| Definitions: -Time...the measurement of change.
-Animation... To breath life into. Movement. To make animate. The Disney definition Animation is ``The Illusion of Life``. -Animation My definition... 1) The expression of life through inanimate objects. 2) The expression of life about inanimate objects. At age 3 in Edmonton, the most profound and formative animation experience grabbed hold of me and has not let go. ``Snippy the Dog`` was a tiny black and white television show about paper and scissors. Paper and scissors were the only materials of expression. Although the paper was ripped, torn, wrinkled, crushed, flattened, and bunched up, it was mostly cut. It was cut by scissors. A paper cut revealed simultaneously a positive and a negative space. The animated objects were made of positive white spaces and negative black spaces or of both. For me at age three, the show was real. The show was a documentary discovery of the life that actually existed within the world of cut up paper. Snippy the dog, was the naive speechless narrator of this world. I understood what Snippy was going through. Snippy described "paperness" and ``scissorness``. Snippy also described the interaction of the act of creation and the act of destruction in a way that I have never seen since. For me the importance of animation as a media art form is that animation has the unique ability to discover and express truth that exists within inanimate objects. There are worlds of stories within the confines of just white paper on a black background. |
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``How is animation important within film, video, digital convergence?`` |
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I don't really believe that film, video or digital are converging.
They are traveling parallel to each other with some braiding intertwining
and cross over but I can't imagine them ever becoming one. That being
said, animation tends to transcend ``media cross over`` and can
actually benefit and thrive within multi media. Animation has the
ability to both transcend media AND to reveal Media. In times of
new media and media change there is nothing better than transcendence and
revelation.
``Snippy the Dog`` was shot on film with black and white children's lunch time television distribution in mind. Black an ?d white television actually strengthens the inherent meaning of the show by reducing the range of transmitted tonality. Because the shadows on cut up paper did not transmit, the show was more about the ``idea of paper``, than about paper itself. The medium, in this case television, set the audience on a course of contemplating the dog`s sensibilities and spirit rather than the technique and physical material of the animation. If ``Snippy the Dog`` could be presented in film format, the effect of a dog in a ``paper/scissors world`` would be weak. A modern animation festival crowd would undoubtedly focus on inferior technique. On the other hand if ``Snippy`` could be presented in either video or digital, the effect would be closer to the ideal crude black and white television transmission that the film was intended for. Film --> Film
Video --> Film
Digital --> Film
In this case the animation is improved by a limiting of information. What is special about animation is that it can be tailored to exploit the limitations of a media. ``Snippy`` for instance was obviously tailored for black and white television. Other animated films such as ``Primiti Too Taa`` (especially the 70 mm version) are tailored for theatre. The most extreme example I can think of a film made precisely for projection is ``Two Taa Too`` ( a film about three pieces of film). In ``Two Taa Too`` an audience gets the treat of realizing that they are actually watching four frames of film: three frames of film projected within a projected frame. The audience is encouraged to see the jitter and frame line of the actual projected film frame line itself.
On the other hand for many types of animation the exact opposite is true.
In spite of the diversity of viewing methods and environments some animation
has the ability to transcend any medium and may be played forward, backward,
fast, slow, in sync, out of sync, mute, upside down, or even inside out,
without an effect on the meaning. This duality of purpose or ability
of animation to retain meaning in spite of presentation or media and at
the same time being extremely presentation dependent is a unique feature
to animation. This ability and susceptibility, make animation
extremely important especially in the face of changing media.
Ed Ackerman April 2002 |