The Persistence of Animation

Drawing Itself

Abstract:Australian Experimental Animator Neil Taylor’s (1945-) animated gestures repetitively inscribe the surfaces of flipbooks or note pads (Short Lives [1980-90]) and cash register rolls (Roll Film 1990 and Copy Copy 1998) and are often enhanced by ‘machines’ designed to facilitate such activity. These animations are informed by Taylor’s successful wire-based sculptural practice and his 20 years experience of teaching animation to tertiary students. For Taylor ‘the subject of the films was drawing, itself, and how animating over extended periods affects us.’ (Taylor, 1990: 15 in Cantrills Filmnotes).

Biographical Statement: Dirk de Bruyn teaches animation and digital culture at Deakin University. As well as sustaining his own creative experimental animation and multi-screen performance practice for over 25 years he has written about this area in Cantrills Filmnotes and Senses of Cinema. He is committed to documenting, promoting and presenting Australian animation in his teaching practice and national and international forums. More information on his practice and research is available at: http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/debruyn.html.

Illustrated Songs and Song Car-Tunes: Cultural Practices and Sound Technology in Early Talkie Animated Films

Abstract: This paper examines early Fleischer animated sound cartoons in the context of relations between cinema and other cultural practices. These Song-Car-Tunes encouraged audience participation through singing along with “the bouncing ball” and drawing conventions of vaudeville and early cinema exhibition, particularly in their adaptation of the pre-cinematic “song slides” or “illustrated songs.” Although they predated cinema, “illustrated songs” were the primary sound-and-image experience of the nickelodeon era. With standardization of musical accompaniment for films by the early teens, “illustrated songs” became obsolete. This paper proposes that in order to reconcile new technology with traditional exhibition practices, the Fleischer Song Car-Tunes adapted these earlier models of exhibition and reception to the new sound processes, through strategies drawing both on ironic and nostalgic re-workings of past conventions.

Biographical Statement: Mark Langer teaches Film Studies at Carleton University. He is author of The Fleischer Project, forthcoming from University of California Press, and has curated numerous Fleischer programs at venues such as The Museum of Modern Art, Il Giornate del Cinema Muto, the Cinematheque Francaise and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His essays have been published by Cinema Journal, Film History, Animation History, Screen and others.

Manuel Moreno: Animator/Director at Universal, 1929-1937

Abstract: The Universal cartoon studio, headed by Walter Lantz, employed the most significant Mexican-American animation artist of the 1930s: Manuel Moreno. He was chosen to be Walter Lantz’s own assistant director and then, by the mid-1930s, he became the director of the Meany, Miny, Moe cartoon series. He redesigned Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1936 and remained a figure of great creative authority at the studio, rising in stature alongside Tex Avery, yet Moreno’s contributions remain largely overlooked today.

Biographical Statement: Tom Klein is on the faculty at Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television, in Los Angeles, as an assistant professor teaching Animation. He catalogued the Walter Lantz studio archive while a graduate student at UCLA, and has since presented and published numerous articles on the Universal/Lantz cartoons. He has been a consultant to Universal Cartoon Studios and served as an Animation Director for many years at Vivendi-Universal Games.

From Toy to Foil : Tex Avery’s Female Characters

Abstract: Tex Avery’s distinctive style in storytelling and humor, with its relation to freak shows and burlesque cinema, played with the notions of Disney aesthetics and Hollywood conformism. This is seen in his representation of female characters (and femininity itself). The Saloon Girl in the fairy-tale wartime cartoons, is the only anthropomorphic character in these freak shows, and as such stands as a cornerstone in Avery’s comic language and discourse. However, she can be already traced back in his early cartoons; and she can be “unveiled” under the disguise of tamer female characters in his post-war films.

Avery matches the evolution of American society, and adapts to the changing parameters of censorship. As it is, such representation of femininity may be perceived as one view of America’s coping with gender and taboos in the years 1935-1955.

Biographical Statement: Pierre Floquet teaches English and is associate professor at ENSEIRB, Bordeaux University. He wrote his PhD thesis in 1996 on linguistics applied to cinema, focusing on Tex Avery’s comic language. Since then, he has organized several Avery retrospectives and conferences at the Annecy Festival, France (1998), in Italy (1998, 1999), Norway (2001), Morocco, Trinidad, and the Netherlands (2008). He has been a juror at festivals in France and abroad. He has also widened his interests to live-action cinema, participating in books and journals in Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and the United States. He edited a book called CinémAnimationS (March 2007).

George Debels: Pioneer of Dutch Animation: The influence of American theatrical cartoons on early Dutch commercials

Abstract: This paper is a case study of the work of George Debels (Antwerp 1890-Amsterdam 1973). The life and work of Debels, the most productive pioneer of Dutch animation from the period 1916-1936, is briefly introduced. Being one of the very few filmmakers working in animation in The Netherlands, he probably learned many tricks of the trade by studying American cartoons that were shown in cinemas. The paper will focus will on how the design and style of Debels’ films was influenced by these American cartoons.

Biographical Statement: Mette Peters is researcher and curator of collections at the Netherlands Institute for Animation Film (NIAf). (The NIAf is the national centre of expertise and information for animation film and focuses on an artist in residence programme for talented animators.) She coordinates preservation projects, publications and exhibitions on animation. Her research interests particularly focus on the history of Dutch animation and animation preservation. She is co-author of the book Meestal in ‘t Verborgene: Animatiefilm in Nederland 1940-1945 (Animation Film in The Netherlands 1940-1945) and with Paul Wells, is currently working on a book about Animation Archives.

A Film of One’s Own: The Animated Self-Portraits of Young Contemporary Female Animators

Abstract: This paper will analyse the animated self-portraits created by contemporary young and emerging women in animation, and by that means, elucidate significant differences between this new generation and previous ones of female animators. Through their animated self-portraits, the earlier animatrices explored their own identity as women and artists, developing new discourses and models for a subgenre that existed from the early days of cinema animation. But the animated female self-portrayal of the new generation comes closer to documentary and has more universal concerns, appealing to a wider audience and reaching theatrical distribution, as Marjane Satrapi’s long feature Persepolis (2007) exemplifies and which will be a focus of the paper.

Biographical Statement: Maria Lorenzo teaches animation subjects at the Department of Design, Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). In 2006 she obtained her PhD in Fine Arts. She presented papers at the 19th SAS Conference in Portland (2007) and the National PCA/ACA Conference in San Francisco (2008). The current paper extends the line of research begun with her work “Through the Looking-Glass: The Self-Portrait of the Artist and the Re-Start of Animation,” presented as a poster at the 20th SAS Conference in Bournemouth. She is also an animation filmmaker.