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Animation Approaches, Styles and Software

Visual Storytelling

Animation Principles and Process

Visual Dynamics

Global animation inspiration

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A blockbuster animated TV series about a schoolteacher who puts on a burqa like Batman and fights back against injustice.

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"To feel the reality within the drawings rather that think the drawings themselves are real."

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I am enchanted by the ways the beautiful line styles match the different moods.

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The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya - Official Trailer

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A Close Look at Grave of the Fireflies | Big Joel

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Blood and gore of pigs.

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Why Princess Mononoke is a Masterpiece - Foreign Film Friday

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A key aim of my research was to find:

Visual animation strategies that do not rely on dialogue or text that can communicate globally across language and educational barriers.

Examples of independent animators with a workflow that might be manageable for me, even with RSI.

Beyond those requirements I initially took a very eclectic 'bricolage' approach, following up on multiple on-line search chains, motivated by the fact that the most inspiring and relevant examples were often found unexpectedly.

I was also interested not only in frame by frame animation, but expressive drawing and framing, editing and narrative strategies used in film and Stop Motion animation to guide the viewer's eye, create suspense and arouse different emotions, particularly around sexual violence relevant to my community drawings.

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Styles and approaches from the same regions as the community drawings

Indian animation on women's empowerment

Iranian feminist animation and film

African animation styles : including William Kentridge

Pakistani independent animation

Big professional animation studios

Disney animation

Japanese animation

Russian animation

Eastern European animation

Film

Psycho noir: Hitchcock and Bass

Iranian feminist animation and film

Contemporary Western European/American animation

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Animated documentaries & graphic novels - BBC report

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"Worm and Fuzzy” (Pencilmation #72) | Plus All Episodes From 2016!

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Amusing animation about tyranny and conformity. Quite complex Flash animation.

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"POUR 585" Tyranny grows from the indoctrinated. Animated Short By Patrick Smith

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Hand-drawn, animated films hinge on the mismatch between our intentions and reality, offering narratives that draw on painful observations of everyday behaviour and individual foibles. The film follows the daily habits and explores the memories of Mr Panz, a removed, particular gentleman elephant living in a hotel on Lake Geneva. His diffidence is matched by the sensitive, almost hesitant style of Ashton’s animated drawings, which include a remarkably economical differentiation of an elephant and a mole.
https://www.tintypegallery.com/exhibitions/unstilled-life-artist-animations-1980-2020/

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Blog post on animation from Western Europe and North America

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Oona Grimes, murd : pagina quattro, 2020, Courtesy of the artist and Danielle Arnaud gallery, London. 2.28 mins
Fellini’s La Strada [1954] mis-remembered and re-invented… Rapid fire images and action notations create unplanned collisions… Flashes of accidental animation. Gelsomina is a naif from the margins who has fallen through the cracks. She retains her innocence despite being sold to the brutal travelling performer, Zampano. Her drum playing gives her a job and a voice, a starring role loved by children and therefore a means of survival in the ruins of post-war Italy.
https://www.tintypegallery.com/exhibitions/unstilled-life-artist-animations-1980-2020/

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Oscar Winner ~ Short film about love and passage of time | Father and Daughter - by M. Dudok de Wit

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Influenced by dramatic framing.

Blog post on Japanese animation

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Lebanon War 1982, Waltz With Bashir, English Subs

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Jonathon Hodgson produces many powerful social and political animations in a variety of drawn styles. Most however use narrative or commentary.

Blog post of other animations by Jonathon Hodgson

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A man takes his dog for a walk in the park where they encounter other dogs and their owners. The film explores the relationship between a man and his dog highlighting their contrasting approaches to life.

Original Format: 16mm
Year of production: 1981
Duration: 6mins 39secs

KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Producer: Jonathan Hodgson
Sound: Jonathan Hodgson
Production Company: Liverpool Polytechnic

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Blog post with other videos by Andreas Hykade

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South African artist who produces very evocative animations, often on political themes, from filming manipulated charcoal drawings. His additive and subtractive process could be replicated digitally in Procreate and other iPad painting apps.

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Moby getting shot in the back of the head, David Lynch

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Moby getting shot in the back of the head, David Lynch

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Moby 'Shot In The Back Of The Head' by David Lynch

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These ghostly still figures with their minimal, twitchy movement and contrast with the screechy music is very effective in creating a feeling of edginess and fear.

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Stop motion puppet animation without words about Laali who is molested and raped at the age of 8 years. Tainted by the traumatic psychological and physiological experience her childhood becomes more of a nightmare when she is forced to marry.
For more about this animation see her website: https://www.hamidakhatri.com/animation

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"With words, you can say anything. You can lie as long as the day, but you cannot lie in the recreation of an experience."
~ Louise Bourgeois

Child abuse, rape, forced marriage, acid attack, honor killing, and murder in cold blood are some of the most devastating forms of violence in a third-world country like Pakistan. It was not too long ago that Qandeel Baloch, a Pakistani model was strangled to death by her brother in the name of ‘dishonoring’ her family. And just not too long ago, Asifa Bano, an 8-year old girl from Kashmir, and Zainab Ansari, a 7-year old girl from Kasur, were gang-raped and brutally murdered. These are some of the many cases of sexual violence and child abuse, which were brought forward in front of the media. 

Sahil, an organization working for the protection of children against all forms of abuse in Pakistan, reports that child molestation and abuse takes place in almost all parts of Pakistan and the perpetrators, totaling 60% of the reported population, are amongst relatives and close family friends. Their data also reveals that more than 9 children who are less than 18 years of age are sexually abused every single day. In the year 2017, a total of 3,445 cases of child abuse were reported, out of which 60% were girls and 58% of those were violently murdered after rape; and a total of 143 child marriages have been reported out of which 89% were girls. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 80% of Pakistani women experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetime (Human Rights Watch, 2017). These are just some of the stated facts. There are many more, which we are unaware of.

As an advocate for social justice I produced, directed, and animated Laal Ribbon, a stop-motion animation, to collectively respond to the above-stated facts. Here, I share a story of Laali who is molested and raped at the age of 8 years. Tainted by the traumatic psychological and physiological experience her childhood becomes more of a nightmare when she is forced to marry. Being female compels you to be caged within the patriarchal boundaries established around you where suffering and silencing become the food for survival. This animation is my artistic response to the various child sexual abuse, rape, trauma, forced marriage, and domestic violence cases that are reported and unreported in Pakistan. The story is not just about Laali but also of every child, girl, and woman around the world who has faced a similar reality.

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Uses a narrative flow of transitions from room to room.

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Click here for blog post with other videos and discussion of work by Zbigiew Rybczynski

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Gottfried Mentor is known for his powerful tragi-comic social/political allegorical animations using CGI animals. These are very expressive in terms of visuals, dramatic narrative and sound effects/music and fully comprehensible without text. He works with the German animation studio Film Bilder.

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Consists of drawn still frames that are mostly sequenced with dissolves and minimum frame animation. Except for a few fluid sequences.

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Field (Rein Raamat) / Поле (Рейн Раамат), 1978

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Click here for blog post with more videos and discussion of the work of Peter Millard

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i always want to go back to since the better.  Pavarotti can help me.

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Click here for blog post of other videos and discussion of the work of Ng'endo Mukii.

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This is a commissioned project made for the Danish Refugee Council and RMMS in Nairobi. This Migrant Business, shows the systems that exist that enable and exploit African migrants seeking better lives in the Middle East and Europe. The system creates a cyclic force that ensures that demand and supply will continue to to feed into each other, indefinitely. 

This is a lucrative trade with vulnerable people as its currency.

Awards
-Kalasha Film Awards, Kenya Best Animation Production November 2015
-Disruptor of the Year Award, Kenya October 2015
-Special Mention given by the Bellavite Pellegrini Foundation, Milan, Festival del Cinema Africano, d'Asia e America Latina April 2016
-Special Mention given to AFRICAN SHORT FILMS section, Milan, Festival del Cinema Africano, d'Asia e America Latina April 2016

Screenings
-Udada Film festival, Nairobi, October 2015
-Festival LTC Poland, Warsaw, Poland October 2015
-Out of Africa International Film festival, Nairobi, October 2015
-Underexposed Film Festival, South Carolina, USA November 2015
-Exterritory Project Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel December 2015
-38ème Festival du Court Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, France February 2016
-Tricky Women Festival, Vienna, Austria March 2016
-Tampere Film Festival, Finland March 2016
-African, Asian and Latin America Film Festival of Milano, Italy April 2016
-Afrykamera African film Festival, Warsaw, Poland April 2016
-Zanzibar International Film Festival, July 2016
-Festival du Film Court d’aigues Vives, France, July 2016
-Indie Street Film Festival, NJ USA, July 2016
-Rwanda Film Festival, July 2016
-Maisha African Film Festival, Uganda, August 2016
-BlackStar Film Festival, Philadelphia USA, August 2016
-Raindance Film Festival, London, UK, September 2016
-Klick! Amsterdam Animation Festival, Holland, October 2016
-The International Short Film Festival of Cyprus, October 2016
-59th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, Germany October 2016
-Africa In Motion Film Festival, Scotland October 2016
-Interfilm 32nd International Short Film Festival, Berlin, Germany 14 - 20 November 2016
-Africa international Film festival (AFRIFF) Lagos, Nigeria, November 2016

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Click here for blog post of other videos and notes on Yuri Norstein

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Tale of Tales by Yuriy Norstein (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

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Click here for blog post of other videos and discussion of Genndy Tartakovsky

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Being Dead or being alive is the same thing: Gianluigi Toccafondo

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Being Dead or being alive is the same thing: Gianluigi Toccafondo

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This animation has a very evocative mix of painted, dissolving and photographic/rotoscoped elements. Although this animation has some written text, the real power comes from the visuals. The visuals could be remodelled to convey the underlying ideas in a more powerful way without the text.

Click here for link to other videos of Gianluigi Toccafondo using similar techniques without text but less relevant to my theme.

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Essere morti o essere vivi è la stessa cosa - Toccafondo

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Click here for blog post of other videos and discussion of the work of Terry Gilliam

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“Satiemania’ by Zdenkó Gasparovich 1978. The subject matter is somewhat inappropriate. But I am very inspired by the mix of a wide diversity of line and colour styles and mix of handrawn, rotoscoped and cutout images for different emotions and effects.

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"SATIEMANIA" by Zdenkó Gasparovich 1978 (FULL)

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Click here for link to 'Psycho Noir' techniques and theories of editing. Together with collaborative work with Saul Bass.

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Psycho (1960) Theatrical Trailer - Alfred Hitchcock Movie

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Click here for blog post of other videos and discussion of the work of Shirin Neshat.

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In my review of African animation I was interested in stylistic variants that could inform my own animations on Africa.

Animators I found most inspirational for my own work were documentary or satirical with their own very distinctive innovative style:

Ng'endo Mukii, Kenya

William Kentridge, South Africa

Click here for blog post with more videos and discussion of African animation

Main topics:

Cartoons for childrens’ education

African heritage and history

Development issues

Features of You Tube animations 2020

Puppetlike stylised 2D animation. Seems to be done in Flash?

Some beautiful colourful, flat cut-out illustration, with characteristically African use of angular tapered line and geometric shapes and shading.

Very little realistic character movement apart, mostly stiff limb movements and head turns. Much of the animation is produced by camera zooming and panning on still illustrations, sometimes multicamera, that may have some minor looped movement like hair or breathing.

Generally very strong gender stereotyped differentiation between women and men, and stereotypical stories.

Heavily dependent on crudely lip-synced dialogue.

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I am very interested in Eastern European animation because it is often very politically dark with implicit social and political commentary, often in the form of reworked fairy tales.

Animators I found most inspirational for VisCom4Dev:

Zbigniew Rybczynski, Poland for his diverse narrative formats using layers and transitions. Click here for blog post of his videos.

Nuri Yorstein, Russia for his evocative stop motion puppet animation, using layered screens. Although I cannot replicate his fluid animations, the general style has influenced my drawing and painting. Click here for blog post of his videos.

Rein Ramaat, Estonia

Zdenko Gasparovich, Croatia

See also:

Blog post on Eastern European animators: Czechoslovakia and Estonia

Blog post on Russian animation though unfortunately many of these videos appear to have been removed from You Tube.

Main features of the animations viewed/sought out

Pioneers of stop motion puppet animation. Often combined with atmospheric video footage. Also hand draw and frame by frame animation.

Most animations I viewed were collaborative work by large animation studios.

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South Asia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Middle East

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South Asia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Middle East

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There is a very active feminist cultural movement of photographers, film-makers and animators in South Asia.

The work that has most influenced my animations in VisCom4Dev are:

Shirin Neshat: Iranian photographer and filmmaker

Marjane Satrapi: Iranian comic book author whose work has been translated into animated film.

Hamida Khatri, young Pakistani animator

See also blog posts on:
Pakistan for other feminist film and cartoons - notably  Haroon's blockbuster cartoon series 'Burqa Avenger'
India animations on women's empowerment: some of these are stylistically interesting but all rely on text or dialogue in English or Hindi.

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PADLET GUIDE: Global Animation Inspiration

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PADLET GUIDE: Global Animation Inspiration

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Padlet purpose:
This padlet provides an easy entry overview 'map' of my bricolage research on contemporary animation inspiration with selected animations and links to more detailed blog posts on this site.

Contents

Key contemporary animators and animations who inspired my own animations

Research on animation cultures that helped me select my main sources of inspiration.

To open the padlet:
Click on the square with arrow on the top right below.

To open the 'paddles':
Click on the paddle title or image, whichever shows a ‘hand’.
If no hand shows, click on three dots top right and expand.

To close, check whether or not the ‘paddle’ has opened in a separate window on your browser. Closing that will bring you back to the overview padlet.

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This broad bricolage research then provided a very interesting pool of inspiration from which I could select specific animations or animators whose approaches and techniques I could examine in much more detail and apply in my own experiments.

I selected 15 key contemporary animators, particularly those producing documentary animation and/or strong narrative with no or minimum dialogie, across different approaches in physical and digital media.

Catherine Anyango Grunewald evocative physical media on social and political issues. UK.

Terry Gilliam political/satirical collage stop motion with some dialogue, but mostly comic sound effects. UK.

Yoni Goodman Israeli documentary animation combining digital 2D, rotoscoping and video. Israel.

Jonathon Hodgson US animator using digital FbF drawn animation and rotoscoping, some without words.

Andreas Hykade evocative minimalist vector animation. Germany.

William Kentridge charcoal stop motion animation on political issues. South Africa.

Ryan Larkin hand drawn animation, generally in watercolour, including social issues like homelessness. Canada.

David Lynch minimalist line animation on satirical political issues. Sometimes with dialogue, but also with sound effects. US.

Gottfried Mentor focus on narrative and tragi-comedy. 3D CGI without dialogue, using animal allegories to tell social stories. Germany.

Peter Millard hand drawn animation, sometimes minimalist, sometimes bright colour. UK.

Ng’endo Mukii political animation in multiple media: drawing, paionting, rotoscoping, video. Kenya.

Yuri Norstein evocative puppet stop motion. Russian.

Zbigniew Rybczynski video using different narrative approaches. Polish.

Genndy Tartakovsky Digital 2D animation with very bold action narratives and use of colour, shape and action animation. US/Russian.

Gianluigi Toccafondo Handdrawn rotoscoping using oil and smeary effects, also incorporating collage. Suggestied rather than clear narrative. Italy.