Volda University College, Norway. Has published widely on animation, documentary and music video. Former Vice President and Secretary General of ASIFA. Has programmed for and been on juries at festivals worldwide.

Eliška Decká

Point and Click and Learn: Not Just Educational Benefits of Adventure PC Games/Animated Films of Czech Independent Game Development Studio Amanita Design

Abstract: This paper primarily examines the educational benefits of adventure PC games, focusing specifically on games produced by Czech company Amanita Design – Samorost, Questionaut and Machinarium (available at www.amanitadesign.net). Those games provide an outstanding example of the ever-closer relation between animation and games, as well as the immense capacity of employment of different elements of comics, visual art, literature etc., in a way that is symptomatic for contemporary trends of animation studies. This paper wants to point out these important overlaps, uncover possibly hidden benefits of these types of PC games and claim their effective use in education.

Biographical statement: Eliška Decká is a Film Studies MA program student at the Film Studies Department, Charles University in Prague. She writes on animation for various Czech journals and contributed to the historically first animation-focused issue of the impacted Czech film studies journal Iluminace. She presented the paper “Autobiographical Elements in Animated Films of Czech Female Directors“ (part of her 3-year research project funded by the Charles University Grant Agency) at the last SAS conference in Atlanta. The current paper continues to employ the methodology of the close author-researcher collaboration with an emphasis on practice aspects of animation studies.

Steve Weymouth

Utilizing investigations in neuroscience to aid teaching first-time animation students

Abstract: As a teacher of animation to first-time animation students, I am familiar with a lack of ability in many of them to adequately evaluate their early attempts at animation - they seem ‘blind’ to ‘bad animation’. Much time is needed in order to develop and improve new animation skills and this has caused some to lose interest in the discipline. Utilizing research from neuroscience and related fields, I have introduced an approach that helps the student ‘see’ their animation exercises with a ‘heightened visual awareness’. The approach has provided good results with greater and accelerated development of early animation skills.

Biographical statement: Steve Weymouth has been teaching 3D CGI animation and modelling within Media Arts undergraduate and post graduate degrees at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW in Sydney Australia for the past seven years. He has expanded the area of 3D CGI animation within the curricula and written many new courses charting clear pathways for the interested student, he has a particular interest in introducing 3D CGI to first-time students. Steve builds on his previous industry experience that includes many years of freelance and commercial work as a 3D CGI artist and employment at the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. He holds a Masters of 3D Computer Aided Graphical Technology Applications (CAGTA) gained at Teesside University in the UK.