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Animation in Context
A Practical Guide to Theory and Making
Animation in Context
A Practical Guide to Theory and Making
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Description
Animation in Context is an illustrated introduction to cultural theory, contextual research and critical analysis. By making academic language more accessible, it empowers animators with the confidence and enthusiasm to engage with theory as a fun, integral, and applied part of the creative process.
Interviews with contemporary industry professionals and academics, student case studies and a range of practical research exercises, combine to encourage a more versatile approach to animation practice – from creating storyboards to set designs and soundtracks; as well as developing virals, 3D zoetropes and projection mapping visuals.
Mark Collington focuses on a core selection of theoretical approaches that shape animation narrative, supported by a broader set of shared theoretical principles from the worlds of art, design, film and media studies. This discussion is underpinned by cross-disciplinary thinking on a range of topics including genre, humour, montage and propaganda.
These are applied to the analysis of a range of animated films and projects from Disney and Animé, to independent artist-filmmakers such as Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis and Jerzy Kucia. These ideas are also applied to other uses of animation such as advertising, sitcom, gaming and animated documentary.
Table of Contents
Expanding Your Thinking about Animation
Intended Aims and Outcomes of this Book
Outline of Book Structure, Themes and Subject Matter
Keeping An Online Reflective Workbook
1. Language & Visual Meaning: Playing Sherlock Holmes
Apples: Introducing Structuralism & Semiotics
Love Letters: Semantics
Time Travel: From Monoscenic, to Synchonic & Diachronic Narrative
2. Classical Metanarratives: The Hero's Journey
Heroes & Totems: Narratology, Morphology, Mythology
Castle in the Sky: Mythical Forces, Floating Worlds & Flying Machines
3. Genre: From Classical Hero to Modern Everyman
Space Cowboys: Genre & Context
To Infinity & Beyond: The Human Condition and Genre
You Kant be Serious: Comedy Genre and Theories of Humor
The Big Debate: Genre or Style?
4. Modernism: The End of Genre & the Metanarrative
Coffee, Steam & Tanks: Putting Modernism in Context
Space, Time & Reality: Defining Modernism
From the Mundane to Murder: Other Aspects of Modernism
5. Representation: Fact Versus Fiction
Hammering it Home: Propaganda & Socialist Realism
The Ideal Home: Advertising
Home Sweet Home: TV Sitcom & Gaming
6. Animated Documentary: Objective Fact Versus Subjective Experience
Feeling the Facts: From Docudrama to Animated Documentary
Poetic Truths: Where Film and Animation Meet
Conclusion
Pulling it all together
From Animated Short to Essay Film
Cross-Disciplinary Practice
Reading as Rewriting & Intertextuality
Product details

Published | Feb 09 2017 |
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Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 248 |
ISBN | 9781350033894 |
Imprint | Fairchild Books |
Illustrations | 150 colour illus |
Series | Required Reading Range |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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This textbook offers a thoughtful and lucid guide to students at all levels and enthusiasts of all ages, one which connects the theories, ideas and ideals which underpin animation to the work of the animator in practice. This is a fascinating, valuable and eminently readable work produced by an accomplished teacher and practitioner – a book whose use of examples from popular culture and from high art make the complexities of cultural theory not only accessible but also enjoyable. Its scope is broad, ambitious, often eclectic, and reassuringly civilizing.
Alec Charles, Head of Media, University of Chester, UK
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I love how this book sneaks up on you, engaging you with an idea, illustrating it with mostly commonly known films, and once it has you hooked, pulling you deeper into more theory, more ideas and ultimately impacting your practice.
R. Brad Yarhouse, Chair of Digital Media, Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, US
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Animation in Context is one of the best instructional books on animation I have seen. Each lesson is perfectly composed, with excellent examples and assignments that really help students get to know terminology, animation structure and process. The author Mark Collington has created a structure that forces the student to creatively learn design terminology: semiotics, design theory, history, etc, and makes them place it in the context of animation. I have yet to learn so much from a book and am adopting Mr. Collington's learning structure into other areas of my classes - for example, reading about terms and history, then applying those to a fill-in-the-blanks essay. Really brilliantly done!
Ginelle Hustrulid, Assistant Professor, Visual Communication Design, Eastern Washington University, US
