Animasophy

ÜLO PIKKOV
ANIMASOPHY
Theoretical Writings on the Animated Film
2010

Ülo Pikkov
Animasophy:Theoretical Writings onthe AnimatedFilm
2010
The book has beensupported by
Estonian Cultural Endowment
Estonian Film Foundation
Translatedby EvaNäripea
Copy editedbyRichard Adang
Design by Anne Pikkov
Layout by Jan Garshnek
Photo credits
Ülo Pikkov: cover, 8, 12, 28A, 34, 49, 50, 58, 67A, 70, 71, 75, 80A, 88, 92, 97, 104,
135, 152, 156, 167, 169; Jack Long / National Film Boardof Canada:15;Alan Fisher /
New York World-Telegramand the Sun:17;Eadweard Muybridge:24;Andreas Praefcke
(laternamagica):27;Courtesy of Krátký Film Praha(Jiší Trnka):28;© Copyright Hei-
delbergUniversityLibrary:29;Thomas Stephan,©Ulmer Museum:36;Antareja:37;
Courtesy ofthe PeabodyMuseumofArchaeologyand Ethnology,Harvard University,
2005.16.318.38 & 2005.16.1.318.57: 44; Marie-Lan Nguyen (Greek and Roman pup-
pets):45; Wolfgang Moroder(English puppet):45;Mait Laas: 46; Marko Mumm / Eesti
Päevaleht:73; Vahur Laiapea:78; Mary King (Masahiro Mori):80;Evert Palmets:115;
Tõnu Talivee: 124.
Published bythe Estonian Academy ofArts,Department of Animation.
Printed in TallinnaRaamatutrükikoda
Copyright © 2010 Ülo Pikkov
ISBN 978-9949-467-06-8 (print)
ISBN 978-9949-467-04-4 (DVD)

I have found myself asking: How could film be art,
since all the major arts arise in some way out of religion?
Now I can answer: Because movies arise out of magic.
– Stanley Cavell (1979)

6
+ DVD
1 Ülo Pikkov,Gone with the Wind(Silmviburlane,2009)
2 Kristjan Holm, Little House(Estonian Academy of Arts, 2009)
3 Märt Kivi,Laika (Nukufilm, 2007)
4 Martinus DaaneKlemet, In the Air (Joonisfilm,2009)
5 Ülo Pikkov,Dialogos (Joonisfilm, 2008)
6 Priitand Olga Pärn,Divers in the Rain (Joonisfilm,2009)
7 Kaspar Jancis, Crocodile (Joonisfilm, 2009)
8 PriitTender,Kitchen Dimensions (Joonisfilm,2008)

7
P Contents
9 Introduction
12 1 Defining Animation
24 2 Tracing the Ancestry of the Animated Film
34 3 Animation (Film) as Communication
46 4 On Time in the Animated Film
CaseStudy: Ülo Pikkov, Gone with the Wind (2009)
58 5 On Structure in the Animated Film
CaseStudy: Kristjan Holm, Little House (2009)
78 6 On the Credibility of Animated Characters
CaseStudy: Märt Kivi,Laika (2007)
92 7 On Realismin the Animated Film
CaseStudy: Martinus DaaneKlemet, In the Air (2009)
110 8 On Storytellingin the Animated Film
Case Study: Ülo Pikkov, Dialogos (2008)
126 9 On Space in the Animated Film
CaseStudy: Priitand Olga Pärn, Divers in the Rain (2009)
142 10 On Characters in the Animated Film
Case Study: Kaspar Jancis, Crocodile (2009)
160 11 On Sound in the Animated Film
CaseStudy: PriitTender, Kitchen Dimensions (2008)
178 Milestones of Animation
196 References

Introduction
Ülo Pikkov in the process of creating the animated film Dialogos.

10
ANIMASOPHY
I have chosen to treat my subject in the format of a traditional textbook
– thus this volumebegins by defining the nature of animation, then pro-
ceeds to a short historical overview and an analysis of different compo-
nents of the animated film. In retrospect, it seems that the first chapter,
Defining Animation, might just as well be the last one. In any case, the
reader might want to re-read it upon finishing the rest of the book, as
the essence of this chapter is truly clear only after the different aspects
and examples of the animated film have been discussed. The book is ac-
companied by a DVD containing films that have been analysed as case
studies of particular topics covered in the volume.
The title, Animasophy, was coined by mystudents at theEstonian Acad-
emy of Arts, to whom I have taught animation since 2006. The word has
an intrinsic connection with the concept of philosophy, referring also to
the approach applied in this textbook. ‘Animasophy’ is derived from two
words: the Latin anima, standing for ‘soul’ or ‘thebreath of life’, and the
Greek sophia (Zoĳía), meaning ‘wisdom’. Just as the Greek philosophia
(ĳıhoooĳía) can be translated as ‘love of wisdom’ or ‘search for
knowledge’, ‘animasophy’ should be understood as love of the soul or
yearning for the breath of life or, in other words, as love of animation. It
is true that the title is rather ambitious and even provocative, but this
was a conscious intention, constituting an invitation for readers to think
along, discuss, question and propose their own theories and views, in
order to expand the still rather scarce library of animation theory.
As a film-maker, teacher, member of numerous festival juries, or merely
a lover of animation, I have repeatedly caught myself wondering if a per-
fect concept of the animated film exists at all, one that could beapplied
as a model or an example in making and evaluating animated films. I am
fully aware that this is a slightly naive pursuit, but hopefully this book
will take a small step towards creating a recipe for the perfect animated

11
INTRODUCTION
film and will assist other lovers, researchers and makers of animation in
the search for their perfect recipes.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my students, for the founda-
tions of this book were laid in the course of teaching them. I am also
grateful to Eva Näripea, the translator and editor of this volume, to Priit
Pärn, my teacher and colleague who showed me the way to animation,
and to the studios Eesti Joonisfilm, Nukufilm and Silmviburlane for
their kind permission to use their films. Finally, I thank my wife Heilika
for her patience in sharing the life of an animasopher.
Ülo Pikkov
Tallinn, July 2010

1. DefiningAnimation
An animation in Tallinn by an anony mous author. An illusion of a man rolling his eyes is produced by
passing the images painted on the bridge supports at a speed of 50 km/h.

14
ANIMASOPHY
Since ancient times, humankind has employed animation for religious,
scientific, educational and entertainment purposes. Many symbols ofthe
modern visual culture, such as Mickey Mouse or the small hourglass on
a PC screen, stem from animation. Most people become fascinated by
cartoons in their childhood (many of them retaining that fascination
even as adults) and in all probability this has had a considerable impact
on our vocabulary and common behavioural models. The term ‘anima-
tion’ occurs widely, both in professional jargon and everyday language,
but what do we really mean by it?
Animation essentially involves the presentation of still images in aman-
ner that creates an illusion of motion in viewers’ minds. Thefact that the
illusion of motion is located inside the viewers’ minds and not in out-
side reality is of fundamental importance here. The movement of mari-
onettes in a puppet theatre does not constitute animation because the
audience sees real-life motion, while a moving puppet in an animated
film is animation because the audience is actually presented with still
images of the puppet, which, when presented in a certain manner, lead
to an illusion of motion. Thus themovement in animation does not take
place on the screen but in the viewer’s mind. The human eye is capable
of retaining an after-image for a fraction of a second, which allows for
the perception of motion if a sequence of slightly different pictures is
shown at a certain rate.
A filmed recording of a puppet theatre’s show entails only recognition of
the initial movements that are being re-presented on the screen. In the
animated film, however, no initial movement occurs; the film has been
shot one frame at a time (this is a distinctive technical characteristic of
the animated film). This is equally true in all animation techniques: a
hand-drawn animation consists of a series of drawings, and the pixila-
tion technique uses still photographs. In principle, live action fiction
films and documentaries can also be seen as sequences of still images,

15
DEFINING ANIMATION
but this is true only in purely technical terms. By nature, live action
cinema captures real motion and physical transformations, which dueto
the specific filming technology have been divided into a series of still
frames that are stitched together in viewers’ minds during projection. In
animation, on the other hand, no ‘initial’ movement exists; animators
create and line up still pictures, which form an illusion of motion only in
viewers’ minds. Instead of reproducing an illusion of motion, animation
creates it (Latin anima translates as ‘thebreath of life’, ‘vital principle’ or
‘soul’). The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines animation as ‘the art of
making inanimate objects appear to move.’ Accord-
ing to ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film
d’Animation), ‘[t]he art of animation is the creation
of moving images through the manipulation of all
varieties of techniques apart from live action meth-
ods’ (http://asifa.net/asifa -wp/about/asifa-statutes ).
Norman McLaren, the noted animation director and
theoretician proposed that ‘[a]nimation is not the art
of drawings that move but the art of movements that
are drawn; what happens between each frame is
Norman McLaren.
much more important than what exists on each frame’ (cited in Furniss
1998: 5). The semiotician Yuri Lotman has drawn particular attention to
animation as a specific system: ‘[T]he animated cartoon is not a variety
ofthe feature cinema but represents aquite independent form of art, with
its own artistic language, opposed in many ways to the language of the
feature cinema or the documentary.’ According to Lotman, ‘[t]he basic
property of the language of animation is that it operates with a sign of a
sign’ (Lotman 1981: 36–37).
A number of historical technical devices are based on the essential
properties of animation – the inception of an illusion of motion in the
viewer’s mind. Many optical toys from the pre-cinematic era employ this
principle, including Praxinoscope, Thaumatrope, Phenakistoscope,

16
ANIMASOPHY
Zoetrope etc. All of them are based on a certain phenomenon of hu-
man physiology – the persistence of vision. An after-image is thoughtto
persist for a fraction of a second on the retina and, when visible objects
change at a certain rate, an illusion of continuity and motion of theobject
is brought about in the human mind. Nevertheless, the illusion of
motion in the human mind cannot be explained merely by certain
physiological peculiarities – it is an extremely complex phenomenon
involving the intricate co-operation of the eye and brain.
In the 19th century, the magic lantern shows, or phantasmagorias, be-
came increasingly popular. Even though, to a certain extent, they resem-
bled the later screenings of animated films, the magic lantern show was
essentially not an animation – the illusion of motion was not created in
viewers’ minds; instead, the movements blown up on a wall were
mechanical in nature, much like in shadow plays. The first public per-
formance of an animated moving picture show, called Théâtre Optique,
was presented by Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1892 at the Musée Grévin
in Paris. The audience was presented with a series of cartoons, projected
with Reynaud’s invention, a device constructed of multiple glass plates
and rotating drums. Theshow consisted of three cartoons, A Good Beer
(Un bon bock, 1892), The Clown and His Dogs (Le Clown et ses chiens,
1892) and Poor Pete (Pauve Pierrot, 1892), each slightly over ten minutes
in length, accompanied by fragments of synchronous sound (e.g. the
Charles-É m ile Reynaud. Praxinoscope.

17
DEFINING ANIMATION
beating of Pete by his master was illustrated with the crack of a stick)
(Wells 2005: 2). In addition to organizing the first screening of animat-
ed films, Reynaud can also be considered the founder of the movie thea-
tre, as he was the first to screen visual narratives in dark auditoriums for
large audiences. It is especially noteworthy that the concept of cinema
was still unknown, emerging ‘officially’ only three years later, in 1895,
when the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière presented their newest
invention – the Cinematograph – to the public. In commemoration of
Reynaud’s 1892 screening, ASIFA has established the International Ani-
mation Day, celebrated annually on 28 October (www.asifa.org).
As a technological and creative means of expression,
animation became more widespread only after the
birth of cinema. It is difficult to pinpoint a single
individual as the first animation-maker, since this
field was discovered simultaneouslyby a number of
enthusiasts. Some of the earliest experiments in the
animated film in the context of live action cinema
were conducted by the French director Georges
Méliès and by the American producer James Stuart
Blackton, who employed animation techniques in
Walter Elias Disney.
their movies. Animated film received its ‘voice’ in 1928, when Walter
Elias Disney, after having completed a series of silent cartoons, decided
to make Mickey Mouse speak. Steamboat Willie, the first sound anima-
tion (or, rather, singing animation), opened the way for the rapid growth
and development of animation, which has now reached almost every
aspect of modern media. Today, animation and the animated film are, to
a large extent, understood as synonymous terms.
According to the ‘classic’ definition, as stated by Edward S. Small and
Eugene Levinson, animation is perceived as ‘the technique of single-
frame cinematography’ (Small and Levinson 1989: 73). Semantically,

18
ANIMASOPHY
the word ‘film’ refers to film aesthetics or at least to film stock, which
has now been partly substituted with video tapes, DVDs, computer hard
drives etc. Thus the animated film corresponds aesthetically, or at least
formally, to the classic concept of film. Therefore, the category of ani-
mated film does not include animated postcards, moving screen graph-
ics, cell phone visuals, emoticons etc. All of these are animation, deriv-
ing from essentially the same sources as the animated film, yet lacking
specifically filmic aesthetics.
Animation has maintained its basic nature, despite technological
progress and the appearance of new technical solutions throughout the
optical, electronic and digital eras – it is still all about presenting immo-
bile objects in a manner that induces the illusion of motion in viewers’
minds.
Types and techniques of animation
The animated film is one category or type of animation. On the most
general level, there are two types of animated film: two-dimensional
(2D) and three-dimensional (3D). 2D animation, in turn, includes such
techniques as hand-drawn animation, cut-outs or silhouettes, sand
animation, direct animation (animated films drawn directly on film) etc.
3D animation is comprised of such techniques as model or puppet
animation, 3D computer animation, pixilation, time-lapse etc. By no
means is this a comprehensive list of animation techniques, as various
combinations of these types are frequently used and new technical so-
lutions are constantly developed. The following catalogue stems from
visual, rather than technical, aspects, because the large majority of mod-
ern animated films use, to a smaller or greater degree, computer imaging
and can thus be labelled computer animation.

19
DEFINING ANIMATION
Interrelations of animation, documentary and live-action narrative cinema.
Hand-drawn animation
This is the most widespread type of animation. The
animator draws a series of cartoon characters on pa-
per, which are subsequently scanned into a computer,
coloured and joined with backgrounds. Before the
computer age, characters were drawn on clear sheets
of celluloid – cels. Walt Disney’s Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (1937) is one of the most famous ani-
mated cartoons.
Rotoscoping
This animation technique involves the copying (trac-
ing over) of movement filmed as live action. It is
mainly used in films that strive for the utmost realism
of motion. Rotoscoping was invented and patented in
1915 by Max Fleischer, one of the pioneers of the ani-
Walt Disney, Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Max and Dave Fleischer, Gullive r’s
Travels (1939).

20
ANIMASOPHY
mated film. This technique was widely used in early Soviet animation
because it corresponded very well with the aesthetics of socialist realism.
Gulliver’s Travels (1939), byMax and Dave Fleischer, is a good example
of rotoscoping.
Yuri Norshtein, Tale of Tales (1979).
Ferenc Cakó, Touch (2009).
Caroline Leaf , Two Sisters (1991).
Cut-out (silhouette) animation
Characters with movable parts are cut out of paper
and they are manipulated frame by frame against a
background in front of a camera. Today, most cut-
out animation is produced using computers: the
moving parts are cut out of drawings and moved
digitally as needed. Yuri Norshtein’s Tale of Tales
(Skazka skazok, 1979) is a cut-out animation.
Sand animation
Images and motion are created using sand that has
been applied to a sheet of mat glass in front of a
camera. Light is directed through the glass and the
sand towards the camera and the partially transpar-
ent sand makes it possible to create interesting im-
ages. The images and their motion are filmed frame
by frame. Sand animation is an umbrella term forthis
technique, as also salt, pigmented powders etc. are
used. Ferenc Cakó’s Ashes (Hamu, 1994) is a sand
animation.
Direct animation (drawn on film animation)
Characters and their movements are drawn,
scratched with a needle or stamped directly on film.
This is technically one of the easiest, yet also one of

21
DEFINING ANIMATION
the most time-consuming types of animation. Caroline Leaf’s Two Sis-
ters (1991) was etched onto tinted 70 mm film.
Puppet or model animation
This is the second most widespread type of anima-
tion, after hand-drawn animation. Figures with wire
skeletons can be moved and fixed into different po-
sitions. The movements are filmed frame by frame,
creating an illusion of moving puppets. In puppet
animation, the cinematographer and gaffer play a
central role. Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit in The
WrongTrousers (1993) is an example ofstop-motion
puppet (clay) animation. In addition to stop-mo-
tion, go-motion technique is sometimes employed.
The main difference between the two is that, while
in stop-motion the object is moved in small incre-
ments between individually photographed frames, in
go-motion the frames are images of the object taken
while it is moving. In thelatter, the puppet is moved
during the exposure of frames, thus producing a
realistic motion blur. A chase episode in Nick Park’s
The Wrong Trousers employs go-motion animation.
Computer animation
This is very similar to puppet animation, only the
puppets and the entire visual universe of the film is
created on a computer, using different programmes.
Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001)
is a computer animation.
Nick Park, Wallace & Gromit in The
Wrong Trousers (1993).
Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson,
Shrek (2001).

22
ANIMASOPHY
Norman McLaren, Neighbours
(1952).
Heilika Pikkov, Man in the Crowd
(2009).
Pixilation
Pixilation is a stop-motion technique, like puppet
animation but, instead of puppets, live actors are
used. While in puppet animation puppets stand in for
live actors, in pixilation live actors have been turned
into puppet-like characters or human puppets.
‘Pixie’ signifies a mischievous fairy or sprite and thus
‘pixilated’ literally means ‘touched by an elf ’. In
American slang, the word also denotes ‘being soft in
the head’ or ‘tipsy’. Thus, the term has no relation to
pixels, a widespread phenomenon of the digital age.
Norman McLaren’s Neighbours (1952) is an example
of pixilation.
Time-lapse cinematography
A camera’s shutter system is equipped with a device
that allows the camera to capture each film frame at
a rate much slower than it will be played back. This
technique is usually employed to portray real-life
phenomena, such as opening flowers, changing light
etc. Heilika Pikkov’s Man in the Crowd (Inimene
rahva hulgas(t), 2009) employs time-lapse cinema-
tography.

23
DEFINING ANIMATION
Summary
In conclusion, I would like to draw attention to the fact that nowadays the
borders between different technologies grow progressively more blurry.
This is mainly the result of an increasing reliance on digital technologies
in film production. Thus, on some occasions, it is nearly impossible to
differentiate puppet animation from computer animation, because in
postproduction the images are digitally processed to such an extent that
computer animation (digital processing of images) becomes dominant.
The borders between live action cinema and animated film are also in-
creasingly more blurry, as live action filming is often mixed with ani-
mation. Elements of animation and computer-generated imagery (GSI)
can be found in almost every major Hollywood production.
The understanding of the concept of animation itself has also changed
over time. As the animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi notes, ‘be-
tween about 1895 and 1910 the term animated was applied to things
that today are called live action, which we often group in a distinctly dif-
ferent category. At that time, “animated photography” was the common
term, and a little later the equally rudimentary phrases moving picture or
motion picture came into use’ (Bendazzi 2007).
Therefore, in addition to technological developments, the terminology
has also gone through considerable changes. As the field of film relent-
lessly expands, as the role of animated elements in other types of films
constantly grows and as animation literally takes over most modern elec-
tronic media, it seems appropriate to suggest that the term ‘animation’
should once again be applied to all moving pictures. At the very least, it
is clear that, in the age of rapid technological advancement, the tra-
ditional division of filmic phenomena into live action cinema and ani-
mated film, as well as the former classification of animationtechniques,
has become obsolete.

2. Tracing theAncestryofthe
Animated Film
A photo series by Eadweard J. Muybridge.

26
ANIMASOPHY
Animated film as an art form has no individual inventor, only a vast
numberof progenitors: artists and thinkers whose discoveries were built
on their forerunners’ efforts and experiments. Technical solutions and
ideas have spread freely and improved continuously.
Georges Méliès.
First and foremost, animation is the inheritor of
ancient rituals, totemic cults, old mystics and magi-
cians, their secrets of sudden appearance and disap-
pearance, and of giving life to inanimate objects. For
example, the German word for cartoon is trickfilm,
evoking a strong sense of magic and illusionism.
Thus, Georges Méliès, one of the greatest experi-
menters of early cinema, considered himself a magi-
cian, rather than a film-maker. Norman McLaren,
a legendary animator and animation theorist, who contributed to an
extensive booklet accompanying the DVD release by Flicker Alley of
more than 170 of Méliès’ films, has also declared Méliès a magician who
held in his hands the powers and limits of the physical world.
James Stuart Blackton.
An ‘aura’ of magic and mysticism also surrounds sev-
eral of the earliest animated films: the title of argua-
bly the first animation ever, directed by James Stuart
in 1900, is The Enchanted Drawing. In the opening
sequence of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo (1911), a
short film combining live action with some anima-
tion, the cartoonist McCay makes a bet that he can
revive his characters etc.
Animated film also maintains the traditions of wandering minstrels,
travelling entertainers (mimes) and storytellers, who were always wel-
comed everywhere as merry performers and poets. Many storytellers
relied on Laterna Magicas (magiclanterns), theearly precursors of mod-

27
TRACING THE ANCESTRY OF THE ANIMATED FILM
A travelling storyteller with a magic lantern. Magic lantern.
ern slide projectors. Athanasius Kircher, a German-Italian scholar used
a magic lantern as early as 1671 to show successive scenes from Christ’s
life (Montagu 1964: 34).
Inspired by the magic lantern and Praxinoscope, Charles-Émile Rey-
naud came up with an entirely novel device for exhibiting animated
films, an invention which culminated in the presentation of his Théâtre
Optique in 1892. Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908) is considered the
first fully animated film. It avoided live action altogether, unlike the ma-
jority of other early animations. The title refers to the ‘phantasmagorias’
of the 19th century, which employed magic lanterns to project images
Lotte Reiniger, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).

28
ANIMASOPHY
The Quay brothers.
Émile Cohl.
Lotte Reiniger.
Jiuí Trnka.
on walls and thus enhance the impact of the story
told. Telling stories (myths) is an important part of
animated film, as only a small portion of animations
are abstract, without any structured narrative. Most
animated films are based on stories – narratives.
Several animations are direct adaptations of ancient
myths, such as Disney’s Hercules (1997) or Barry
Purves’s Achilles (1995).
The traditions oftheatre have also had a great impact
on the animated film. The vulgar laugh induced by
the exaggerated comedy of the 16th century Italian
Commedia dell’arte echoes in the audiences of
contemporary animated film. Especially strong,
however, has been the influence of puppet and
shadow theatre, as many of the first animators came
from theatre or had a theatrical background. For
example, Lotte Reiniger, the author of the first
European full-length animated film, The Adventures
of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed,
1926), first worked in theatre. Reiniger’s films were
also directly influenced by the principles of Chinese
shadow plays, imitating their visual appearance and
applying similar technical solutions. Jiší Trnka’s
works similarly demonstrate obvious references to
theatre, as he also started out in theatre. Many ani-
mators have operated in both fields, designing sets
for stage plays. Such directors as Jan Švankmajer,
Barry Purves and the Quay brothers continue to
approach animated film as a collage of theatre and
cinema.

29
Furthermore, the study of rhythm (speech, music and
dance) has carried over to animation and profoundly
influenced its development. Keen interest in rhythmi-
cal phenomena is a characteristic trait of humankind:
people like to watch and listen to ocean waves, burn-
ing fire, the laughter of their companions etc. Rhyth-
mic movements and repetition are an essential part of
animation. According to Brian Ashbee, ‘McLaren
himself believed that every animated film, whether it
involved moving people or objects or drawings, was
itself a kind of dance’ (Ashbee 2003: 9). Animation is
a universal language of a sort, resembling natural
language in its rhythm and sign system, yet it is even
more universal than natural language, and more like
dancing. It is remarkable that several efforts ofnumer-
ous scientists to train animals to knock, peck or move
to a presented rhythm have never been successful
(Patel 2008: 409). Thus, the perception of particular
rhythms and responding to them can be seen as some-
thing unique to humankind.
In addition, the traditions of illustration and carica-
ture have had a significant impact on the development
of animated film. Numerous illustrations of ancient
manuscripts are very close to sketches and storyboards
of contemporary animation, even though chronologi-
cally it is actually the other way around: the design of
contemporary animated film has received strong im-
pulses from illuminated manuscripts, which date back
to the distant past. The Heidelberg University Library
in Germany, which has preserved the treasures of the
Bibliotheca Palatina, the most importantRenaissance
Illustr ations from the medieval chival-
ric epic Sigenot.

30
ANIMASOPHY
library in Germany, holds a great collection of medieval book illustra-
tions. A closer look at these manuscripts reveals that the aesthetic prin-
ciples of the visual representation of the animated film are actually, to a
great extent, rooted in the European Middle Ages. For example, the text
of Sigenot, a chivalric epic from 1558, is illustrated on every page. The
pictures are connected by a continuous illusion of motion; the relation-
ships between different episodes might be compared with present-day
methods of editing; within a scene consisting of multiple pictures, the
‘frame’ of the image remains constant (the manuscript can be browsed
at http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg67/0001). Leafing through
the pages of the manuscript produces a certain illusion of motion, al-
though there is no evidence that this was the original intention.
The introduction of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th
century made books available to common people, although initially the
ability to read was a skill of the privileged few. As a result, flip-books –
essentially a printed form of animation – became immensely popular.
Users could change the pace at which they turned the pages and thus
increase or decrease the speed of animated motion. Flip-books depend
on the same principles as cinema and have therefore also been called
‘pocket cinema’ in German (Taschenkinematograph) and‘thumbcinema’
in French (cinema de poche). Flip-books remained attractive after the
advent of cinema, and we know that Thomas Alva Edison published
flip-book versions of his short films. Such companies as Disney, Gillette,
McDonald’s etc. have also created flip-books for purposes of marketing
and advertising.
The characters of the earliest animated films frequently migrated from
newspaper comic strips: ‘[S]ome of the earliest characters to be featured
in animated series were based on human figures found in print media.
Perhaps the first animated stars of American animation were the
characters of ‘The Newlyweds’, a series animated by Emile Cohl begin-

31
ning in January 1913 that was based on a well-known comic strip by
George McManus. Other human-like characters of popular animated
series, such as those in the ‘Mutt and Jeff’ (Pathé Frères, beg. 1913) and
‘Colonel Heeza Liar’ (Bray, beg. 1913) series, also were derived from
comic strips, as were many others ... [such as] Wrill, Tintin, the Smurfs,
and Lucky Luke’ (Furniss 1998: 67). Many animation-makers, too, have
launched their artistic careers as cartoonists (McCay, Disney, Fleischer,
Terry, Miyazaki, Pärn, Groening etc.).
As Pavel Marozau, a Belorussian animation director who made mocking
films about the Belorussian dictator-president, has confessed in numer-
ous interviews that he was forced to flee his homeland as a fugitive in
fear of incarceration. This provides an example of how, as in other art
forms, the investigations into the essence of animated film have always
had certain ideological implications, being closely related to different
philosophical ideas and understandings of art. The world’s first ani-
mation theorist – or animasopher – was Plato, whose Allegory of the
Cave captures perfectly the crux of animation. Animation was also later
dealt with by, among others, the film theorists André Bazin and Rudolf
Arnheim, and the semiotician Yuri Lotman. Sigmund Freud deserves
some credit, too, as his studies certainly were among the most influen-
tial theories of the 20th century, and have significantly shaped modern
philosophy and art. According to Freud, the world is determined by an
inescapable causality, which makes everything rationally explainable. As
in dreams, every element in an animated film has a particular, detectable
and analysable justification. In terms of its nature and interpretative po-
tential, animated film bears a strong resemblance to dream and fantasy.
The desire to bring puppets and drawings to life is directly connected
with the tradition and challenge of building moving mechanisms
(automatons). Puppets with moving eyes are the oldest and most rudi-
mentary examples, yet we also know of creatures that are able to per-

32
ANIMASOPHY
Scientis t Eadweard J. Muybridge .
The Lumière brothers.
form extremely complex movements. The French-
man Jacques de Vaucanson, for instance, designed
in 1737 a life-size hydraulic figure that could play a
flute and had a repertoire of a dozen songs. Next
year Vaucanson also invented the ‘Digesting Duck’,
consisting of over 400 moving parts, which could
flap its wings and drink water (Wood 2002). A lit-tle
known fact is that Edison, one of the founding
fathers of cinema also invented and patented a mov-
ing and talking puppet (Furniss 2008: 117). Edison’s
entire creative career was deeply affected by a con-
stant urge to bring lifeless objects to life and make
them move.
Humankind has always been fascinated by motion
and the idea of capturing it. Prior to the invention of
the film camera, in the last quarter of the 19th cen-
tury, Eadweard J. Muybridge conducted pioneer-
ing research on human and animal locomotion and his photographic
series of movements became extremely popular, still providing helpful
assistance to contemporary animation-makers. In the late 19th century,
Ottomar Anschütz used multiple cameras – first 24 and later 48 – to
photograph objects in motion. Anschütz’s main accomplishment was the
development of the first projector – the Schnellseher (‘quick viewer’,
1887). Inspired by Muybridge’s snapshot series, the French physiologist
Étienne-Jules Marey built, in 1882, a photographic gun which was ca-
pable of shooting 12consecutive frames a second. His former co-worker
Georges Demenÿ connected chronophotography with the Phonoscope,
thus both making pictures and recording sound! Demenÿ hoped that his
invention would help to teach deaf-mutes.

33
Employing photography to examine and capture moving objects soon
led to the advent of cinema: on 28 December 1895, the Lumière broth-
ers organized the first screening (with an admission fee) of projected
motion pictures, using their own Cinématographe (a device for both
filming and projecting motion pictures). This is regarded as the official
birth date of cinema. According to Donald Sassoon: ‘With the inven-
tion of the cinema and its popularisation, a new cultural form, which
addressed itself to all social classes, heralded the‘democratic’ culture of a
democratic age. It is the beginning of genuine mass entertainment. The
cinema also marks the end of European near-self-sufficiency in cultural
matters, the situation prevailing throughout the nineteenth century. Eu-
ropeans began to consume, increasingly, cultural products originating in
the USA, particularly film and music’ (Sassoon 2006: xxiii).
The birth of cinema established favourable conditions for the advance-
ment of animation, both in terms of production and distribution. Thus
animated film was born and started its rapid development.

3. Animation (Film)
as Communication
A 5200-year -old Iranian earthen bowl, found in Shahr-e Sukhté (aka Burnt City), is decorated with five
different images of a jumping goat. Urmas Puhkan, Professor of Ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts,
assisted in reconstr ucting this ancient goblet, making it spin and thus proving at least theoretically that
presenting animation might have been possible as long as 5000 years ago.

36
ANIMASOPHY
It is awell-established fact that animation (film) is madepossibleby a cer-
tain phenomenon ofthe human eye – the persistence of vision. An after-
image persists for a fraction of a second on the human retina, generating
inertia ofvision, which makes it possibleto produce an illusion ofmotion
by projecting asequence of still images. However, this is onlyaquestion of
a particular faculty of human physiology which provides the foundation
for an illusion of motion; and an appealing animated film should involve
so much more! Animation is basically a symbiosis ofa certain capacity of
human physiologyand the animist Weltanschauung. Peopleare drawn to
animation not because it is technically possible, but because of the ba-
sic human need for stories (myths) and inclination towards totemism.
Animistic beliefs and the structure of the animist world-view have been
shaped in the course of human civilization’s long history. According to
Karen Armstrong, ‘The Neanderthals who buried their companions with
such care seem to have imagined that the visible, material world was not
the only reality. From a very early date, therefore, it appears that human
beings were distinguished by their ability to have ideas that went beyond
their everyday experience’ (Armstrong 2005: 1−2). From the early stages
of its existence, humankind has striven towards fantasy, towards creating
imaginary universes, towards endowing lifeless objects with life.
‘Lion lady’ from Stadel-H öhle im Hohlenstein,
Germany.
Narrative graphic art from Egypt.

37
ANIMATION (FILM) AS COMMUNICATION
The oldest anthropomorphic figures, combining animal and human
characteristics (which are so widespread in today’s animated film) can be
traced back to 30,000 BC. A small lion-headed ivory sculpture (ca 30 cm
in height) was found in 1939 in Stadel-Höhle im Hohlenstein, Germany.
This anthropomorphic creature, half human and half animal, serves as
definite proof of the ancient human’sabilityto create symbols and think
in terms of them (Putman 1988: 467).
Some archaeological evidence of the first puppets, from 30,000–21,000
BC, has been found (Blumenthal 2005: 11). The oldest record of ‘per-
forming’ puppets comes from the Nile Basin: a hieroglyphic text from
the 12th century BC chronicles a walking figure portraying a deity (Blu-
menthal 2005: 12). We can only guess the reasons behind the introduc-
tion and use of puppets and drawings at such an early date; perhaps it
was for children’s play or grown-ups’ rituals. It must have been more
than the mere joy of creation and playing. ‘Human beings are unique in
retaining the capacity for play. Unless they are living in the artificial
conditions of captivity, other animals lose their early sense of fun when
they encounter the harsh realities of life in the wild. Human adults,
however, continue to enjoy playing with different possibilities, and, like
Wayang-figure for shadow theatre, Java.

38
ANIMASOPHY
Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympic
Games.
Miga, Sumi and Quatchi, the mascots of the 2010
Vancouver Olympic Games.
children, we go on creating imaginary worlds’ (Armstrong 2005: 9). It is
possible that the creation of puppets (totemic figures) demonstrated a
desire and provided an instrument to express the might and omnipo-
tence of the gods: the puppet represented mankind and the mover of
the puppet the deity. It is also possible that it was a convenient way of
staging didactic plays for the members of the community, the watching
and experiencing of which generated a sense of communal spirit, much
like the later tragedies in Ancient Greece or modern day rock concerts.
Subtly erotic drawings and puppets probably served the purpose of
raising testosterone levels and performed an important part in fertility
rites. Drawings of hunting scenes most likely functioned in a way
analogous to today’s tabloids, portraying tribal leaders on cave walls.
These pictures also served as depositories of information and as agents
of continuity – this was, after all, practically the only way of ‘writing a
chronicle’, as manuscripts were a much later phenomenon. In addition,
puppets and drawings were certainly means of childrearing and sociali -
zation, used for teaching younger generations and for reconciling foes.
Animistic characters are especially useful in the search for reconcilia-
tion and harmony, because they make it easier for people from different
cultural backgrounds, subscribing to conflicting value systems, to find
common ground and communicate with each other. This tradition has
continued up to the present – many contemporary international sport-

39
ing events, including the Olympic Games, cannot do without mascots
who act as ‘real’ hosts of the event. Their purpose is the same – to avoid
potential conflicts between organizers and visitors, on political, religious
or cultural grounds. According to this interpretation, the 1980 Sum -mer
Olympics were hosted not by the communist dictatorship, but by Misha,
a merry bear mascot. Furthermore, the 2010 Winter Olympics held in
Vancouver presented three mascots inspired by traditional First Nations
creatures, thus offering a symbolic reconciliation between the
indigenous peoples and later emigrant settlers. Puppets also create a fo-
rum for discussing complex and difficult issues. For instance, after the
Rwanda and Burundi genocides, UNICEF sponsored pacifist puppet
shows in refugee camps (Blumenthal 2005: 189).
Animistic characters have been created on all continents and among all
nations. Therefore, they represent an extremely universal phenomenon
characteristic of all humankind. Chimpanzees and gorillas – man’s clos-
est relatives in the animal kingdom – do not engage in anything similar,
precisely because they lack the faculty of symbolic thought, even though
they find their food by foraging and using some tools, and even though
they could, at least theoretically, draw pictures or model sculptures.
What, then, makes a human human? What distinguishes him/her from
other mammals? It is precisely this very question and theability to ask and
discuss it. Human beings are probably the only mammals capable of fan-
tasizing and of symbolic thinking. In order to conceptualize, explain and
justify their existence, humans have produced artworks that frame their
presence in the eternal totality of the universe. Every artwork includes a
commentary on both itself and its author. Bymeans ofart, people explore
theirowninner cosmos,their bodiesand physical perceptual mechanisms.
Yet an artwork is not merely a material piece of work; it is also an act of
communication – between the author and the audience, and among all
authors. Morebroadly, art also communicates its age as a whole.

40
ANIMASOPHY
As already asserted above, people are fascinated by the animated film
not only for its technical accessibility, but, first and foremost, because of
their essential need for stories (myths) and inclination towards totem -
ism. In this context, totemism should be considered as a wider phenom-
enon – as a need for self-identification in the framework of a certain
sign system. Additionally, audiences experience a whole range of mental
states, providing:
1. aesthetic pleasure (i.e. aesthetic experience),
2. curiosity (i.e. experiencing new ideas, their presentation and mode of
expression),
3. challenge (i.e. experiencing suspense, a desire to overcome fear and
hesitation in facing unfamiliar situations and characters),
4. comparison (i.e. a wish to compare the given film with other works
or with the author’s personality).
Despite the fact that animation as an art form reached wider audiences
and gained mass popularity only after the birth of cinema, many an-
imated films criticize and mock the medium of film. ‘Like medieval
comedy, the cartoon mocks itself, romping with its audience’ (Lindvall
and Melton 2009: 63). Thus animation-makers have critically probed the
limits of the film frame, the rigidity of the traditional time-line, the
abstraction of synchronous sound, apparently drawing attention to the
fact that animation is a much older and more expressive art form than
live action cinema, although sharing the same basic format. Unlike in
other types of film, in the animated film the conflict is often structured
around the relationship between characters and the author – therefore
not concealing its artificiality, its constructed-ness. For example, in Os-
amu Tezuka’sBrokenDown Film (1985), the characters struggle with the
film print itself. Animation as a medium describes and criticizes both its
era and itself. Today, animation has mostly entertainment value for
audiences, at the same timeproviding authors with means of self-expres-
sion. Furthermore, it is also employed as a transmitter of information

41
on phone displays, computer screens etc. Paul Wells, the most noted
animation theorist of our time, has aptly asserted that ‘animation is eve-
rywhere. It is the omnipresent pictorial form of the modern era’ (Wells
2007a: 1).
Modern culture is mainly text-based, as opposed to the primarily visual
nature of earlier eras, when pictures and images played the central role.
Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press secured the predominance of writ-
ten texts in almost every sphere of life. The introduction of modern
book printing led to the true heyday of culture and education in Renais-
sance Europe, gradually establishing them as largely text-based phenom-
ena, which has remained unchanged to the present. Gutenberg’s print-
ing press and the subsequent explosion of written media has also been
called the Printing Revolution. Subsequently, the rapid development of
digital technologies and their integration into practically every field of
life has started to re-visualize contemporary culture once again, thus re-
establishing its historical status. For example, emoticons (a portman-
teau of the words ‘emotion’ and ‘icon’) – sign-like pictures and images
– have become extremely common in casual textual communication.
Even though the history of emoticons started long before the ‘digital
age’, their wider adoption was initiated in Internet forums, online gam-
ing, text messaging etc., and they spread quickly to other media. The
development of emoticons is an ongoing process – the initial simple
faces formed of letters and punctuation marks have been replaced by
extremely complex short animations symbolizing certain moods or ac-
tivities. The purpose of emoticons goes far beyond mere textual econo-
my – they make written texts more eloquent and emotional. Emoticons
constitute an exceptional universal sign system, capable of crossing the
linguistic and cultural barriers in our globalising world. Gutenberg’s
printing technique has become digitalized, yet written text has retained
its basic core, practically untouched by the changing means of reproduc-
tion and distribution. However, the rapid growth of animation and its

42
ANIMASOPHY
increasing invasion of written text provides an opportunityto talk about
something entirely new – the Revolution of Animation, the massive dis-
persal of moving pictures in the globalising world.
Will animation ever become a new universal language? It is possible, yet
more probably it is in the process of becoming a part of a new universal
language. In Japan, for example, which is among the leading countries
of animated film production and where the use of animation in other
media is extremely common, the natural language is largely based on
pictographs – signs (hieroglyphs) resembling physical objects they signi-
fy: for instance, ‡ yama – ‘mountain’, S dai – ‘large’, ½ sho – ‘small’.
The history of the Japanese writing system and its pictographic nature
certainly explains, to some extent, why animation is so popular with the
Japanese people.
But what are the central topics of the animated film today? Naturally
they are similar to those explored in modern live action cinema, books,
songs etc. Ecological awareness, in particular, seems to be increasingly
relevant in today’s animated film, as in society at large. The number of
contemporary animation-makers inspired by the search for balance and
harmony between humankind and nature has steadily grown. Several
feature-length animated films have concentrated on these issues, such
as theJapanese Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime, 1997) orsomema-
jorAmerican productions, such as The Simpsons Movie (2007), Finding
Nemo (2003), Happy Feet (2006), Wall-E (2008) etc. Avatar (2009) is
particularly noteworthy in this respect, having provided the impetusfor
a whole range of ecological discussion groups and youth movements,
among other things for the Home Tree Initiative, an effort to plant one
million trees (http://www.avatarmovie.com/hometree/).
Animation is a powerful channel for communicating messages and it has
always been used with that in mind. Every dictatorship has exploited

43
Representation of movement in cave paintings in Altamira, Spain, and Chauvet, France.
the effective medium of animated propaganda films, in ways similar to
modern-day advertising and PR companies.
In one way or another, animation has always been a part of human
existence. Some series of images in Egyptian art, for example a mural
showing wrestlers (ca 2000 BC), are interesting early examples of at-
tempts to depict motion. Upper Paleolithic cave paintings (13,000 BC)
in Altamira, Spain demonstrate similar intentions – many images of
animals have six or eight legs, suggesting efforts to convey the illusion
of movement. In search of the very first piece of animation, some theo-
rists have referred to an Iranian earthen bowl, found in Shahr-e Sukhté
(aka Burnt City) and decorated with images of a jumping goat. This
5200-year-old goblet has five sequential pictures painted along the sides,
which, by giving the bowl a spin, create the illusion of the goat leaping
(Ball 2008). It remains unknown if and how this type of bowl was made
to spin (perhaps with some sort of a rope mechanism), although the
shape of the piece suggests that this would not have been a complicated
task. Maybe these ‘animated goblets’ were even widespread entertain-
ment articles? I propose that the title of the oldest animation should be
given to a Palaeolithic ‘calendar’ from France – a veritable prehistoric
iPod! Examining this 30,000-year-old carved bone under a microscope,
the archaeologist Alexander Marshack established that it marked moon
phases (Marshack 1975: 65–66). Even if these engravings did not rep-

44
ANIMASOPHY
Palaeolithic ‘calendar’ from Blanchard, France.
resent moon phases, as Marshack suggested, a prehistoric man had still
depicted a movement of some sort, a changing of something over time,
linking transformations of time and image in order to portray motion.
True, it is not a proper animation, yet it still reflects the way animators
think – in terms of creating animated motion.
Ancient drawings and puppets (totemic figures) constituted the mass
culture of their time – an ideology bringing together communities and
representing their Weltanschauung; they were a means of representation
that reached wide audiences. The essence of mass culture has, to a large
Enlarged detail of the Palaeolithic ‘calendar’ by Alexander Marshack.

45
extent, remained the same; only channels of distribution have been re-
placed. The ancient traditions of puppets and drawings can be seen as
foundations of today’s mass culture, which now exists in the form of
big-budget animated films. By means of emoticons, animation has also
increasingly infiltrated the written text, laying the groundwork for a new
universal language of the globalising world. The abstract nature of ani-
mation leaves plenty of room for fantasy, preserving and advancing the
ancient animist sense of the world. The basic beliefs of humankind have,
to a great extent, remained the same throughout the centuries, and the
development of science and technology has only managed to transform
lifestyles and channels of communication.
Puppet, 3rd century BC, Greece. Puppet, 2nd century, Rome. Puppet, 19th century, England.

4. OnTime inthe AnimatedFilm
Making of the animated film Generatio (2005); animator Märt Kivi and puppet-actress Lii Unt.

48
ANIMASOPHY
In human perception, time is a changing and ephemeral phenomenon.
Time is essential: it has economic value (‘time is money’) and is thus a
limited resource. In our daily lives, time is one of the most central no-
tions and criteria. Time is synonymous with both life (‘beautiful time’)
and death (‘mytime is over’). In animation, we see still images – frames
– projected in succession at a particular speed, and then something
more... something we do not so much actually see as sense. Namely, in
the audience’s mind, a string of still pictures conjures an illusion of a
moving image. Peter Mark Roget was the first to define this phenom-
enon, in a paper written in 1825, which later came to be known as the
theory of‘persistence ofvision’. Roget explains how images linger briefly
on the human retina, creating an illusion of continuous motion (Wells
2005: 12).
Thaumatrope.

49
ON TIME IN THE ANIMATED FILM
Time of shooting in the animated film
Time is one of the central concepts of cinema because film has a tempo-
ral dimension – a particular duration. Animation, unlike other types of
film, is not shot in real time. Animated films are made frame by frame
and the timespent on creating each frame and sequence can vary greatly.
For example, it can take days to develop a segment of a hand-drawn
animation from an initial draft into a finished design, while another
sequence of the same film might be completed in a matter of hours. The
same is also true for other animation techniques: the speed of filming
(creating frames and sequences) is irregular and depends on the com-
plexity of the particular picture. The production process of the animated
film lacks a smooth and logical time-line; the fleeting moment andeter-
nity stand sideby side. Yet the audience is presented with the impression
of an uninterrupted flow of re-created time. In reality, however, viewers
see only still images produced over periods of time which might differ
greatly in length. It is true that audiences of live action fiction films and
documentaries also see still images, but the fundamental difference lies
in the flux of time: while in live action cinema, time flows evenly (in a
shot), in animation time jumps, taking ‘leaps’ of varying length. It is
important to stress that here I am talking about the time ofproduc- tion,
and not the time of presentation/projection of a film. Time in the
animated film resembles a cubist painting, the image of which has been
first divided into odd, manipulated pieces and then reassembled as anew
totality.
Sebastian Buerkner’s films and installations often
employ single frames – the shortest possible visual
sequences of time in film. The visual information of
a cinematic sequence consisting of a single frame is
practically imperceptible to the human eye. In com-
bination, the successive frames can lead to entirely
new images: for instance, the human eye perceives Sebastian Buerkner.

50
ANIMASOPHY
Sebastian Buerkner , Purple Grey (2006). Viewers are presented with different frames, but as they flicker
rapidly, their content might not be perceivable.
the rapid alternation of black and white frames as a grey image. This
phenomenon was first applied in Thaumatrope, where two flickering
images merge into one whole in the human mind.
In Furniture Poetry (1999) by Paul Bush, thesingle frames depicting dif-
ferent objects alternate rapidly, creating in viewers’ minds fantastic new
hybrid images. Time models film according to the speed of projection
and in sequence with other images. Several animators have paid special
attention to the play of time and space as relative and plastic constants.
Directors such as Len Lye, Jules Engel, Norman McLaren and Robert
Breer may be regarded as visual poets employing techniques of anima-
tion. By nature, animated film is closer to poetry than prose, since in
poetry, too, the temporal connections between and sequence of events is
not of primary importance.
Paul Bush.
In a paper presented at the Lucerne International
Animation Academy in 2009, Paul Bush revealed
that, in His Comedy (1994), drawn and scratched
directly on the film stock, a few frames contained
small mistakes but later, watching the whole film, he
could not notice these ‘errors’ at all. Similarly unno-
ticeable were theframes he had considered very good

51
Poetry (1999).
during production – the single frames interchange
at such a pace that viewers only manage to per-
ceive a certain general whole. A single frame stands
out only by omission – when smooth movement is
disrupted.
Before Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, time
and space were seen as separate phenomena. Ein-
stein’s theory tied time and space into a continu-
ous space-time: time can only be understood as a
part of space-time. However, the laws of physics
are not applicable in animated film, which is meta-
physical in nature. John Halas and JoyBatchelor, a
married couple of British animators, stated: ‘If it is
the live action film’s job to present physical reality,
animated film is concerned with metaphysical
reality – not how things look, but what they mean’
(Wells 2005: 11).
Time as illusion
‘The belief that, under ordinary conditions, we im-
mediately see or perceive the physical object itself
is called naive realism. Almost all people are naive
realists, victims of naively realistic illusion. [...] In
order to induce a sensation of vision, certain neu-
ronal processes must take place in the brain’s vision
centre. Thus, what we immediately see and what
becomes the immediate visual sensation are in fact
located in our brains and not in the outside world.
This observation becomes especially relevant in the
case of dreams and hallucinations. In these cases,
all kinds of things are seen, yet the immediate ex-
A sequence from Paul Bush’s Furniture

52
ANIMASOPHY
perience – that which is immediately seen – is actually not outside the
brain’ (Uus 2005).
Thus everything visible and audible to viewers is, in fact, an internal
quality, not an external phenomenon. In addition to merely perceiving
images and sounds it becomes necessary to interrelate the neuronal proc-
esses induced in viewers’ minds. ‘Reading’ a film requires previous cul-
tural experience. During film projection, spectators are presented with a
set of different light and sound waves, evoking a certain naively realistic
illusion. Similarly, time cannot be ‘seen’ either; it can only be sensed
internally and thus time in film is also an illusion of a kind.
Representations of time in the animated film
‘In every art which employs vision and iconic signs there is only one
possible artistic time – the present’ (Lotman 1976: 77). Presenting the
duration or passing of time in the animated film is a challenge open to
an endless numberofsolutions. Priit Pärn’s Luncheonon the Grass (Eine
murul, 1987) contains an episode with two different times, parallel tem-
poral orders. First, we see a child pulling a table cloth and, as it moves,
the seasons change behind the window. Finally the table cloth and the
dishes on it fall to the floor, while a woman sitting at the table sighs,
‘Oh, how time flies by.’ Suddenly, the child has aged considerably. This
episode is thus abundant with multiple temporal orders.
Time in animation film is generally compressed and elliptical – events
occurring over an extended period of time are compressed and the less
important details and story lines are omitted, as filmic events are re-
duced to the essence of the represented events (and their duration), in-
stead of merely imitating them. Spectators comprehend subconsciously
that they are being presented with elliptical cinematic narrative, puri-
fied of secondary minutia, and they are able to mentally ‘unwind’ the
narrative. In the animated film, moreover, time is also manipulated; its

53
even flow is disrupted and temporal orders are of-
ten multiplied. This self-destructive and forking
paradigm of time in the animated film also evokes
timeless space. Timeless space, in turn, endows the
animated film with great symbolical value.
Time is the most important agent of the animated
film, its invisible protagonist. The animated film
provides an opportunity to manipulate time, but
under no conditions can time be ignored. This
leads to a perplexing magic, which gives life to
inanimate characters and convinces viewers of the
spirituality of things. Achieving harmony between
internal and external time is true evidence of artis-
tic mastery in the animated film.
Priit Pärn, Luncheon on the Grass
(1987). An example of multiple parallel
temporal orders – a unique trait of
animated film.

54
ANIMASOPHY
Gone with the Wind
Making animated films essentially involves sculpt-
ing time. The flux of time is fragmented and trans-
formed significantly in the process of capturing the
imagery. In the assembly stage, the sculpted time
goes through another set of shifts and is turned into
psychological time. The latter refers to the way we
remember past events. In most movies, time does
not progress in a linear, but in a fragmented order; it
jumps back and forth on the temporal axis by means
of flashbacks and flash-forwards. In addition, psy-
chological time encompasses transformations vary-
ing in rhythm and pace.
In 1964, Andy Warhol made a film called Empire
with Jonas Mekas. It consists of continuous footage
of the Empire State Building in New YorkCity. The
film was shot on the night of 25 July 1964. Empire
runs eight hours and five minutes and is composed
of a single uncut long take. It involves no specifically
cinematic manipulations. The viewers see a‘pure’ re-
cording. It is one of the rare examples of biological
time in film – time that flows in a linear fashion,
without being intentionally shaped and fragmented.
Gone with the Wind is a film about Tallinn, or, more
precisely, about a house in Tallinn disappearing in the
course of one year (2008–2009) – it is demol- ished.
The film does not denounce the surrounding society
for dismantling the old and dignified building; its
disappearance goes completely unnoticed.

55
Even if passers-by stop for a moment, they seem in-
different. By nature, Gone with the Wind is an ani-
mated film (pixilation), which means that it sculpts
and fragments time by means of editing. Therefore, it
presents psychological time. At the same time, it has
an interesting effect on the audience. Because of its
documentary content and long shooting period – one
year – timeundergoes an intriguing transformation in
the film: the psychological time is converted into
biological time. According to classical film theory,
viewers always identify with the protagonist, but as
Gone with theWind lacks aprotagonist in theclassical
sense, or any characters for that matter, the audience
inevitably relates to its most intense element – time.
Gone with the Wind is a story about the passing of
time, which therefore is its protagonist. The audience
gets a sense of the flux of time and of the temporality
of their own existence.
Morten Skallerud’s pixilation A Year Along the Aban-
doned Road (Året gjennom Børfjord, 1991) is another
interesting example of an animated film featuring
different dimensions oftime. In the film, the camera
traverses the picturesque Norwegian terrain in the
course of one year, filming one frame at a time and
moving along step by step (in steps of 30 cm). The
natural phenomena and changing seasons emphasize
the flow of time in a manner uncommon to us. Yet as
the camera moves at a pace relatively comparable to
the usual speed ofhuman motion (for exam-ple, when
walking or cycling), a peculiar multitude of parallel
times is induced, intertwining the strange

56
ANIMASOPHY
and unfamiliar time patterns with the most habitual ones. The ‘natural’
rate of camera movements and an entirely otherworldly sense of the
changing surroundings are merged to form a coherent whole. The
compression of a year into a dozen minutes seems almost natural due to
the specific pace of the moving camera, which gives viewers a sense of
their own existence as not brief and temporary, but rather as eternal –
the passing of a year feels like a short film. A similar effect character-
izes VukJevremovis’s film Patience of the Memory (2009), showingthe
history of the city of Dresden by means of changing architecture and
urban environments. It presents an imaginative concentrate of the city’s
growth and deterioration over the centuries.
The animated film is generally fictional, but certain topics and tech-
niques are capable ofturning it into a documentary genre, capturing real,
authentic time and events, without fictionalizing them. Despite the fact
that theanimated film usually sculpts time, manyanimations also present
authentic – biological – time, proving that the animated film may
sometimes be more documentary than conventional documentary films.

5. On Structure
in the Animated Film
Priit Pärn, a film director and Professor of Animation at the Estonian Academy of Arts, explaining the
structure of his Divers in the Rain (2009).

60
ANIMASOPHY
When watching a film, listening to a song or reading a book where some
essential part of the work has been forcibly removed, we generally get a
sense of an unfinished whole: the structure of the piece has been cor-
rupted. Therefore, for better understanding and analysis of any art work,
it is necessary to know the common formal patterns of the particular
field.
The word ‘structure’ comes from the Latin structura or ‘(inner) build’.
Nowadays, this term has become a fundamental philosophical category,
defining the links and relations of elements in any given system – in
short, its organization. In its modern sense, this concept was first used
by Immanuel Kant.
According to Yuri Lotman, ‘[t]he strength of cinema’s effect lies in the
variety ofconstructed, complexly organized and maximally concentrated
information. We understand information, here, in the broad, “Wiene-
rian” sense as the totality of various intellectual and emotional structures
transmitted to an audience’ (Lotman 1976: 41). Films, as works of art,
are patterned in a specific manner. First, all audiovisual works share a
common basic structure composed of basic elements, including title,
image track, sound track (musicand sound effects), story, characters and
implied authorship. This basic structure was formed and developed soon
after the birth of cinema (with the exception of sound, which came
slightly later) and has not changed much over time. It is important to
stress that film, by combining a number of independent basic elements
(art forms), actually consists of several different structures: we can talk
about the structure of story, of image, of sound etc. On closer observa-
tion, it is a multi-patterned pattern. However, despite the relative sta-
bility of this basic structure, researchers of film have established that
successful films share a specific set of approaches and formulas. Fiona
Macrae reports that ‘[s]cientists from Cornell University in New York
analysed 150 high-grossing Hollywood dramas, comedies and action

61
ON STRUCTURE IN THE ANIMATED FILM
films released between 1935 and 2005. They found that many of the
more recent movies had shots of a similar length that recurred in a regu-
lar pattern throughout the film’ (Macrae 2010).
In what follows, I will concentrate on the most general level of structure
and will try to avoid delving into substructures. Jaan Einasto, an emi-
nent Estonian astrophysicist who discovered the cellular structure of the
Universe, reached his conclusion by examining the evolution and struc-
ture of galaxies. In a similar manner, evolution and construction form
the foundations of my approach to the question at hand.
Evolution: Modernity and innovation
in the animated film
In the early days, films were predominantly produced with the effect of
surprise in mind. They were like magic shows, offering audiences
unprecedented experiences and impressions by means of a new inven-
tion – the cinema. We know of numerous urban legends describing how
the audience fled the auditorium when seeing a train coming directly at
them on the screen, or how viewers attempted to influence the course
of a film by shouting at the characters. The animated film, taking shape
soon after the birth of cinema, similarly first relied merely on the ele-
ment of novelty and surprise, by providing audiences with a chance to
see ‘living’ puppets and drawings. The earliest animated films generally
lacked a plot in the classical sense and they were normally geared to-
wards demonstrating motion and the possibility of attaining it. Thus, the
American James Stuart Blackton’s animated films The Enchanted
Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) consisted
mainly of simple movements and funny faces, showing, for example,
how a man smoked a cigar. Fantasmagorie, (1908) by the Frenchman
Émile Cohl, was one of the first European animations. Without a clearly
structured narrative, its main purpose was to present viewers with the
surprise of hand-drawn characters in motion. Ladislas Starevich (born

62
ANIMASOPHY
Władysław Starewicz), of Lithuanian descent, was one of the first to
make narrative animations, as in The Cameraman’s Revenge (Mest’ kin-
ematograficheskogo operatora, 1912). The authors of the documentary
about Starevich’s life and work, The Bug Trainer
(Vabzdžiç dresuotojas, 2008) show how Starevich
used dead insects in his films, equipping them with
new wire legs in order to move them according to his
wishes. Impressed by the smooth movements ofthe
animated insects, contemporary critics thought that
the director had managed to train them to obey his
orders and give organized performances. Winsor
Ladislas Starevich. McCay was another early animation-maker who re-
alised the importance of narrative, and his animated
cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) established entirely new artistic
standards for the field. The works of Georges Méliès also relied heavily
on the use of animation techniques, constituting the best examples of
the genre, which mainly attempted to present audiences with incredible
stories and unrealistic ‘trickery’. Gradually, however, as spectators grew
used to the novel medium ofcinema, curiosity regarding merely moving
pictures began to fade. Films became more complex in structure, follow-
ing a clearly discernible narrative and paying more attention to visual
aesthetics. It is interesting, however, that while all this is true for live ac-
tion cinema, in the animated film the ‘noveltyeffect’ has retained its im-
Winsor McCay,GertietheDinosaur(1914). LadislasStarevich,TheCameraman’sRevenge(1912).

63
portance, as almost every film still revolves around
some sort of technical innovation. Animated films
have always been among the leaders in innovation,
whether in terms of the introduction of sound
films, the appearance of colour cinematography or
the first feature-length stereophonic films. Con-
temporary animation-makers still appeal to their
audiences (and advertise themselves) by means of
technical innovation. For instance, the media cam-
paign of John Lasseter’s Toy Story (1995) was built
John Lasseter, Toy Story (1995).
on the message that it was the first feature-length 3D computer anima-
tion,and HironobuSakaguchi’s Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within(2001)
was advertised as a film starring the first virtual (non-realistic) actor. The
increasingly popular 3D cinematography (stereoscopic films) frequently
employs animation techniques in order to utilize all dimensions of the
3D picture and emphasize the novelty of the technology (e.g. Coraline
(2009), Bolt (2008), Up (2009) and Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)). The
tag line of James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), a symbiosis of 3D compu-
ter animation and live action, emphasises the novelty aspect by saying
‘Movies will never be the same again’ (http://www.avatarmovie.com/
index.html). Thus, while modern live action narrative cinema generally
attracts audiences through film stars, animated films have maintained
the traditions of early cinema by accentuating innovation and novelty.
The same is true for auteur-animation, where most commonly it relates
to polishing a particular technique to perfection. Norman McLaren, for
example, developed theconcept of‘drawn music’ and experimented with
the combined effects of image and sound, while the ‘trademark’ of
Aardman Animations is the intricate facial expressions ofthe characters
and the synchronicity of speech and mouth movements. Aleksandr
Petrov, at the same time, is famous for his romantic-realist style attained
with oil colours. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Madame Tutli-

64
ANIMASOPHY
Putli, 2007) and SuzieTempleton (Dog, 2001; Peter &the Wolf (Piotrusi
wilk), 2006) have concentrated on achieving a particular realism of pup-
pets, especially their eyes. Riho Unt and Hardi Volmerhave developed a
‘telescope system’ for animating puppets (Enchanted Island (Nõiutud
saar), 1985; Primavera, 1998). Jan Švankmajer is dedicated to investi-
gating the metaphysics of objects. Almost every animation director has
developed a particular technique or advanced an existing one. Thus, in-
novation is essential to the animated film. However, it cannot be regard-
ed as an element of its structure. Authors of animated films frequently
strive, consciously or unconsciously, to surpass previous achievements
both in technical and artistic terms. Many animated films have been
motivated by a need to prove the viability of certain technical solutions:
while characters in computer animation were at first very simple, round
and covered with smooth ‘skin’, the advancement of computers and
software led to the introduction of hairy creatures, as in Monsters, Inc.
(2001) or Ice Age (2002). This demonstrates a clear link between the ad-
vancement of technology and the evolution of the content of animated
films: as soon as it was technically possibleto create hairy characters (i.e.
to render more complex forms) on computers, the larger studios took
advantage of the opportunity to show off their technical acumen, and
hairy characters became almost compulsory elements of major produc-
tions. The ambition of technological and artistic innovation has always
laid the foundations for the evolution of the animated film, guarantee-
ing the continuous development of the field.
Function
Maureen Furniss, the noted animation theorist, emphasizes that ‘[a]ny
analysis of the structural design of a work should consider first its pri-
mary function. Is it to entertain a wide audience? Is it to experiment and
uncover new techniques or ways of thinking?’ (Furniss 1998: 97).

65
Humankind has told stories for thousands of years and the animated
film continues this tradition using different means: the immediate pres-
ence of a storyteller has been replaced by the screen and loudspeakers.
The modern animated film has, to a large extent, adopted the role of
ancient storytellers narrating myths and legends. ‘During the last few
decades structural analysis has assumed a central role in folkloristic
methodology […] It is possible to distinguish between five different
structural patterns, each and every one of them with its own function:
the belief legend, the admonitory legend, the amusement legend, the
utterance legend and the local legend’ (Pentikäinen 1989: 183). Juha
Pentikäinen’s classification of legends could also be applied to the struc-
ture of the animated film, particularly that of shorter auteur-animations:
the belief (mythological) animation, the admonitory (didactic) anima-
tion, the amusement animation, the utterance animation and the local
animation. Moreover, clear traces of the folkloric approach can still be
detected in major productions, even if modern animated box-office hits
usually entail a number of compromises between commercial and ar-
tistic ambitions. Big-budget films normally go through test screenings
and the reactions of test audiences often result in substantial changes. In
commercial animation, conventional narrative is frequently shaped by
strategies of promotion and the pursuit of financial gain – butprobably
the same was true for ancient storytellers, although their expectations
were limited to a free meal and accommodation. It is also likely that they
modified their stories and legends according to the reactions of their
audiences. Finally, nowadays many fairy tales do not reach audiences
through traditional folkloric expression; instead, they are mediated by
animation, and especially by productions of the Walt Disney studio.
Thus, commercial animation has started to play an important role in
shaping the popular heritage, and not vice versa.

66
ANIMASOPHY
Animation logic
The structure of the animated film can also be understood in terms of
the ability of the audience to comprehend the animated form. Wendy
Jackson Hall, an animation artist and educator, has observed children of
various age groups in animation workshops and discovered certain pat-
terns in their comprehension, which she has dubbed ‘animation logic’.
Animation logic ‘goes hand in hand with concepts learned at each grade
level’ and it describes the way children understand animation. Accord -
ing to Jackson Hall, the aspects of animation logic, in connection with
other subjects, include:
» Math: Comprehension of multiplication, division and fractions help
children understand that 24 frames are combined to create one sec-
ond of animation.
» The Arts: Aesthetic principles of design, composition, contrast and
visual symbols; Motor skills, hand-eye coordination and the ability to
repeat a drawing are helpful in creating animation.
» Reading and Writing: Principles of storytelling, story structure, char-
acters and settings help children express themselves beyond the realm
of experimentation.
» Science: Scientific principles of visual perception, cameras and pro-
jection technology are extremely high-level and can only be brushed
upon before intermediate grade levels of six and up.
» Physics: Physical laws and limitations of movement, velocity, gravity,
transformation and metamorphosis are also complex ideas that come
into play when children are having their second or third experience of
creating animation. This is when they begin to apply the laws of the
natural world to their animation (Jackson Hall 2006).
Length
Animation, as with other film types, can be classified according to
length: short and feature films. A feature film normally runs at least 75

67
minutes. Another type is the series, which is defined as a collection of
short films related in terms of the diegetic world (space, characters and
story) and designated for presentation in succession.
The Polish director Jerzy Kucia has an interesting ap-
proach to duration: every one of his films is asequel
to his previous works, which as a group constitute a
single whole. As Kucia explained in a paper present-
ed in 2009 at the Lucerne International Animation
Academy, his films are neither shorts nor features;
they are segments of an endless totality.
Narrative and the three-act structure
Jerzy Kucia.
‘Wecan consider a narrative to be a chain of events in cause-effect rela-
tionship occurring in time and space’ (Bordwell and Thompson 2004:
69).
The majority of animated films tell a story of (main) characters who have
to face challenges and control their emotions in order to reach their
goals.
The Russian literary scholar Vladimir Propp ana-
lysed folk tales and discovered that the majority
present variations of a limited number of narrative
elements. He defined eight character types and 31
functions. In folk tales, the stories usually take place
in the past (signalled by the frequent opening line of
‘Once upon a time’ etc.), unwind in linear order,
without jumping back and forth in time, and are told
from the perspective ofan outsideror one ofthe
Vladimir Propp.
characters. Animated films, on the other hand, typically play with the
temporal axis and often include multipleperspectives of narration (those

68
ANIMASOPHY
of different characters, of the narrator etc.). Propp’s critics have empha-
sised precisely the point that his analysis relies only on written sources
and does not take into account the varied methods and styles of oral
presentation. In mapping the structure of the animated film, however,
we should consider first and foremost the method (from whose view-
point the story is told, and in what manner) and style (the dimension of
time) of narration. While modern communication is largely based on
the chronology of events, the structure of the narrative (plot) of the
animated film primarily serves to create suspense, not to establish the
particular chronology of events. Therefore viewers often learn only in
the end who the murderer or the father of a child is, reversing the tem-
poral order of events.
‘There is a general structure that has evolved for most movies that di-
vides a typical story into three acts. The first act introduces the charac-
ters and their world and then gets the characters into some dilemma. [...]
The second act develops the plot to reveal the motives of the char-
acters and the depth of their relationships. This act ends in a completely
unsolvable problem for the hero, and all seems lost. [...] Act three is all
about resolution’ (Hahn 2008: 22–24).
The three-act structure was established by Aristotle,
who analysed the most important components of a
story (a narrative). The following diagram summa-
rizes how Aristotle understood the basic dramatic
structure (Cowgill 1999: 2).
Aristotle .

69
This tripartite structure seems to be fundamental to human thought in
general, to the way the world is normally described: small–medium–
large, cold–neutral–warm etc. Various trichotomic structures are char-
acteristic of different art forms. For example, ‘Zeami [Zeami Motokiyo,
the founder of Noh theatre – Ü. P.] noticed one of these patterns, a
rhythmic structure called Jo, Ha, Kyu. (The word jo literally means ‘be-
ginning’ or ‘opening’, ha means ‘break’ or ‘development’, and kyu has
the sense of ‘fast’ or ‘climax’.) In this structure, you start slowly, then
gradually and smoothly accelerate towards a very fast peak. After the
peak, there is usually a pause and then a recommencement of the accel-
eration cycle. [---] In Japanese theatre, each play has Jo, Ha, Kyu, each
act and scene has Jo, Ha, Kyu, and each individual speech will have its
own internal Jo, Ha, Kyu’ (Oida and Marshall 1997: 31).
Composition
In addition to technique, animated films can also be classified according
to composition. Aside from a limited number of experimental anima-
tions challenging the limits of their field, classical animated films nor-

70
ANIMASOPHY
mally conform to the general epic and dramatic rules, and consist of
space(time), characters and story. These three components usually occur
in particular animated films with varying degree of intensity. Based on
the compositional dominant, animated films can be divided into the
following categories: environment animation, character animation and
plot animation.
David O’Reilly.
Environment animation and character animation can be described as
lyrical types: films without a classical narrative (or at least without a
narrative of structural importance), which therefore present a uniform
and constant rhythm (suspense) from the beginning to the end. The
silent American animations, for instance, are almost without exception
character animations (e.g. series such as Felix the
Cat (1919–1930), Out of the Inkwell (1918–1929),
Alice Comedies (1923–1927) etc.), composed of a
sequence of visual gags and containing no note-
worthy plot development. The structure, built on
repetition, is monotonous and predictable. David
O’Reilly’s Please Say Something (2009) provides an
interesting example of a contemporary character
animation. This extremely character-centred film,
presenting a relationship drama between a mouse
and a cat, consists of 23 episodes, each running 25 seconds. The relative
uniformity of structure is also discernible in environment animation –
even though lacking as clear structural repetition in temporal intervals
as in character animation, the continuous regularity is still apparent.
Settings prevail in environment animation, dominating characters and
events (if any exist at all). Classical environment animation includes, for
example, 3D architecture animation, screen savers, and therapeutic or
meditational animation. The structural pattern of milieu and character
animation resembles a regular zigzag or an electrocardiogram of a calm
and composed person.

71
Plot animation (usually animated chains of events) is rooted in narrative
and its structural patterns tend to be much more complex. Because of
the dominant factor, its structure resembles that of the particular nar-
rative.
Presenting film as a vector on the temporal axis and adopting the classi-
cal three-act structure, the following structural models of plot animation
can be defined:
Linear structure
Multi-linear structure
Cyclical structure
Abstract structure

72
ANIMASOPHY
Maya Yonesho.
Structural-materialist animation
In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of American and
British directors, including Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le
Grice, Michael Snow and Peter Kubelka, founded
the movement of structural/materialist film, in
which ‘therelations of the film structure are primary
to any representational content’ (Gidal 1976: 1). An-
imated films in which a technical process or device
dictates the content of the film can also be labelled
structural/materialist. In Maya Yonesho’s work, for instance, notebooks
form, on the one hand, the subject matter of the film and, on the other
hand, play an important role in the process of defining the contents and
rhythm of the film. George Griffin examines in his animated films the
creation of illusion, calling his works ‘anti-cartoons’ (Griffin 2009: 191).
His Trickfilm 3 (1973) and Head (1975) concentrate on the process of
creating animation, showing the director’s hands etc., thus deconstruct-
ing and emphasising the illusion of motion. Direct animation (drawn or
scratched directly on film stock) might also be thought of as a struc-
tural/materialist technique, as both the achieved illusion (of motion,
space etc.) and film stock (material) become objects of the film. Direct
animation is the only film technique that intentionally emphasises and
presents the materiality of film stock, drawing attention to its properties
George Griffin,Head (1975). George Griffin, Trickfilm 3 (1973).

73
(e.g. the chemicals used for processing it, different layers of emulsion
and colour etc.).
Structure as the abstraction of system
The animated film as a system has an extremely complex structure, com-
prised of different subsystems that are in a constant state of change and
development. The structure changes with the animated film itself: every
new film leads to the development and perfection of the structure ofthe
entire field.
It is difficult to position interactive (haptic) films in
the framework of the above-described structural
models. Peter Greenaway, the celebrated film direc-
tor and visionary, has announced the death of clas-
sical cinema and designated the particular date of
this event – 31 September 1983, when the televi-
sion remote control was introduced; in Greenaway’s
opinion, the same moment also marks the birth of
interactive cinema (http://www.youtube.com/
Peter Greenaway.
watch?v=-t-9qxqdVm4). In interactive cinema, narrative in the tradi-
tional sense has been replaced by the controlled movement ofcharacters.
The most famous director of interactive animated films is Han Hooger-
brugge, whose work can mainly be found online and in art galleries, as
the screening of haptic films in theatres or on television is problematic
due to the lack of a technical device that would permit the audience to
‘touch’ the screen. Viewers always have the opportunityto intervene and
influence the course ofthe film: to control thepace, direct or prevent the
actions of characters, jump to the next episode or setting, elicit repeti-
tion etc. Watching – or, rather, experiencing – such films implies active
and personal connection with the film, as well as a chance to control it
with a mouse, a remote control or some other similar device. Interac-

74
ANIMASOPHY
tive films escape the traditional three-act narrative structure; instead, the
audience controls the characters and browses the filmic space.
It is also difficult to adapt previously described models to the increas -
ingly popularmachinima (‘machine’ + ‘cinema’): the use of real-time 3D
graphics engines from pre-existing video games to generate independent
computer animations, based on the characters of such video games as
Quake 2, Unreal Tornament, Half-Live etc. In principle, machinima is
a recording of interactive film. At the moment, its range of influence is
limited to a small group of fans. However, with the continuous ad-
vancement oftechnologies, such phenomena– e.g. rejecting the classical
three-act narrative structure – will certainly gain more ground. Even
though interactive cinema is still a territory of isolated and random ex-
perimentation, the accounts of the structure of the animated film should
take into account these and other potential new styles and techniques.
Most probably, these investigations can no longer concentrate on narra-
tive properties and the three-act structure.

75
Little House
Kristjan Holm’s debut film, the hand-drawn anima-
tion Little House (Väike maja, 2009) has an interest-
ing structure: it consists of two parallel stories that
intersect only at the end. In one of these, a man is
trying to fall asleep, but remembers, every time he
switches off the light, an undone task and is forced
to get up, over and over again. The other storyline
presents a captain who is craving sleep yet is forced
to steer his ship. The yawning captain holds the
course to a blinking lighthouse. The ship is full of
merry, spirited people who sing karaoke. Suddenly,
however, it becomes apparent that the beacon of the
captain’s navigation is not a lighthouse after all, but
the dwelling of the sleepy man from the first story,
where lights are switched on and off in a lighthouse-
like pattern. The collision is inevitable, bringing
together two men and stories: the large passenger
ship crashes into the small houseon the coast. Little
House, thus, presents a multi-linear narrative – two
parallel stories. The audience realises only at the very
end (and perhaps somesharper viewers even slightly
before) that the captain has mistaken the constant
twinkle for a lighthouse and that catastrophe is in-
escapable.
In Holm’s film, everything is connected with every-
thing else, as in any ecosystem. Classical narrative
always entails a conflict – something that seems to
be missing in Little House. The characters’ actions
appear to have a certain motivation, yet there is no
Kristjan Holm.

76
ANIMASOPHY
triggering conflict. In Little House, theconflict – sus-
pense – develops gradually. In the beginning, the au-
dience feels increasingly lost by the apparent lack of
a coherent story, becoming more and more puzzled
as the narrative unrolls. This is Holm’s wayof spark-
ing a conflict between the film and the spectators,
solving it ultimately with a grand finale. Watching any
film or reading any book primarily requires the
recipients to reconstruct the presented story – to
recreate it by means of mentally interconnecting
episodes and details. Holm is an excellent storyteller
and his narration is enjoyable, but initially the view-
ers are confused because they are looking for a single
consistent narrative.
From a certain perspective, Little House can be in-
terpreted as a joke, preparing the spectators, inch by
inch, for the concluding punch line. Some of the
information is withheld, and the events unroll in a
precisely calculated manner, thus keeping up the
suspense and carefully timing the grand finale. The
conclusion is the apex of the film, not only provid-
ing the culmination of events but also presenting an
element of surprise: the audience realizes that the
flickering lights have turned a regular dwelling into a
lighthouse, causing the collision with the passenger
ship. Unlike Charlie Chaplin, whose comedies rely
on a pattern of multifarious gags, Holm has built his
comedy on a single gag, turning Little House into a
bizarre no-joke-comedy or act of absurdity. The lat-
ter is, after all, an integral part of life. Yet in real life,
in a similar situation, we can only participate in a

77
single linear story (the one surrounding us) and enjoy the consequent
punch line. We usually do not see the other, parallel, stories that might
cross our path at a certain point. We just run into ‘an unexpected visitor’
and wonder where it came from.

6. OntheCredibility
ofAnimatedCharacters
Grigory Shvets danced with his wife for decades. In 2008, Grigory’s wife passed away. After 40 days had
passed since the death of his late wife, Grigory made a life-size puppet, clad it in her clothes and continued
to attend dances with it.

80
ANIMASOPHY
Chuck Jones, the legendary animator of Warner Bros. and the author of
probably the most famous bunnyin the world, once introduced himself
to a young Bugs Bunny fan as ‘theman who drew Bugs Bunny’, correct-
ing himself immediately by saying that he is ‘the man who drew pictures
of Bugs Bunny’ (Wells 2002: 157).
Chuck Jones.
Professor Masahiro Mori.
This charming episode sheds some light on the dual
nature of animated characters: although they are in-
animate objects, they still tend to come across as real
individuals. And as the case of Chuck Jones dem-
onstrated above, their creators are not always sure
whether they have created a particular character or
just drawn pictures of him/her.
Masahiro Mori, a Japanese roboticist, published an
article in 1970 presenting the concept of the ‘un-
canny valley’ (bukimi no tani in Japanese). Mori pro-
posed that the more realistic or human-like ‘living’
artificial bodies (i.e. of robots, animated characters
etc.) appear, the more emphatic they seem to real
human beings (who consider them credible), up to
the point where artificial creatures become too
human-like and suddenly evoke eeriness instead of
empathy. Thus it is natural to relate to and identify with anthropomor-
phous artificial creatures, to regard them as ‘animated’ or spiritualised.
This is equally true of animals and other living souls surrounding people
in everyday conditions: it is easier to have animist attitudes towards a
rocking horse than a stuffed real horse.
Several animation studios have consciously avoided falling into the un-
canny valley and refrained from using human characters. ‘Toys, dolls,

81
ON THE CREDIBILITY OF ANIMATED CHARACTERS
insects, monsters and fish have been theheroes ofPixar’s unbroken series
of hits,’ asserts John Canemaker (2004).
Spectators identify with film characters on an unconscious level, sharing
their interests, feelings and perceptions and encountering in characters
reflections of themselves. The more realist an animated character, the
more lifelike the audience expects its behaviour to be. Thus a rudimen-
tary geometric figure in motion might seem much more attractive and
‘animated’ than a clumsily moving realistic human character. It is pre-
cisely moving characters (the dotted line in Mori’s graph) that make a
stronger emotional impact than thosewho stand still. As people are most
familiar with their own behavioural patterns, it is extremely difficult to
create realistic human characters in animated film. Even if we cannot
pinpoint what exactly is wrong with a virtually modelled human
character, we still sense a certain eeriness and refuse to believe in its
truthfulness. This might have something to do with the human fear of
death: an extremely realistic, yet still not real human character reminds
us of a dead body and we want to get as far away as possible from it. In

82
ANIMASOPHY
Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy: The Spirit
Within (2001).
Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, Shrek (2001).
Freudian thought, theconcept ofthe Uncanny (das Unheimliche in Ger-
man) describes an instance where something is familiar, yet foreign at
the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange.
This explains why cinema is often populated with virtual characters,
such as dinosaurs, aliens, monsters etc.: as these creatures do not exist
in real life, viewers are unable to verify the fidelity of their design and
movements.
Perplexing contradictions of credibility can occur in the framework of a
single film or even a scene: the poise and movements of the dwarfs in
WaltDisney’sSnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs(1937) makethem seem
much more alive than Snow White, whose appearance was designed to
be as lifelike as possible, yet whose behaviour and movements still feel
rigid. Similarly, Shrek, the ogre in Shrek (2001), leaves a much more dy-
namic impression than the King and the Queen, two human characters
who look awkward compared to Shrek.
Ancient Greeks and several Renaissance masters strove in their sculpture
and painting for the greatest possible degree of realism in the representa-
tion of the human figure. At the beginning of the 2000s, the advanced
technology of animation finally created suitable conditions for produc-
ing feature-length animated films cast with virtual human characters,
which at times were difficult or even impossible to tell apart from real

83
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003). John Lasseter, Tin Toy (1998).
human actors. Examples of such productions include Hironobu Sak-
aguchi’s Final Fantasy: The SpiritWithin (2001) and Robert Zemeckis’s
The Polar Express (2004). This is an interesting phase of animated film,
which provides exciting material for researchers of animation, but in
economic terms both of these films were complete failures. This hap-
pened because the audiences did not accept the films or, more precisely,
the characters seemed too realistic, too human-like, without being actual
humans, thus falling into the uncanny valley.
Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within made history by presenting the first
virtual (not actually existing) actor, Aki Ross. Upon the premiere of the
film, Ross became a true media star, who, for example, appeared in vari-
ous men’s magazines, as is typical of real human stars. The Polar Express
is a 3D computer animation where the movements and figures of virtual
characters have been modelled after popular human actors. It is an inter-
esting example of an attempt to make a technologically innovative film,
which still uses film stars to attract audiences: the virtual characters have
adopted the actors’ appearance, characteristic movements (created with
motion capture technique) and voices.
As Richard Rickitt maintains, ‘[o]ne of the greatest barriers to creating
convincing computer-generated characters has been the ability to syn-
thesize natural-looking skin’ (Rickitt 2007: 204). The problem is that

84
ANIMASOPHY
human skin contains a large amount of water and other organic matter,
which causes its surface to not reflect light totally, but instead toabsorb
some of it and change the colour of the reflected light. Nowadays, the
design of virtual characters applies a new type of mathematical formula
for directing light, which recognizes a character’s skin as organic matter.
One of the first virtual characters with ‘organic skin’ was Gollum in Pe-
ter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), created by Weta
Digital studio (Rickitt 2007: 204).
Photo-realist environments and extremely human-like animated charac-
ters have come to dominate the advertising industry, computer games
and television. To advertise their new cars, the Ford Motor Company, for
instance, has developed virtual models designed according to thetarget
customers of particular car models. Thus, Ford Fiesta’s target group
underwent thorough demographic research, the results of which
provided the basis for inventing the imaginary model Antonella, who, in
addition to a carefully crafted appearance, also possesses a fully de-
veloped personality with her own curriculum vitae and street address
(Patton 2009).
Judging by photos of contemporary virtual human characters, it is in-
deed difficult to tell them apart from real people. However, there is defi-
nitely something not quite right about their behaviour and movements,
which throws these characters once again into the uncanny valley. At the
same time, films like Ice Age (2002), Beowulf (2007) and Wall-E (2008)
were extremely successful, even though they, too, were intended to
present ‘lifelike’ characters. Yet their casts of either animals or mystical
and metaphysical heroes were more acceptable to audiences. The
Incredibles (2004) provides an interesting example of animated human
characters: the protagonists are indeed of the human race, but realism
was not among the goals of their creators; instead, they are manifestly
caricature-like and their movements resemble Chuck Jones’s hyperac-

85
tive creatures, rather than true human beings. The characters of Chris
Landreth’s Ryan(2004) and Tarik Saleh’s Metropia (2009) similarly leave
a very truthful impression, precisely because their features have been in-
tentionally distorted and their movements stylized. Andy Huang’s short
animation Doll Face (2005) provides another fascinating example of life-
like character: its protagonist has a robotic, carcass-like metal body, yet
absolutely photo-realist face. Despite, or perhaps due to, this combina-
tion of inorganic artificial body and photo-realist face, the character’s
performance seems very convincing – a photo-realist virtual actor could
not have achieved a similar effect. This is confirmed by John Lasseter’s
short film Tin Toy (1998), where the overly human-like virtual baby is
entirely unpersuasive. James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) is the first feature-
length film where the advanced level of technical execution of virtual
characters manages to completely avoid the uncanny valley. Avatar com-
bines elements of live action cinema and animation with remarkable
success, raising live action film-making to an entirely new level, where
virtual characters become inseparable agents of live action cinema.
Several contemporary puppet animators, such as Chris Lavis and Maciek
Szczerbowski (Madame Tutli-Putli, 2007) and Suzie Templeton (Dog,
2001; Peter & the Wolf (Piotrus i wilk), 2006), have also concentrated
on creating extremely realistic puppets but, unlike in 3D computer ani-
mation, the technique of puppet animation itself renders the puppet
characters somewhat abstract and thus more credible.
Numerous media labs and animation studios continue to make serious
efforts to transcend the uncanny valley. The birth of photography and
cinematography created firm foundations for maximally realistic rep-
resentations of human beings, and the introduction of lifelike virtual
humans does not constitute a new artistic paradigm. However, inves-
tigations of relationships between virtual and real human beings, and
observation of human behaviour and attitudes towards virtual human

86
ANIMASOPHY
Suzie Templeton,Peter& theWolf(2006).
Andy Huang, Doll Face (2005).
Tarik Saleh, Metropia (2002).
characters might lead to new discoveries in terms
of human nature itself. The study of the concept
of the uncanny valley might, for example, reveal
why some people feel uncomfortable around their
handicapped peers. Or why, in certain social situ-
ations, members of a minority tend to fall victim
to persecution.
Among contemporary institutions, the most ded-
icated to the project of developing photo-realistic
virtual human beings is Image Metrics, a studio
established in London and now also operating in
the American market, catering mainly to Holly-
wood studios and video game companies. One of
its leaders, Mike Starkenburg, has asserted that
‘[t]he subtlety of the timing of eye movements is a
big one. People also have a natural asymmetry
– for instance, in the muscles in the sides of their
faces. Those types of imperfections aren’t that sig-
nificant but they are what make people look real’
(Richards 2008).
Weta Digital studio in New Zealand, which spe-
cialises in digital visual effects, and the American
studios Rhythm + Hues and Industrial Light &
Magic have also shown remarkable results in their
efforts to overcome the uncanny valley. The latest
technical developments in the creation of virtual
universes and characters are usually introduced to
the general public at annual conferences of SIG-
GRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPH- ics
and Interactive Techniques). These meetings,

87
which have taken place in the United States since 1974 and bring to-
gether thousands of computer professionals, rarely conclude without
discussing the problem of the uncanny valley.
It is difficult to predict where and how far the development of realistic
virtual characters will go, yet undoubtedlyseveral attempts to overcom e
the uncanny valley have been successful and continuously advancing
technologies open new opportunities for even more intensive work in
this area. Even now it is clear that the characters of modern media are
like flowers on tables ofstreet cafés – you never know if they are real. Yet,
as Masahiro Mori’s concept of the uncanny valley has proved, photo-
realism does not guarantee the credibility of characters; it may, in fact,
do the opposite.

88
ANIMASOPHY
Märt Kivi.
Invisible Laika
A dog called Laika became, as far as we know, the
first living thing to orbit the Earth. Laika’s journey
into deep space occurred in 1957, signifying the be-
ginning of an entirely new epoch – the space era.
Everybody knew Laika – shewas widely discussed in
newspapers and magazines, on radio and television;
picture postcards and posters with her image were
much sought after items. Precisely half a century
later, in 2007, Märt Kivi completed his animated
film Laika. Interestingly enough, the Nukufilm stu-
dio, where Kivi works, was also founded in 1957,
and has been orbiting the world of animation ever
since, just as Laika still orbits the Earth. Kivi’sstop-
motion animation actually never shows Laika, who,
judging by the film’s title, should be its protagonist,
even though she is constantly present. The film is
presented through her eyes. The subjective camera
(i.e. Laika) adopts dog-like movements, accompa-
nied by the hound’s huffing and puffing.
The film begins by showing a curious man, dressed
in a smart suit, moving steadily in one direction. He
is followed by the camera – Laika. The film is set in
what seems to be a strange abandoned industrial
environment, scattered with empty containers and
construction debris. Perhaps it is the backyard of a
scientific research facility and the man is a scientist.
His systematic roaming forms a symbol of its own.
In the end, Laika seems to be moving away from the
man, as the musicand mood of the film change. We

89
see the moon and starry sky. A new era dawns for
Laika and all humankind. Although her life in the
back yard was not exactly a bed of roses, the one-way
ticket to outer space, accompanied by a limited sup-
ply of oxygen and food, constitutes a true tragedy. We
can imagine how Laika screeches in the distance,
paraphrasing Neil Armstrong, the first man on the
moon: ‘That’s one small experiment for science, one
giant tragedy for a laboratory animal.’
Indigenous peoples are often afraid of cameras – they
fear that having their pictures taken deprives them of
their souls, that their souls are captured by the
photographic image. Westerners have always found
this slightly amusing and primitive, but perhaps we
have become so used to taking pictures that we
overlook the magic of photography – its power to
preserve more than just an image. Things are pre-
cisely the other way around in animation: the pho-
tographic image, or a sequence of them, endows the
lifeless character with a soul. The inanimate is
animated. The animated film animates (spiritualizes)
lifeless characters, and vitalizes matter, giving it a
soul. Laika, on the other hand, did not get a soul be-
cause there was no matter to vitalize. The protagonist
of Laika exists beyond the limits of the frame/screen
and her existence is only referred to indirectly, by
means of sound, camera movements and the behav-
iour of other characters. While normally the making
of animated films leaves behind certain traces – draw-
ings, puppets etc., Laika’s existence cannot be proved
by anything tangible. Can we, then, still contend that

90
ANIMASOPHY
the character, whose existence is beyond doubt yet
who remains invisible, is in fact animated? I suggest
that Laika is not animated; she is alive!
Laika constitutes an interesting example of a living
character, in addition to being an animated charac-
ter proper, who is made possible due to her invis-
ibility. Laika lives beyond the limits of the frame/
screen, and her body and soul materialize only in the
viewer’s mind. Animation is essentially all about
inducing the illusion of motion in the minds of the
audience, yet Kivi has pursued this characteristi c
even further by making a film where not only the il-
lusion of motion but also the character is basically a
mental phenomenon. Thus Laika expands the lim-
its of the animated film and suggests a new perspec-
tive for understanding the concept of the animated
character.

7. OnRealismintheAnimatedFilm
Cinematographer Raivo Möllits shooting the animated film BodyMemory (2011).

94
ANIMASOPHY
During the days ofthe early cinematic experiments, at least two conven-
tional and contradictory styles emerged: the realist style of the Lumière
brothers and the fantastic style of Georges Méliès. Animation has cus-
tomarily been seen as a follower of Méliès’s tradition, where the authors
create their own fantasy worlds; the effects of realism, on the other hand,
have been considered the realm of live action fiction films and docu-
mentaries.
The perception of animation as a genre far from realism has been deter-
mined – among other things – by the fact that historically it has been
dominantly connected with children’s entertainment: many animated
films are based on fairy tales and use puppets or drawn characters for
storytelling. Today, when animation is more popular than ever and has
long surpassed the limits of puerile amusement, the relationship with
realism needs to be studied in order to better comprehend the nature of
animated films. In philosophical terms, realism usually refers to ac-
knowledging the real existence of certain things. Indeed, for an adult it is
difficult to conceive of fairy tale creatures shaped by the artistic mind as
something really existing. For the purposes of this paper, I interpret real-
ism as a maximally accurate representation of reality, or as an attempt to
re-present the real world as close to the original as possible.
Returning to the relationship between animation and the fantastic style
of Méliès, one has to admit that the earliest animations indeed belonged
to the Méliès school. They did not lay any claim to a documental qual-
ity, and the film-makers opposed their work to depictions of the real
world. One reason for doing so might have been excitement over new
and potentially wider means of self-expression. Thus, it became pos-
sible in animation to associate the figures of fine art with the aesthetics
of the moving image, which, contrary to live action fiction films and
documentaries, escaped the laws of gravity and overcame the anatomical
limits of characters.

95
ON REALISM IN THE ANIMATED FILM
Pioneers of animation, such as Émile Cohl, Ladislas Starevich, Oskar
Fischinger and Lotte Reiniger, earned world-wide recognition as crea-
tors of visual narratives full of fantasy, and concentrated on the inven-
tion of non-realistic stories, characters and movements.
Yet rare exceptions can also be found: for instance, Winsor McCay’s The
Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) re-creates the tragic wreck of the passen-
ger liner Lusitania on the Atlantic Ocean in 1915. It is probably the first
widely known animated film based on a true story (Ashbee 2003: 38).
The liner fell victim to an attack by a German submarine and sank in
fifteen minutes after a direct hit from a torpedo. 1198 people perished
in the accident. The attack of a civilian ocean-liner was a critical factor
in the US declaring war on Germany. No authentic photographic or
cinematographic recordings survived the incident. According to Brian
Ashbee, ‘McCay studied news reports and eyewitness accounts, then
visualized the scene from a number of dramatic viewpoints’ (Ashbee
2003: 38). Giannalberto Bendazzi further maintains that ‘McCay cre-
ated a dramatic, extremely detailed, gripping movie which maintained
the rhythm and style of contemporary documentaries or newsreels’
(Bendazzi 1994: 17). Thus, The Sinking of the Lusitania is an animation
in terms of cinematic technique, yet a documentary in generic terms, or,
on the whole, an animated documentary. Steve Reinke has defined this
concept of ‘animated documentary’ as follows: ‘When we say that Win-
Winsor McCay, The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

96
ANIMASOPHY
sor McCay’s The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is an animated docu-
mentary, we mean something like: if the same images were live action,
we would have a documentary’ (Reinke 2005: 20). Or, in other words,
the animated documentary uses animation techniques and documen-
tary aesthetics.
The documentary is widely considered to be the most powerful film
genre in terms of generating the effect of realism. Yet a look at the
process of making a documentary convinces us rather quickly that we
are dealing only with a film-maker’s vision or opinion, and not with a
representation of the real world. The music, editing and camera angles
alone can change the meaning of the filmed material. Ashbee argues that
the ‘camera cannot be a neutral recording device because it influences
its subject; people behave differently in front of it’ (Ashbee 2003: 40).
Animated documentaries, on the other hand, do not use the camera to
immediately describe the world, but to mediate it through drawings,
puppets, computer graphics etc. Therefore, it can be argued – at least
theoretically – that in a sense animations depict their subjects even more
objectively than conventional documentaries, because they recreate the
essence of the subject through an application of an appropriate anima-
tion technique without actually filming, and thus influencing, it.
As the film scholar Jean Mitry has argued, ‘information, even the most
trivial, inevitably becomes a kind of personal discourse’, when rendered
by a camera (Mitry 2000: 36). Every documentary is subjective by na-
ture, since it entails conscious or subconscious selection and presen-
tation of material by the film-maker. Martin Heidegger has used the
notion in-der-Welt-sein in order to explain the essence of being in the
world. Humans and the world are integrally intertwined and, hence,
cinema cannot portray the world without film-makers simultaneously
depicting themselves with it.

97
If we accept film-makers’ subjectivity in documentaries as realism, then
realism should also be found in animations, despite the fact that eve-
rything we see and hear on the screen is consciously created by film-
makers and reflects their subjective vision of the world.
Yuri Lotman has made an interesting point in his Semiotics of Cinema,
which concerns our understanding of representing reality by means of
photography and fine arts: ‘We all know how distorting and unconvinc-
ing photographs can be. The better we know a person, the less resem-
blance we find in photographs of him. For each person whose face is
truly familiar to us we prefer a portrait by a competent artist to a photo-
graph of equal artistry. Wefind more resemblance in the painting. But if
we are shown a portrait and a photograph of a person whom we do not
know, and are asked to select the one most clearly resembling him, we
pick the photograph without hesitation’ (Lotman 1976: 12). Elabo-
rating his statement further, it could be argued that a skilfully executed
animation based on a familiar subject matter or field might be consid-
ered highly realistic. In fact, with an approach like this, conventional
animation techniques, which contrary to live action films are not based
on the mechanical reproduction of photo-realistic images, even have a
certain advantage in representing reality.
Chris Landreth’s Ryan (2004) has been generically
classified as an animated documentary. The film is
based on a story about the legendary Canadian
animator Ryan Larkin, who became an alcoholic and
a tramp. The protagonist’s representation in three-
dimensional computer animation emphasizes his
personal features and manner. ‘Ryan sometimes
appears to be modified ‘live action’, but everything
was conceived and executed on the computer and
Chris Landreth.
all character movement was created by hand and did not use motion

98
ANIMASOPHY
Chris Landreth, Ryan (2004).
capture’ (Wells 2006: 130). The film is tremendously true to life due to
the computer-animated exaggerated effects of, and additions to, reality.
Ryan’s documentary qualities and its deep dimension of realism owe a
great deal to the skilful application of animation techniques.
In Creature Comforts (1989), Nick Park has combined documental in-
terviews with animated animals. Creatures at a zoo – modelled in Plas-
ticine – tell stories about people’s living environment. Park has managed
to create a perfect correspondence between personalized human voices
and animated characters. The discussion of human problems by the
animals imprisoned in cages certainly communicates the text in a much
more convincing (and amusing) way. ‘Art requires a twofold experience –
simultaneouslyforgetting that you are confronted by an imaginary event
and not forgetting it. Only in art can we both be horrified by the evil of
an event and appreciate the mastery of the actor’ (Lotman 1976: 17).
The investigation of realism in animation creates a fairly schizophrenic
situation: on one hand, we have to admit that the space (world) con -
structed in animation is entirely artificial and exists independently of the
real world; on the other hand, this space (world) represents reality.
According to the animation theorist Paul Wells, the illusion of realism in
animation can be called hyper-realism. The concept of hyper-realism
was first conceived by the semiotician Umberto Eco. Eco employed it to

99
describe Disneyland, where absolutely everything is artificial, yet simul-
taneously somehow morereal than reality. In Understanding Animation
(2005), Wells attempts to map the essence of realism in animated films.
As a central point of reference in the study of realism, he proposes Dis-
ney’s animations, which according to him are hyper-real (Wells 2005: 25).
Thus, following Wells, we should move along an axis which has realist
films on one end, non-realist (abstract) films on theother end and hyper-
real Disney’s films in the middle. On the diagram below I have depicted
the scale of realism suggested by Wells.
Wells introduces four features to be taken into account when measuring
the degree of realism in animated films:
» design
» characters
» sound
» movement
The animation theorist Stephen Rowley follows a different approach,
suggesting that, instead of evaluating certain objects, particular versions
of realist representation should be studied. According to Rowley one
should observe:
» visual realism
» aural realism

100
ANIMASOPHY
» realism of motion
» narrative and character realism
» social realism
Additionally, he indicates that the examination of realism in animation
should proceed, not from physical features, but rather from experiences
of the spectators. Or in other words, it is not important how closely an
animated film resembles the physical parameters existing in the real
world, but how faithful to reality it seems to the spectators (Rowley
2005: 70).
However, both Wells and Rowley neglect, in their respective discussions,
to pay proper attention to the director’s relationship with film or, more
widely, to the question of genre. Consequently, a peculiar situation de-
velops where, for example, an animated film – extremely realistic accord-
ing to all the criteria – could at the same timebe conceived as a complete
parody. Is it still a realist animation?
Returning to the two examples given above – Ryan and Creature Com-
forts – one has to ask which one of them is more realistic; according to
both Wells’s and Rowley’s criteria, the films are fairly similar, yet Ryan is
essentially serious, while Creature Comforts mocks various TV talk
shows. Hence it is difficult to evaluate the relations of animation with
realism without taking into account the director’s generic intentions.
The studyof representations of reality in animated films entails onemore
aspect which is essentially different from its use in a conventional
documentary – that of credibility. Unlike a documentary, an animation
striving for a maximally truthful representation of reality must be cred -
ible to the audience. The issue of credibility brings animation closer to
live action fiction films, where the performance of an actor may ormay
not carry conviction.

101
Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, Pocahontas
(1995).
Steven Spielberg, Jurassic Park (1993).
Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former head of the Disney studio, has pondered
the effect of realism in the feature length animation Pocahontas (1995),
maintaining that ‘the real possibility of Pocahontas diving 100 feet from
a cliff into a pool of water may be made be more spectacular if she were
to appear to dive 300 feet, a feat enacted in entire safety, and with
persuasive plausibility, in the animated form. At one and the same time
‘the very conditions of rationality’ have been challenged but made to
comply to a different, yet convincing, realist rationale. It may still be the
case that this perspective on realism will ultimately be unsatisfying. […]
Importantly, though, in thecase of Pocahontas, The Disney Studios felt a
strong commitment to depict its lead characters as believably as possible
because, for the first time in a Disney animated feature, the story was
based on real-life people and events’ (Wells 2005: 26). The studio’s aim
was to represent as truthfully as possible both the main characters and
the whole world of the film. The film’s press release states that ‘at vari-
ous stages of the production, the creative team consulted with Native
American historians and storytellers to incorporate authentic aspects of
the Powhatan culture into the film’ (Byrne and McQuillan 1999: 112).
The issue of credibility becomes especially topical when dealing with
symbiotic relations between animation and live action. Steven Spiel-

102
ANIMASOPHY
berg’s Jurassic Park (1993) is one of the first live action features to use
computer animation throughout the film. The performances of human
actors intertwine with the actions of virtual dinosaurs. The animated
dinosaurs of Jurassic Park exemplify, tellingly, the issue of credibility in
animation, both in this particular case and in the wider sense. None of
us has had a personal immediate contact with living and moving dino-
saurs, yet thecomputer animated creatures of Jurassic Park are extremely
convincing and realistic. Thus, it can be inferred that the credibility of
an animated character results mostly from dynamic movement, and the
character’s photo-realist similarity with its prototype is only secondary.
Credibility does not spring from the photographic imitation of objects,
but rather from certain coded features of behaviour.
When talking about realism in animated films, I primarily mean the
creation of the illusion of the real world. On a philosophical level, one
could, of course, argue that we see real puppets, actually existing draw-
ings or some other kind of substance in animations, and that’s what
creates the bridge between spectators and reality. Paradoxically, however,
the utter illusion of realism has been reached in 3D animation, where
the film’s wholeworld is created virtually, and the spectators lack any di-
rect connection with the real world. ‘With three dimensional computer
graphics, reality itself has to be constructed from scratch before it can
be photographed by a virtual camera’ (Manovich 1997: 11). Computer
animation has advanced to a stage where often it is no longer possible
to distinguish the virtually created image from documentary footage.
The best examples, in this respect, are provided by big-budget Holly-
wood productions, as well as by the computer simulators used for train-
ing pilots and in the war industry. Technological advances have created
a situation in animation, or, more precisely, in computer animation,
where representation of realism is easily attainable, to the extent that
people cannot see any difference between an artificially created world
and its natural antecedent. One could ask what the next level ofdevelop-

103
ment for animation is. Will it ultimately merge with live action fiction
films and documentaries, or will it stand as a separate genre? A closer
look at other creative disciplines proves that, beyond ‘realism’, a rapid
withdrawal from descriptions of the real world begins, and the modern-
ist stage is reached. In the evolution of painting, realism was followed by
impressionism, emphasizing the artist’s vision instead of the realistic
representation of objects. Cubism, replacing impressionism, in turn lib-
erated artists from the need to represent the natural world altogether.
Thus, after reaching ‘realism’, painting rapidly moved beyond the fi-
delity of representation; instead, the author’s vision gained dominant
importance. Similarly, a prompt detachment from realism also occurred
in literature, theatre and fine art. Animation is, by nature, a symbiosis of
many creative disciplines, but as an independent genre it has only over
the last decade been capable of representing the artificial world in a way
which for the human eye is indistinguishablefrom documentary images.
It seems that the ideology of mainstream animation (computer and also
some hand-drawn animations produced by major studios) has reached
the era of realism-naturalism, where the execution of maximally realistic
waves, rain showers or hair is the main object of competition. At the
same time, simultaneously with realist computer animation, films op-
posing ‘the perfection provided by computers’ have gained a great deal
ofimportance. Exemplifiedbyproductions such as Beavisand Butt-head
Mike Judge, Beavis and Butt-head (1993−1997). Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park
(1997−2007).

104
ANIMASOPHY
(1993–1997) and South Park (1997–2008), these films intentionally
emphasize the imperfection which could be easily avoided with con -
temporary technologies. Thus, the aspiration towards more and more
faithful portrayals of reality has been complemented by a quest for an
alternative to this fascination with realism by the major studios.
Naturally, this is an extremely streamlined approach to the current situ-
ation in animation. Yet, undoubtedly, similarities can be found with the
development of other creative fields. The evolution of animated film is
influenced by many aspects, most importantly the advancement of tech-
nologies and of other art forms in general; however, this development
should not be perceived as a linear progression, but rather as a constant
active challenging of limits. The investigation of relations between ani-
mation and realism must continue, in order to better comprehend ani-
mation and to anticipate its future trends.

105
Things in the Air
Martinus Daane Klemet’s animated film In the Air
(Õhus, 2009) opens with a scene in a zoo, where a
crazy scientist (an Albert Einstein look-alike) is
determined to produce evidence of the contagious
effects of media. He places a television set transmit-
ting an image of a grass-munching cow in the cage
of a wolf, which reacts by starting to eat grass, too,
first reluctantly but then with increasing gusto. Inall
probability, the scientist is attempting to convince
the surrounding crowd of the media’s contagious
effect, of its tendency to manipulate. Unfortu-nately,
the witnesses of the experiment are not aware of
being manipulated; they don’t realizethat all ofthem
are controlled by the media. The zoo keeper –
whether motivated by his compassion for the wolf
or a sense of rebellion against the system – decides
to set the beast free. Later, most likely as a result of
this decision, we see him imprisoned. In the prison,
the inmates are also glued to television screens,
testimony to the fact that the charms of media are
even stronger than the walls of the penitentiary. The
former zoo keeper makes an attempt to escape, yet
once again the media casts its spell on him, catching
his attention on his way through the prison gates,
and the police bring him back to his cell. After hav-
ing served his time, the zoo keeper returns to the
world outside entirely commanded and controlled
by the media. The media, in turn, is controlled and
manipulated by the wolf from the zoo.
Martinus Daane Klemet.

106
ANIMASOPHY
The atmosphere of the film closely resembles that of
George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949),
in which the world is controlled and dominated by
means of screens. While the Orwellian chain of con-
trol and command is topped by a human dictator, in
Klemet’s story this position is filled by the wolf (as a
symbol of the blood-thirsty tyrant). The mo-
tivations of the wolf remain somewhat obscure, but
it appears that, by manipulating media, the wolf has
decided to finish off all humankind. His plans fail,
however, after the zoo keeper and the wolf are reu-
nited: the wolf is determined to save his benefactor
and, thanks to him, mankind is also left unharmed.
Thus, in a society where people treat each other like
wolves, the wolf develops humane instincts. The
conclusion is idealistic: the wolves are fed, and the
(human) sheep are safe. Or, is this harmonic solu-
tion merely another media manipulation?
As far as I know, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has
not been adapted for the screen in the form of ani-
mation, yet the feature-length animated version of
his Animal Farm (1945), made in 1954 by John
Halas and Joy Batchelor, has become truly legen-
dary. This film introduced an entirely new paradigm
of animal characters: while previously animals had
been normally depicted as carefree and comi- cal,
after Animal Farm animated animals occasion- ally
were represented as intelligent and introspective
creatures. Klemet’s wolf belongs to this tradition: he
is an intelligent, contemplative and extremely self-
conscious beast.

107
Instead of traditional dialogue, Klemet relies heavily
on word-play: the wolf behaves humanely, the peo-
ple turn into beasts etc. In a sense, In the Air also has
a certain typographic quality: the visual design, which
is to a large extent created by Gerda Märtens, is
carried out in the sharp contrasts of black and white,
much like a printed text. The film deals with several
social issues and is set in a particular spatio- temporal
situation – the contemporary Estonian Republic.
This lends a somewhat documentary aura to the film.
Klemet, however, has not made an animated
documentary; rather, his work is a part of the abstract
paradigm of animated film which actively ‘flirts’ with
realism. Animation film is generally ruled by the
‘hyperbole of reality’: the more detailed, the higher
the level of realism. Klemet’s film, on the other hand,
disobeys this rule. Its visual design is extremely
realistic, yet only in terms of the contours of
characters and background elements. On a con-
ceptual level, Klemet subscribes to a certain kind of
postmodern approach to documentary film-making,
which is convinced of the relativity of ‘truth’ and
‘realism’. The term ‘reality’ comes from the Latin
word realitas (res), meaning ‘object’. Indeed, there
are a surprising number of objects in Klemet’s film,
and their outlines are very realistic. In terms of out-
lines (silhouettes), the film’s design can beconsidered
highly realistic. But the outlines are filled with and
surrounded by pure white emptiness, nearly without
any half tones and textures. The contour lines repre-
senting the outlines of a photo-realist world stand, to
someextent, in contrast with the vast empty surfaces

108
ANIMASOPHY
between them. Empty surfaces, a lack of detail, appear strange at first
glance, but the narrative content and the visual design actually result in
a motivated harmony. After all, everyone is born as a tabula rasa – a
blank slate – gradually filled in by the effects of the surrounding envi-
ronment. Nowadays, however, tabula rasa could also be translated as a
blank screen, upon which the media projects its flux of information. In
the Air is the story of the effects of and dependence on the media and
the white empty surfaces of the animated characters stand for their lack
of substance. The emptier the people, the better they yield to the media’s
manipulations and domination. Klemet’s two-dimensional hand-drawn
characters are empty inside, and that’s what makes them so easy to ma-
nipulate.
Realism in the animated film is not only about the photographic imi-
tation of objects; it is also about following a particular audiovisual code.
Realism in animation can take diametrically different forms: all the
spectators of and all the characters in the animated film belong to their
own worlds, shaped by their individual experiences. Klemet and Märtens
express the world of their film by means of outer contours – just as a
key can open a lock only if the contours of the key match the lock.
Describing the outlines and remaining on the surface is one of the most
characteristic features of today’s media: problems are only dealt with
superficially, the outlines are sketched but there isn’t enough timeto dig
more deeply into the marrow of issues. Klemet’s film is a postmodern
work, referring to and mocking the essence of contemporary media by
means of an animation technique. Irony and social criticism stand side
by side with a mere play of images. Historically, humanity has been
considered the highest among the species, but in Klemet’s film
humankind has been cornered as a result of its own experiments, and
has lost control to a runaway wolf. In Klemet’s film, man has becom e
an animal idiota who has brought destruction upon himself but still
manages to feel contentment. In the Air skilfully employs the devices

109
and techniques of animation to highlight the essence and madness ofthe
postmodern world, where all people and animals remain prisoners,
whether in a zoo, in a prison or in ‘freedom’. They are convicts control-
led by the all-encompassing media.

8. On Storytelling
in the AnimatedFilm
The main character of the animated film Taste of Life (2006).

112
ANIMASOPHY
Storytelling has been a significant part of human activities for thousands
of years. Stories can appear in many shapes: as fairy tales, legends, songs,
drawings, prayers etc. The human race has recorded in stories its most
important knowledge and all its experiences. In this chapter I will ex-
amine storytelling in the animated film, its different narrative forms and
specific characteristics.
The story is fundamental to any film. Every film – whether live action
fiction film, documentary or animation – is always based on a story. In
some cases, it might be a voluminous literary work, in others simply a
short anecdote. The style of narration might be either realistic or ab-
stract; even apparently arbitrarily connected shots can be shaped into a
story in the viewer’s mind, as the Soviet film-maker Lev Kuleshov dem-
onstrated in the 1920s.
When discussing storytelling or narration in the animated film, one has
to take into account the fact that not only conventional forms of anima-
tion but also interactive computer games and other audio-visual works
involving animation rely heavily on attractive stories. While in the early
days of computer and video games people were attracted merely by the
novelty of the technology and by the nature of virtual reality itself, now
it is impossibleto attain popularity without an excellent story (plot). This
also explains why several big-budget animations have not been suc-
cessful, while others have enjoyed immense recognition, despite their
modest production value. Indeed, the story and the way it is told is
probably the only aspect of competition where small production com-
panies are on an equal footing with large-scale producers; in every other
aspect, the major companies have the financial advantage of creating
more spectacular special effects, using more sophisticated animation
techniques and more popular music and, through promotion, making
their films even more appealing to spectators.

113
ON STORYTELLING IN THE ANIMATED FILM
The distinctive nature of the story in animation is determined by the
essence of the animated film: vitalizing, or animating, motionless ele-
ments. While in other genres the story, first and foremost, entails an
enticing plot, in animation it is most crucial to first depict the characters
so that they come to life, and only then to communicate the plot. It is
impossible in an animated film to tell a story without making the audi-
ence believe that the characters have come to life. Lifeless characters
cannot convey a lively, credible story. Thus, the primary function of the
narrative in animation is to animate the characters, and through them to
communicate the story to the viewers.
Animated films and computer games share the same technologies, to a
great extent; the rise in their popularity has appeared concurrently with,
and largely due to, the development of digital technologies. Until the
1980s, animated films for wider adult audiences were virtually non-
existent. Although a variety of auteur animation existed, mainly pro-
duced for the festival circuit, animation was still chiefly identified as a
children’s genre. The first animated television series for adult audiences,
such as The Simpsons (since 1989), Beavis and Butt-head (1993–1997),
King of the Hill (1997–2009), Futurama (1999–2003 and since 2008)
etc. were launched – and met great success – only about a decade or two
ago, simultaneously with rapid progress in digital technologies and
massive marketing of desktop computers. The world-famous Walt Dis-
ney studio still represents an utterly conservative and traditional branch
of animation, having produced, during its existence, more than fifty
feature-length animated films, all aimed at children.
The advanced level of today’s technologies makes it possible to conjure
up anything one might wish on the screen with the help of computers.
Computer animation makes it possible to create virtual characters and
worlds, which the human eye fails to distinguish from their real- life
counterparts. Incredible special effects, lighting schemes and camera

114
ANIMASOPHY
movements can be produced, but the spectacle of effects and technolo-
gies is not the crucial basis for a good movie. The human eye can be
easily deceived, tricked into believing in the virtual world and attracted
with visual fireworks, but it is much more difficult to mislead or fool the
human heart – this takes a good and enchanting story.
‘By its very nature cinematography is a story, a narration,’ claims Yuri
Lotman (Lotman 1976: 36), and continues: ‘But cinematic narration is
narration using cinema. Therefore, it reflects not only the general laws
of all story-telling, but also the specific features inherent in narration
through the cinema’ (Lotman 1976: 68). Narrowing down Lotman’sidea
of narration in film, we can argue that narration in animation is narration
with devices of animation, where features characteristic to animated
films appear. Turning once again to the essence of animation
– bringing to life lifeless objects – we can conclude that animation film
is narration with devices of animation and, in addition to creating a nar-
rative, the animation must also bring its characters to life. But to tell a
story, one has to speak a language.
Lev Manovich, a professor and theorist of new media, proposes thecon-
cept of ‘cinegratography’ to indicate language based on a style which has
resulted from mixing different techniques of today’s audiovisual media
(Manovich 2001: 312). Nevertheless, it certainly seems that, to
understand animation in its great variety and difference from classical
cinema, a language of its own is required, that of animation – a dialect of
the filmic language. But as with any language, communicating in filmic
language demands a knowledge of rules and theory. To both appreciate
and create intelligible animations, one needs to be aware of not only
classical film theory but also of animation film theory and philosophy, or
in other words, of ‘animasophy’ – a term coined by the students of
animation at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

115
Motivation
People are always controlled by motivation: our every action or move is
caused by a certain incentive. Its source can beexternal: we go to work to
earn money, we give flowers to please etc. Most frequently, our external
and internal motivations are balanced, but people can also act contrary
to their external motivation. Even so, their actions are still motivated –
by internal stimuli. This involves a number of factors beyond our direct
control, which nevertheless influence our behaviour. Broadly speaking,
internal motivation is the instinct of self-preservation (and the need to
avoid pain).
Philosophers have devoted a great deal of discussion to matters of deter-
minism and the existence or lack of free will, but that issue falls outside
the scope of this paper. Nonetheless, we have to admit that in certain
situations people’s behaviour is determined – if only for physiological
reasons – independently of their free will: a shortage of air leads to suf-
focation and excessive heat causes perspiration.
Motivation is also connected with the characters in live action fiction
films and documentaries. External motivation stems from the features
of a particular role, while internal motivation is brought about by being
mortal. In the case of living characters inhabiting the real world, they
undoubtedly have internal motivation. In nature films, for instance, we
can observe how animals act on internal instincts – hunger, fear or li-
bido.
In terms of animated films, where the screen is occupied by inanimate
drawings, puppets or visualisations, we come to realise that the inevi-
table internal motivation of characters in live action fiction films and
documentaries is absent in the characters of animation. The internal
motivation needs to be created for them, in order, through it, to also en-
act the external motivation. A character in an animated film without in-

116
ANIMASOPHY
ternal motivation does not represent a filmic character intertwined with
storytelling, but is only an illustration of a character. An animated film
devoid of character(s) with internal motivation resembles an illustrated
book rather than a classical film. The former conveys a story entirely
through text and the pictures of the characters have only an illustrative
function, while in the latter the characters mediate the entire narrative.
Constructing the internal motivation of a character in an animated film
does not necessarily entail imitating the internal drives of the human
world, although it does remain the prevalent option. Indeed, the major-
ity of characters in Disney’s feature-length animations, e.g. Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940) or Bambi (1942), are
based on a simulation of internal motivation in the human world. How-
ever, the characters in animated films can also have an internal motiva-
tion completely their own, although it does have to remain constantly in
synch with the external motivation throughout the film. A good ex-
ample of presenting internal motivation in a way not imitative of the
human world is Kizi Mizi (2007) by Mariusz Wilczynski. The characters
in Kizi Mizi are conceived in a very simple, even primitive style, yet due
to the bizarre patterns of behaviour of the characters, who ignore the
normal rules of conduct, the authorhas managed to create a very playful
and entertaining narrative without attempting to mimic human man-
ners or physiology. The characters in Kizi Mizi – a cat and a mouse– are
animated by their spontaneity.
Spontaneity
In terms of spontaneity, the animated film is an extremely controlled
and carefully pre-planned genre. Its characters can be compared with
robots lacking any spontaneity rather than with characters from docu-
mentaries or live action fiction films, who more or less improvise, i.e.
construct, their conduct in front of the camera according to their inner
instincts.

117
MariuszWilczynski,KiziMizi(2007). Pjotr Sapegin, Aria (2001).
One has to keep in mind that animated film is an umbrella term en-
compassing a whole range of films created in many diverse techniques:
e.g. hand-drawn animation (cels), stop-motion animation, computer
animation, pixilation etc. Some techniques involve almost no spontane-
ity; for instance, in hand-drawn animation the movements of characters
have been line-tested and improved several times before becoming
suitable for the completed product. In computer animation, the fig-ures
move along a pre-determined grid; the animator first establishes the
beginning and end of a scene, and only then creates the movement in
between. In traditional stop-motion animation, on the other hand, the
characters have a relatively large amount of room for spontaneity: in
most cases, the animator begins the scene having no clue where or in
what position exactly the puppet will end up. The character’s every
move stems from its previous position and is to an extent conditioned
by the materials used, as well as by the animator’s technical abilities. The
animated character must have a degree of spontaneity in order to be
plausible. How alive animated characters are is enhanced byspontaneity
and also by having them obey rules of time and gravity, just as people
do.
Pjotr Sapegin, a director of animated films based in Norway, presented a
paper at the international colloquium The Soul of Voodoo (2007) in

118
ANIMASOPHY
Pjotr Sapegin.
Tallinn on one way to ‘give soul’ to a puppet: heshot
the scenes of his Aria (2001) in chronological order
and slightly changed the face of the protago-nist in
every successive scene, emphasizing change and
ageing over time. Aria is a unique adaptation of
Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, which is
structured around the character of the protagonist,
Madame Butterfly. Despite the roughness of its style
and the low budget of the production, the protago-
nist, and thus the whole film, tells an extremely touching and credible
story.
Creating a narration
Compared to other film genres, narration – i.e. the way an existing story
is presented on the screen in a particular film – is fundamentally differ-
ent in animated films. In live action films, a shot assembles the already
existing space, characters and relationships (Fig. 1). Classical animation,
on the other hand, is constructed in an ‘empty frame’: i.e. the particu -
lar space, characters and relationships are created for a particular film
(Fig. 2). In live action films the necessary elements are assembled in the
frame, while in animation they are dispersed, scattered across the frame.

119
Telling a story in film is complicated because offilm’s natureas a tremen-
dously complex medium. A book, for example, presents a story through
words, and a song through lyrics and melody, but a film includes several
narrative devices.
‘[T]here types of narration are simultaneouslypresent in contemporary
films: visual, verbal and musical (audial). Interrelations of great
complexity can arise among them. Moreover, if one type of narration is
represented by its meaningful absence (e.g., a film without musical
accompaniment), this does not simplify, but still more complicates the
construction of meanings’ (Lotman 1976: 69).
The technology has advanced immensely since the days Yuri Lotman
studied cinema and wrote about it, and today we can argue that, in ad-
dition to the graphic, verbal and musical type of narrative, a fourth type
– haptic – exists in films. Predominantly, the haptic type of narrative can
be found in computer games and in someanimations. By haptic, I mean
the opportunityfor a viewer to interactively intervene and make choices,
select and block etc. the progress of narration. Han Hooger- brugge, a
Dutch film-maker, has created several animations of the haptic type. In a
sense, Hoogerbrugge operates on the margins of film-making, hence the
main exhibitors of his work are art galleries, but he has also been popular
at film festivals and has received attention through special screenings.
The screening of his haptic animations in traditional cin- emas is
complicated by the lack of a technical device – e.g. a mouse – which
would permit the audience to ‘touch’ the screen. Hoogerbrugge’s films,
such as Neurotica (1998–2001), Hotel (2004–2006) etc. grant the
audience an opportunity to intervene and influence the development of
the narrative. Viewers of Hoogerbrugge’s films can, for example, affect
the pace of the film, make characters perform or prevent them from
performing certain acts, rapidly change the setting or move along to the
next episode, provoke repetitions etc. The spectatorship of films such

120
ANIMASOPHY
Han Hoogerbrugge,Neurotica (1998−2001). Han Hoogerbrugge, Hotel (2004−2006).
as these implies – just as in computer games – active and personal con-
nection with the film, as well as a chance to control it with a mouse or
some other similar device. In fact, some critics are prone to argue that
haptic films are precisely computer games, which evoke immediate per-
sonal experiences, rather than films in the conventional sense. Perhaps
Hoogerbrugge’s work cannot be regarded as cinema in the conventional
sense; on the other hand, cinema is still an ever-evolving art form and,
admittedly, due to the dizzying advance of technology, the classical cin-
ema as a place of exhibition has already been far surpassed in popularity
by computers, mobile phones, iPods etc. – that is, devices generating a
more personal link between films and their viewers.
Choice of characters
After a film’s story is written down as a screenplay, the characters are
selected. This process is referred to as casting in live action film-making
and as character design in animation. In some cases the screenplay is
written with a particular performer or character in mind; mostly, how-
ever, the script precedes the selection of players. This order ofprocedure
occurs both in live action and animation film-making.
The difference between the two stems from the fact that in live action
film-making the actors can help the director during rehearsals and
shooting. To make the acting seem more natural, the actors can propose

121
their own suggestions in terms of action and dialogue – specifically those
that seem natural and appropriate to the players themselves.
Since the characters in animation do not communicate with the direc-
tor, the whole ‘acting’ aspect, its details and nuances, are the director’s
responsibility. Because the director is also engaged in many other tasks,
often also serving as a producer, the sad fact is that in many animated
films the characters have been denied sufficient attention and thus often
whole films remain somewhat superficial. Ifthe characters have not been
credibly presented, then the whole film tends to result in unconvincing
narration.
Characters and space are the main mediators of narrative (plot) in ani-
mation films, yet the story cannot be told without making viewers be-
lieve that the characters are alive. Thus, the primary responsibility of the
director (i.e. the storyteller) in animation is to animate, to bring to life
the characters of the film, in order to narrate the story to the audience.

122
ANIMASOPHY
Ülo Pikkov.
Dialogos
The animated film Dialogos (2008) was hand-drawn
directly on film stock. This technique, direct anima-
tion, gives the author a chance to create the visual
universe of the film without relying on cameras or
scanners. While other animation techniques are es-
sentially recordings or reproductions, direct anima-
tion is, by definition, a direct presentation. Both the
achieved illusion (of motion, space etc.) and the film
stock (or material) itself become objects of film. The
technique of direct animation has fascinated a whole
array of directors, among them Norman McLaren,
Len Lye, Steven Woloshen and Boris Kazakov. The
spontaneous nature of this technique brings it closer
to ‘swinging’ than filming. The work of an author
reaches audiences in themost immediatemannerand
this can be extremely inspiring.
The driving force behind Dialogos was myintention
of investigating the relationship between animated
film and music. Everybody has their favourite tunes
and songs. And everybody has their beloved mov-
ies. Yet when it comes to listening or watching these
favourites repeatedly, things become less straightfor-
ward. In all likelihood, we have devoured ourfavour-
ite melodies hundreds of times and if given a chance
would do it again with pleasure. Forexample, if while
driving a car one of our favourite songs happens to
be on the radio, we automatically turn the volumeup
and start following the beat with delight and rec-
ognition. We enjoy listening to our favourite music
(or just any music) over and over again. Yet films

123
are entirely different in this respect. Only a handful
of fanatics are entertained by repeated screenings of
the same movie, and most people do not watch a film
more than once. I have many favourite films, yet if
any of them are broadcast on television I prefer not to
watch because I do not want to spoil the emotion and
experience of the first viewing. I do not want to watch
films over and over again, even if I consider them very
good! Why is it that we enjoy listening to the same
music almost endlessly, while we agree to watch a
movie only a limited number of times? Our attitude
to fictional literature is similar: usually we read a novel
or a story only once, while a poem tends not to be-
come boring even after several readings. Why? Most
probably these different attitudes are motivated by the
lack or presence of narrative. Both film and fictional
literature are based on stories – narratives – and if we
have already encountered a particular story and have
become familiar with its content, e.g. having learned
who the murderer is or that the protagonists will get
married, it is no longer exciting and thus we do not
want to watch or read it again. Musicand poetry, on
the otherhand, are often much moreabstract and lack
a continuous narrative. Musicdoes not so much tell
us particular stories as it creates certain moods, which
people are willing to experience repeatedly. This ex-
plains why the soundtracks of movies are so easily
marketable as independent products: unlike movies,
the soundtracks are susceptible to repeated presenta-
tion and after watching a particular film many people
tend to buy a CD with the soundtrack rather than a
copy of the film itself. The soundtrack re-evokes the
emotions brought about by watching a film. Even

124
ANIMASOPHY
though musicplays a major role in movies, viewers still tend to see films
as fictional narratives rather than musical pieces.
The immediate and spontaneous nature of direct animation, in compari-
son with other animation techniques, brings it closer to the creation and
performance of music. With Dialogos, I attempted to make a film that
would be as abstract as music, without narrative, and where elements of
design would change and vary according to the inner logic of music,
rather than that of narrative. At the same time, I also wanted to avoid a
completely abstract visualstyle ofvaguemovingimages.Dialogosispopu-
lated by distinct characters as in a narrative film, yet it lacks a narrated
story; rather, it is a sequence of sketches without cause-effect relation-
ships. A cast of particular characters appears again and again in different
situations, yet the visual images do not narrate a story, but constitute a
visual rhythm. The image track follows theinner logic of reggae music, in
which repetition becomes a part ofthe composition, and a certain theme
is repeated in different variations throughout the film. The visual images
reoccur and vary in synch with musical composition. As the authorofthe
film, I can say that Dialogos lacks a (narrated) story. Meanwhile, it seems
thatspectators stillalways try toconstruct astory whilewatching Dialogos,
which leads to rather peculiar and immensely varied interpretations of its
contents. This testifies to thefact that even though thefilm-maker has not
implanted a particular story in a film, the audience still recognizes one –
their own story. Usually, entirelyabstract films do not evoke stories, just as
people do not lookfor stories in music, which is by naturean abstract art
form. Yet if a film’s visual sign system transcends the principles of typical
abstract cinema (by presenting well-defined characters, particular images,
details etc., as in Dialogos), the audience automatically attempts to deci-
pher its story. Apparently, it is impossible to make a story-less film based
on distinct images, as people tend to look for a story in every picture.
This is especially true in the animated film, which is composed of many
pictures. Even ifthefilm-maker has consciously refused to narrate a story,
the spectators still project their own stories onto the film.

9. On Spaceinthe AnimatedFilm
Riho Unt and Hardi Volmer on the set of the animated film Spring Fly (1986).

128
ANIMASOPHY
The concept of animation originates from the Latin word anima (‘ani-
mation’ or ‘to animate’). Regrettably, this notion is sometimes defined in
rather simplistic terms: if something is moved in front of the camera,
then that something gets automatically animated on the screen. This
might well happen, yet true animation of characters occurs through
film’s spatial features.
Settings and characters presented to spectators in live action fiction films
and documentaries are commonly selected by directors, whereas in
animation they are generally created. Whether drawn (2D) or mod-elled
(3D), the characters and space of a film is designed on paper, on a
computer or in a studio workshop with that particular film in mind.
Visible and audible space is composed by the animators ‘from scratch’.
In classical animation, the element of randomness – in terms of what we
perceive on the screen – is minimized, and everything seen and heard is
consciously and intentionally presented to the audience by film-makers.
Therefore, every element should have a meaning or reason for being cre-
ated and presented to viewers. It is because of this property of animation
that we can discuss the use of space in animated films – the animated
space – as something uniquely characteristic to them.
Animated space emerges through a film’s visual environment, the dram-
aturgy of characters and sound design. Music alone does not suggest
space, which is more particularly linked to added sound effects (for ex-
ample echo). The design of characters does not have apparent spatial
features either; yet very broad conclusions can be drawn from the de-
sign about the space the characters are supposed to inhabit: for instance,
characters with legs similar to those of people are likely to occupy an
environment where the law of gravity applies and legs are used for walk-
ing around. Nonetheless, this is just speculation based on our prior ex-
perience, and does not necessarily describe the actual nature of the film’s
space.

129
ON SPACE IN THE ANIMATED FILM
The famous film theorist Béla Balázs argues in his
Der sichtbare Mensch, oder, Die Kultur des Films
(Leipzig, 1924) that ‘in film every sign is a bearer of
meaning, everything becomes symbolicin film’ (cited
in Lukkarila 1991: 163). Or, as Yuri Lotman puts it:
‘Every image on the screen is a sign, that is, it has
meaning, it carries information’ (Lotman 1976: 31).
Thus, everything perceived by spectators has
meaning in one way or another. Since animated
Béla Balázs.
space is typically first created on a blank sheet of paper (or an empty
grid) one can assume that all spatial elements in animation are designed
consciously and with the purpose of presenting particular information.
‘The first animation film theorist in the world’, Pla-
to, gives a wonderfully simple explanation of thena-
ture of animation in his Allegory of the Cave: people
live as if in a cave where they only see shadows cast
on the walls and perceive them as real things. How-
ever, the real things (or ideas, according to Plato) ac-
tually exist outside the cave, unavailable to human
sight. The ideas form their own world and can only Plato.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

130
ANIMASOPHY
be ‘seen’ through intellectual reasoning. As explained by Indrek Meos:
‘The cave with shadows is the symbol of the sensual world. Everything
outside the cave, on the other hand, represents true being, that is, the
world of ideas’ (Meos 2000: 54).
Essentially, animated film is the inversion of the Allegory of the Cave.
People see and hear the world of ideas on the screen because every ele-
ment of the film is an idea of something (‘bearer of meaning’ according
to Balázs, or ‘sign’ according to Lotman). This is the world outside
Plato’s cave. Moreover, our mind attaches experiences to the ideas pre-
sented in animation. Thus, different experiences of the world can result
in different interpretations of a film; for example, adults and children can
arrive at contrasting readings of the same film since their experiences of
the world are dissimilar.
‘World is not a mere collection of the things – countable and uncount-
able, known and unknown – that are present at hand. Neither is world
merely imaginary framework added by our representation to the sum of
things that are present. World worlds, and is more fully in being than all
those tangible and perceptible things in the midst of which we take
ourselves to be at home’ (Heidegger 2002: 23).
The discussion of space in animated films thus entails discussion of the
world existing in and through a film. It is a world created for one par-
ticular film, with a distinguishable beginning and end. This world fitted
inside the rectangle of the screen, framed by a particular beginning and
end, should, contrary to the rest of the world, lend itself to thorough
description. And since this world is consciously created by film-makers,
it should also be possible to describe why this particular kind of world
(space) is presented. ‘No one of us, looking at a stone or a pine tree in a
natural landscape, would ask: “What does it mean, what did they intend
to say?” [...] But as soon as such a landscape is portrayed in a painting

131
this question becomes not only possible, but entirely natural’ (Lotman
1976: 14).
Animated films portray a veritable cornucopia of signs-symbols-ideas,
embracing, in addition to film language, the idiosyncratic language of
respective animation techniques derived from fine art. In this tremen-
dous abundance of ideas one could ask if it is worthwhile at all to in-
terpret and decode the animated space. Indeed, it can be argued that
animated space functions as afiller of thescreen and asource ofaesthetic
illusion. Or maybe, nonetheless, a general idea or concept of some sort
exists, the understanding of which necessarily entails comprehension of
animated space?
According to Gaston Bachelard, ‘the house is one of the greatest pow-
ers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind’
(Bachelard 1997: 88). The inanimate characters of animation – draw-
ings and puppets – lack any thoughts, memories and dreams outsidethe
film; they are without what is called a collective consciousness. Collec-
tive consciousness, inevitably existing both in and outside the film for
the corporeal characters in live action fiction films and documentaries,
is nonsense in animation. Animated characters exist as subjects only in
particular films, outsideof which they are merely inanimate collectables.
In animation, space represents the characters’ thoughts, memories and
dreams, reflecting their collective consciousness. Everything inside the
four margins of the screen is the ‘house’ inhabited by animated char-
acters. The entire animated space, every element seen and heard, con-
stitutes the collective consciousness of the film’s characters. Animated
space is like a mirror, reflecting – through the animators’ work – the col-
lective consciousness and shared cultural space of the film’s characters.
Therefore, in addition to the material world, animated space presents
the characters’ collective consciousness and shared cultural space, ulti-

132
ANIMASOPHY
In the animated film, space describes the story world and the way in which character s perceive it, referring
alsotothe collective consciousness of the charactersand totheir generalcultural setting.
mately animating the lifeless drawings and puppets. It is precisely space,
not motion, which establishes the dynamic and vigorous world of ani-
mation. Let me give you a simpleexample: viewers perceive a motionless
background – a forest – as a living entity, yet the credits, moving from
one edge to the other of the screen, remain lifeless objects in their eyes.
Thus, not the motion of an object, but the space surrounding it, creates
prerequisites for a truly animated world.
The harmonic relationship between the characters and space requires
that both the characters and space be conceived according to the same
concept and related to each other by coherent stylistic means; otherwise,
the characters and space collide. I am always puzzled by animations
where, for example, the characters and the setting have been designed
in contrasting techniques, or where one of them is produced in 2D and
the other in 3D. Indeed, one cannot even begin to imagine that a two-
dimensional character would understand the world in three dimensions,
or vice versa. In that case, the space does not support the character, and
the character – and thus the whole film – remains superficial. Space dis-
tances itself from the characters and we only see mechanical movement
without any vibrancy.

133
Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, The Lion King (1994).
In Roger Allers’s and Rob Minkoff’s The Lion King (1994), the land-
scapes and sky are sometimes represented with photograph-like realism,
while the design of the characters does not correspond at all to their pro-
totypes in the savanna. The filmic environment and characters of The
Lion King have been conceived according to two different concepts: the
setting strives for the maximum effect ofrealism, while the characters re-
semble imaginary plush animals. The lack of an integral design concept
results, therefore, in a dissonance between the space and the characters.
Viewers get the impression of the characters and the space coming from
two totally different worlds.
On the otherhand, Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit(1988)
is entirely constructed upon the juxtaposition of animated space and a
live action environment. The human performers and drawn characters
Robert Zemeckis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

134
ANIMASOPHY
are presented side by side, and in this case the combination of spaces,
following disparate design schemes, seems completely acceptable.
Ülo Sooster, a distinguished Estonian artist and innovatorin Soviet ani-
mation, describes his ‘fundamental understanding of a painting as an
integral whole, as an object-space, understood as a unified object, as an
energy field with a vividly expressed polarized structure, with channeled
powercurrents in it’ (cited in Kabakov 1996: 197). Animated films should
be discussed under similar principles: the object-space or character-space
form an integral unit – filmic space. This unit of shared elements directs
viewers’ interpretations, whether consciously or intuitively.
In animation, after all, we consider the animation, the bringing-to-life of
lifeless objects. And if we recognize that, under certain conditions,
lifeless objects can be ‘brought to life’ in films, then we also have to
recognize the ability of these vitalized objects to perceive their surround-
ings in one way or another. ‘The stone is world-less. Similarly, plants and
animals have no world; they belong, rather, to the hidden throng of an
environment into which they have been put. The peasant woman, by
contrast, possesses a world, since she stays in the openness of beings. [...]
By the opening of a world, all things gain their lingering and hastening,
their distance and proximity, their breath and their limits,’ asserts Mar-
tin Heidegger in The Originof the Work of Art (Heidegger 2002: 23). All
living things have a world, and they belong to it. Animated, vitalized
characters of animation belong to the animated space and the animated
space constitutes their world. It is precisely the animated space which
lends the film its lingering and hastening, its distance and proximity, its
breath and limits. But how do the animated characters perceive their
world? On the philosophical level, accepting imagination as an essential
talent of the mind, we can argue as Schopenhauer did: ‘The world is my
imagination.’ Or, in other words, ourworld is just as we imagine it. Nat-
urally, we have no idea how animated characters imagine their world, yet

135
we have no other alternative besides the film’s general world. Animated
characters imagine their world exactly the way the team of animators has
conceived the film’s space. Hence, the animated space presents us with
both the film’s general world and the animated character’s image of the
world, which simultaneouslyreflects their collective consciousness.
In addition to bringing the animated film to ‘life’, space also has an
important function in presenting the plot or narrative. Spokesmen in
ancient Greece applied the technique of memorizing a speech which
entailed mentally locating the parts of the speech in different rooms of
a building complex, and moving around in this building while giving
the speech. Animated space has a function similar to this building,
assisting spectators on the horizontal line of the narrative in following
the film’s narration. However, filmic space organizes information not
only horizontally but also vertically. A film’s action always takes place in
the present. At the same time, all the reminiscences, recollections and
future dreams can only exist in a film as immediately perceived images
and sounds, that is, in the present time. Yet spatial features can also
convey to viewers information from the past and about the future. On
the vertical axis, every shot communicates a vast amount of information
about time and events occurring before or after that precise moment.
For instance, the image of cracked, dust-dry earth describes a preceding
drought, whereas a passive volcano appears as a ticking time-bomb wait-
ing to explode sooner or later.
Hence, besides simply positioning the characters geographically along the
horizontallineofthe narrative, space also functionsasamediatorofthever-
tical relations between the past and the future. Space and spatial elements
surrounding theanimatedcharacters refer to the location ofthe characters,
simultaneouslyindicating to viewers the distinctive features of the era and
the location, as well as the mood ofthe situation. In termsofthelatter, the
design ofa film’s sonicspace has proved to be especially significant.

136
ANIMASOPHY
In sum, animated space, expressed both by image and sound, serves an
extremely important and central purpose in understanding a film’s
meaning. Space is the key which should unlock the essence of an animat-
ed film, and usually this ‘opening’ occurs intuitively in viewers’ minds.
Spatial features provide no text for explaining a film, but a structure for
understanding it. Space operates to connect a film’s plot with visual and
sonic elements, and to create a structure which invigorates the filmic
world. It is precisely animated space which brings lifeless objects to life,
persuades us to believe in their having a soul and, hence, to sympathize
and identify with them.
In addition to the purely aesthetic function of creating the illusion of an
animated world, space in an animated film also serves certain supple-
mentary purposes stemming from specific generic elements. Therefore,
animated space suggests the characters’ collective consciousness and
shared cultural conditions, and portrays not only the filmic world itself,
but also the characters’ understanding, their imagination of the world.
Furthermore, the animated space, together with the animated charac-
ters, present the film’s narrative or plot, thus allowing spectators to com-
municate primarily with the animated film as an agent of storytelling.
Contemporary animation is in endless flux, brought about by techno-
logical advances and theoretical innovation. Animation is the most im-
portant platform for experiments with interactive films, entailing view-
ers’ greater involvement in and control over the film’s narrative progress.
The number of experimental animated films not based on narrative
stories and not designed according to traditional aesthetic principles, and
instead approaching more and more the principles of new video and
media art, is constantly rising. Despite all these developments and
changes, animated space remains an important subject matter.

137
Gone with the Rain
Divers in the Rain (Tuukrid vihmas, 2009), a short
animated film by Priit and Olga Pärn, is the story of
a man and a woman who share a life but only rarely
meet face to face. The man works as a diver during
the day and the woman as a dentist on night shift.
Their paths cross only briefly in the morning, as the
woman returns home and the man is ready to leave
for work. The couple have a quick cup of coffee, ex-
change a light kiss and part in a rush. One wouldex-
pect to see them reunited in the evening, but instead
the man returns to an empty apartment...
Divers inthe Rain depicts a day in thelife of theman
and the woman – a day when the woman finds it
difficult to fall asleep after her night shift and de-
cides to take a boat trip, while the man prepares for
a diving operation with his colleagues. The specta-
tors are left to wonder whether the woman is merely
suffering from insomnia or has decided to leave her
husband for good. Or maybe she is only dreaming
about her sleeplessness and about the boat trip taken
in an attempt to overcome it. In the framework of
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, the woman’s dream
could be read in the light of her longing for the man:
the lack of attention in their relationship makes her
dream about entering her husband’s workstation –
thesinkingship.InTheInterpretation ofDreams(Die
Traumdeutung, 1900), Freud proposes that every
dream fulfils a wish suppressed in or banished from
the consciousness. To put it briefly,Freud’s theory
Olga and Priit Pärn.

138
ANIMASOPHY
proposes that every dream is a ‘wish-fulfilment’,
usually caused by suppressed sexuality. Many artists
have been inspired by Freudian thought, especially
the Surrealists – André Breton, Salvador Dalí, René
Magritte and Max Ernst, an artistic lineage to which
Priit Pärn belongs as both a print- and film-maker.
The morning encounter between the man and the
woman in Divers in the Rain is indeed emotionally
cold and distanced. On the whole, the man comes
across as extremely reserved and self-centred, being
only interested in lighting another cigarette. His oc-
cupation as a diver and his usual work attire – the
diver’s suit – enforce this impression, powerfully
symbolizing his closed and highly restricted uni-
verse. Space and spatiality play an extremely impor-
tant role in Divers in the Rain, despite it being a
two-dimensional hand-drawn animation. The film
evokes a whole array of different spheres: real space
and dream space; man’s space and woman’s space;
intimate private space and public open space; space
above the ground and underwater space etc. The
sound (by Horret Kruus) is crucial in conceiving
these different spaces. The film’s acoustic design is
almost entirely composed of natural sounds. There
is almost no music, except a piano piece by Erik
Satie in the first and last episode. The various en-
vironments are skilfully differentiated: outside, an
acoustic harmony arises from the sound of rain and
the roaring city (vehicles, car horns and fragments
of conversations) and the domestic sphere is filled
with intimate household noises. The texture

139
of these natural sounds creates a music of a kind.
While the visuals of the film give few clues about the
woman’s destiny, the sound is more revealing. As the
woman tries to fall asleep (in her dream?), the sound
evokes a disquieting underwater space (low pitch and
echo), suggesting that the woman indeed drowned in
the sinking ship. This is confirmed by the fact that
the man comes home to an empty house. He seems
unsurprised, however, as if he had already known or
sensed that he will be alone with his nightly cup of
coffee. For a moment, heimagines seeing the woman
in the room, but this turns out to be a hallucination.
A sense of sadness radiates from his movements and
he looks deeply depressed while submerging beneath
the water while taking a bath. Secluded in a closed
private universe, he has failed to save his wife from
drowning in a sea of boredom.
In hand-drawn animation, film-makers create the
spaces and characters from scratch, quite similarly to
how printmakers and painters start their work. The
entire space of a hand-drawn animation, its every
visible element, has been created either intentionally
or unconsciously (intuitively) and thus contains, in
addition to mere spatiality, a certain amount of ad-
ditional information. In the animation film, space
sculpts the personalities and emotional states of the
characters. In this respect, the space of animation
film resembles a dream, in which, from a psycho-
analytic perspective, the events are never fortuitous.
Even the most insignificant elements have hidden
foundations, which can be excavated through skilful

140
ANIMASOPHY
analysis. Freud was convinced that the idea of ‘free will’ is an illusion,
meant to deceive and comfort people. In The Psychopathology of Everyd ay
Life (Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, 1901), he wrote that even if a
person says the first name or numbercrossing his/her mind, that person
is not exercising free will. Even total nonsense has certain implications.
The same is true for animated films, where every element and technical
solution is motivated by the personalities of their authors or characters.
By their nature and the mechanisms of interpretation, animated films
closely resemble dreams. Divers in the Rainby Priit and Olga Pärn is an
interesting example of an animated film as a dream containing another
dream.
There is a lot of water in Divers in the Rain. Even the title suggests two
kinds of water: one that is large and deep (divers and their work sphere)
and another that is light and airy (rain). Rain and streams of water have
always been considered symbols of the flow of time. While the film con-
centrates on a single day of the couple’s life, the monotonous (routine)
rain symbolically refers to the wider temporal dimension of the charac-
ters – the man and the woman have probably been partners for a long
time, their relationship has fallen into a rut and time keeps passing (as
the rain keeps pouring)... Is it still possible to break the routine? The
man has found a solution in mental withdrawal and chain-smoking, the
woman in escape, at least in her dreams. The constantly pouring rain
also alludes to eternal themes of inevitability, such as human existence,
ageing, solitude, the role of chance in life etc. Water as an element is
introduced at the very beginning of the film, in parallel with the charac-
ters: the man wakes, a picture of the woman hangs on a wall, a squeaky
tap releases a flow of water from the shower. While the characters have
their morning coffee, another hint of what is about to happen appears:
rain is pouring endlessly outside the window and a piece of sugar falls
onto the table, instead of into the cup, suddenly turning the table into a
large ‘ocean’ where one can easily drown. The man notices this bizarre

141
anomaly, even attempts to control it with his hand, yet only the woman
is able to dive into the water. Thus the safe situation of having morning
coffee suddenly becomes a dangerous adventure. Next, a car comes to
pick up the man and takes him to work. Every outdoors episode of the
film takes place in ceaselessly pouring rain. After work, the woman lies
on a bed and tries to get somerest, but she is disturbed by water dripping
from the ceiling – the world outside invades the interior of her home.
After that, the visual style and rhythm of the film changes to someextent
(which can be interpreted as referring to the woman’s dream); she gets
dressed again amidst the sound of dripping water and leaves home. We
also see a large passenger boat sinking into a jelly-like ocean and, at the
end of the film, the man, who never made it into the water as a diver,
takes a bath, as if redeeming or washing off his sins and failures. Water
is the leitmotif of the film, both as an element and a symbol, or perhaps
even the central image of the film. In Christian mythology, for example,
water stands for both death and life. God punished mankind with a
worldwide flood, yet at the same time people are christened (saved) in
the water. In Divers in the Rain, water seems to have multiple mean-
ings, referring to the emotional states of the characters by means of its
states and rhythms (monotonous rain, jelly-like ocean, squeaky shower
and dirty water in the bathtub) rather than communicating a particular
subtext. Water becomes the third hero of the film, besides the man and
the woman, helping to shape the roles of the characters and bringing,
with its changing states and rhythms, an additional dimension to the
personalities of the human protagonists.

10. On Characters
in the AnimatedFilm
Mirai Mizue, Jam (2009).

144
ANIMASOPHY
André Bazin has compared the screen to a mask: ‘The screen is not a
frame like that of a picture but a mask which allows only a part of the
action to be seen. When a character moves off screen, we accept the fact
that he is out of sight, but he continues to exist in his own capacity at
some other place in the decor which is hidden from us’ (Bazin 1967:
105).
The semiotician Yuri Lotman explains this by the fact that we have
gotten accustomed to the cinema and can, without much effort, imagine
the action beyond the edges of the frame. He maintains that ‘[s]patially
the shot has as a boundary the edge of the film (for the authors), and the
edge of the screen (for the audience). It is as though everything beyond
these limits did not exist. […] Only our familiarity with cinematogra-
phy keeps us from noticing how the visible world which we know is
transformed because all its unbounded limitlessness is put into a flat,
rectangular surface on the screen’ (Lotman 1976: 27).
Both Bazin and Lotman have drawn our attention to the widely recog-
nized phenomenon that normally spectators do not perceive film as a
space enclosed by the edges of a frame, but rather as a view from a win-
dow, without spatial constraints. Equally accurate is also the fact that,
both in live action fiction films and documentaries, the character, when
‘exiting the screen’, is still existent in a space unseen by the audience. But
what about animation?
A character in hand-drawn animation no longer exists upon leaving the
limits of the frame. However, when a puppet moves off the screen in
model animation, it continues to exist in its material form, although only
as an inanimateobject and not as an animated character. Yet theaudience
of an animated film retains an impression that the characters not seen
on the screen still survive somewhere in the filmic space hidden from
their gaze.

145
ON CHARACTERS IN THE ANIMATED FILM
The above-described effect of a mask, or the expansion of the filmic
space beyond the limits of the frame, is an essential part of cinema’s na-
ture, characteristic of both live action fiction films and documentaries,
and animation film-making.
Due to the nature and techniques of animation, the characters in ani-
mated films are usually inanimate objects. Certain techniques, such as
pixilation or time-lapse, may also involve live action characters, but they
are filmed frame by frame and thus, similarly to inanimate objects, gain
their vitality only through animation. Applying Bazin’s effect of a mask
to the animated film, we can claim, at least theoretically, that the
animated-enlivened (Latin anima means ‘life’ or ‘soul’) character inani-
mation is ‘alive’ or ‘animate’ when it has left the limits of the screen and,
thus, the audience’s field of vision, and upon returning to the screen it
becomes ‘animated’. That is, the animated character is more ‘alive’ when
it exists in the space beyond the screen than in the visible field of the
frame.
In this respect Märt Kivi’s Laika (2007), which introduced a film camera
as one of the characters, is an extremely interesting example. The whole
film is presented from the subjective point of view; viewers see the film
through Laika’s eyes. We never see Laika, but hear – presumably – her
voice. The camera (or Laika) usually moves close to the ground and in a
dog-like manner. Laika is an interesting example of an animated film
which includes ‘living’ characters in addition to ‘animated’ ones, and this
becomes possible precisely due to the fact that the character is hidden
behind the screen. She exists beyond the visible field of the frame.
A somewhatcomparable approach is also distinctive to Zero Degree (Serf
Darajeh, 2005), an Iranian animation directed by Omid Khoshnazar,
where a camera, together with all its technical capacities, is one of the

146
ANIMASOPHY
film’s characters. The camera’s viewfinder, its ‘eye’, witnesses a soldier
violently executing a civilian and initiates its own mission of retaliation.
Nevertheless, the film lacks the effect that exists in Kivi’s Laika, which
in addition to an ‘animated’ character includes a ‘living’ character, whose
point of view is used to present the story. In Zero Degree the camera as
a character remains only an inanimate, lifeless mechanism, symbolizing
the essence of modern media rather than functioning as an individual-
ized character.
The plausible existence of the characters outside the space of the screen
is also one of the features clearly distinguishing the animated film from
a mere animation. Although several forms of screen graphics (e.g. film
credits, smilies, animated postcards, visuals of cell phones etc.) fulfil for-
mal and technological requirements of animation, i.e. the movement
created frame by frame in stop-motion, they cannot be identified as
animated films because of the peculiarities of their spatial relationships.
In animated film, the frame is like a window: the view visible to specta-
tors is only a slice of a much wider, perceived space; in screen graphics,
the frame is like an aquarium: the spectator does not recognize the space
beyond its constraints.
Cinema has always been influenced by many different art forms, includ-
ing theatre. For example, Yuri Lotman has asserted that ‘[h]istorically,
Omid Khoshnazar, Zero Degree (2005).

147
cinema art was created at the intersection of two traditions. One derived
from the tradition of the non-artistic film documentary, and the other
from the theater’ (Lotman 1976: 84). Leaving aside certain experimen-
tal animated films, one could argue that classical animated films, which
present a narrative, continue the theatrical tradition – similarly to live
action fiction films, doing this first and foremost through representation
of characters.
Ed Hooks, who teaches directing and acting classes to animators, pro-
poses the fundamental difference between actors’ and animators’ work:
‘[A]ctors actually, for real do it when they are acting. […] Animators
actually, for real describe it when they are acting’ (Hooks 2000: 6).
Let us return to Bazin’s association ofscreen and mask, which hides from
us part of the film’s action (world) and allows us to perceive only an
incomplete section of it. Furthermore, the animated character can also
be compared to a mask, which functions as a mediator for animatorsto
describe acting and conceal – mask – their own identity.
Mask effect.

148
ANIMASOPHY
Whereas the mask effect related to the screen is typical of all film genres,
the mask effect related to character is distinctive only of animated film
and is closer, by its nature, to puppet theatre. A character in an animated
film is its creator’s mask, through and under cover of which the author(s)
transmit(s) their message, as though a shaman who, wearing a mask, is
animating a mystical deity, the soul of an ancient ancestor or a game. A
mask is static by its nature and functions according to expectations dur-
ing the ceremonies: it hides the performer’s personality and emotions,
thus providing a plausible performance.
In children’s programmes, the animated characters generally act as antic-
ipated and therefore have a calming effect on children. To the contrary,
even if human performers also normally act according to expectations
in children’s programmes, their behaviour cannot be extended to all the
people surrounding children; hence the performance of human actors
does not create a sense of security and comfort in children. This explains
why children almost always prefer programmes with animated charac-
ters to programmes with human performers. Yuri Lotman also refers to
the connection between minor and archaic spectatorship, differentiating
two kinds of audience: the ‘adult’ audience and the ‘children’s’, ‘folkloric’
or ‘archaic’ audience (Lotman 1991: 387).
The analysis of animated characters should also include the investigation
of ‘archaic thinking’, orwhat Claude Lévi-Strauss refers to as ‘savagemind’
since the attitudetowards animated characters seems to have traits similar
to the totem cult and magic. Lévi-Strauss has pointed out that if differ-
ent primitive societies shared the same totem, they tended to think that
they were related byblood, even if they originated from different tribes or
villages. ‘The ties of the totem were considered so strong that if a quarrel
should happen between aperson with thesametotem as abystander and a
cousin orother near relative of thelatter but with adifferent mark, theby-

149
stander would sidewith thepersonwith thesametotem whom perhaps he
had never seen before’ (Kinietz in Lévi-Strauss 1967:167).
Comparable attitudes endure even in today’s world, where, for example,
teenagers sharing the same taste in music feel a strong sense of solidar-
ity with each other and may express deep suspicion towards close rela-
tives who have different sonic preferences. Film production companies
have wasted no time in exploiting this idea by flooding the market with
enormous amounts of film- and character-related merchandise: T-shirts,
hats, bags, toys, electronic games, food, drinks etc. All these provide a
good chance to publicly demonstrate one’s cinematographic leanings.
In the usually very character-centred animated film, the animated char-
acters take on the role of modern-day totems. Hence, the immense
popularity of collecting puppets and other merchandise of different ani-
mated films, downloading images of favourite characters on computers
and cell phones etc. One has to emphasize that this kind of totemistic
approach to animated characters is not only found among children –
dedicated fans also exist among adult audiences. The Japanese anime
characters have attained the status of veritable cult objects, particularly
attracting theattention ofgrown-up spectators. The fans of anime(otaku
is the Japanese term used to indicate the devoted admirers of anime and
manga) have established numerous clubs, societies, Internet chat rooms,
conventions and festivals in order to bring the community together.
Anime societies and clubs have even infiltrated conservative academ ic
institutions (www.yale.edu/anime; www.hcs.harvard.edu/~anime).
North American and European animated film originally emanates from
comic books; the first well-known animated characters were actually
comic book heroes brought to life, whose identities were already famil-
iar to the audiences. Likewise in Japan, the style and characters of anime

150
ANIMASOPHY
stem from manga-comics, and anime has, in turn, started to influence
the style of the comics.
The tradition of comics and other pictorial narratives goes back thou-
sands of years, being directly associated with the time when literacy was
not widespread and the picture was the main device for recording in-
formation.
Watching a film might be considered a ritual in itself, accompanied by
particular procedures: focusing attention on the screen, following the
plot, disengaging from everyday concerns etc. ‘The function of ritual,
everywhere, is to relieve anxiety about the unknown,’ maintain the au-
thors of Sociology (Hess et al. 1988: 67–68).
Animated films for toddlers attract their target group with primary col -
ours and soothing music, thus creating a sense of security and comfort
in the little spectators. Animations for teenagers, on the other hand,
present familiar surroundings, being normally set in schools, on streets
or in someother everyday environments the teenagers inhabit. Just as in
rituals in archaic societies, the experience of watching films today serves
the purpose of socializing individuals, in addition to fulfilling purely
Human figure wearing abearmask,cave painting (Sakha,ca4000–3000BC)(Hoppál 2003:46).Many
ancient cave paintings , in addition to images of animals, also depict people wearing animal masks. Nowa-
days, characte rs with human bodies and animal heads are particularly common in animate d films.

151
Nicolaes Witsen, a Dutch diplomat, travelled to Siberia in the mid-17th century. His travelog ue is illustra-
ted with several fine engravings , one of which portrays a ‘pagan priest’ – a shaman with mighty horns and
claws. The picture reveals that the traveller still considers the shaman only half human and half animal
(Hoppál 2003: 54).
entertainment functions. The output of Disney studio, the leading
animation production company, is deeply ritualistic, according to the
animation theorist Luca Raffaelli, who emphasizes that the ritualistic ef-
fect requires a critical mass ofviewers collectively experiencing emotions
brought about by a film (Raffaelli 1997: 120).
‘Often we speak of the culture of the simpler farming societies ... as the
Culture of the Masks, an indication that the maskworn during theirrites
and performances is the all-important factor in their lives. In the mask
performances the maskis the hero of the play, not the person who wears
it. The mask is the character it represents, not its likeness. The mask is
actually the spirit of the dead, the ancestor, the animal, and this
conception contributes to the awe the play inspires’ (Lips 1949: 269).
Hence, the mask is the character.

152
ANIMASOPHY
Janno Põldma and Heiki Ernits, Lotte from Gadgetv ille (2006). Contemp or ary examples of animate d
characters with human bodies and animal heads.
The shamanic masks of the Transbaikalian Buryats and their neighbour-
ing tribes of Evenks had a particular spirit who was worshipped and
whose help was called for (Hoppál 2003: 111).
Therefore, it can be argued that our relationship with animated films,
and particularly with animated characters, dates back to the beginning
of archaic thinking and has a direct connection with ritual and the cul-
ture of the mask. Shamanic masks frequently combine elements from
the images of humans, animals, birds or fish. A comparable approach is
manifested in the design of characters in animated films, which often
mix elements of human and animal features. Children’s animations pre-
senting characters with animal heads and human bodies have becom e
true classics.
The formal correspondence between an animated character and a mask
as a simplified image (of a face or a creature) is a result, to a certain ex-
tent, of animation techniques. In animated films, limitations on techno-

153
Mirai Mizue’s Jam lacks the classical design of the animated film, divided into characters and background
– everything visible is the characters.
logical facilities inevitably lead to simplification of characters and their
appearances and movements. Precisely for this reason, the animators of
the very first feature length computer animation, Toy Story (1995),opt-
ed for toys as the characters, so that their stiff expressions and mechani-
cal movements would still give a plausible impression.
Mechanical characters – robots and giant machines whose mechanical
movements are easier to animate (simulate) – are a regular feature of the
animated film. In anime, people are often clothed in inflexible
spacesuits, a fact which consequently makes the animation of characters’
robot-like movement much simpler.
Images become signs in film, and may signify much more than the mere
visible reflection of themselves, thus entering the semiotic sphere. In
animated films, images gain even more significant meaning because of
their simplification and the stylization resulting from the animation
techniques.
Scott McCloud stresses that iconic images – those with a high level of
abstraction – allow spectators to interpret the image more loosely than
a realistic representation of the same motif would permit (McCloud
1993).

154
ANIMASOPHY
Hence, it can be claimed that animated characters embody a wider and
more complex sign system than just the particular characters them-
selves. The implicit abstraction of animation produces animated char-
acters whose significatory power goes beyond the plain representation
of characters as performing agents. Accordingly, Homer Simpson is not
only Homer Simpson but also symbolizes the modern American or, even
more broadly, the typical man of a welfare society. Similarly, Disney’s
Snow White stands for the more general image of a sincere and warm-
hearted young lady.
Human performers also permit the viewers to identify, to a certain ex-
tent, with the character at hand, and the performer’s role has a signifying
meaning. Yet the paradox of human actors stems from simultaneously
assuming the position of the creator and the creation – they become
‘semioticized’ entities, who at once represent themselves and their char-
acters. In classical theatre and live action fiction film, the characters are
inseparable from the personalities of their performers. In animated film,
on the other hand, the character is like a mask – we do not see the crea-
tor behind the character. Similarly to the protocols of archaic societies,
the hero of the show is the mask in and of itself, and not the performer
(animator or film-maker) wearing it.

155
Animated Theatre in Kaspar Jancis’s
Crocodile
Crocodile (Krokodill, 2009) is the fifth animated film
by Kaspar Jancis, building partly on the central topics
of his previous works: melancholy, broken hearts and
the little joys of little people. Jancis might be consid-
ered the Aki Kaurismäki of the world of animation,
finding inspiration in the everyday milieu of small
Kaspar Jancis.
back-streets, where the ill-fated untangle their messy affairs.
Briefly, the storyof Crocodile is about a successful opera star whosestage
charm dwindles, resulting in his dismissal from the theatre. The sudden
disappearance of admiring audiences turns him into a complete wreck,
leading to alcoholism and total loss of self-esteem. He lives alone, ac-
companied only by a meat-eating pot plant that becomes his drinking
buddy. Theformer soloist’s misfortunealso has an unfortunate effect on
the plant: while during the good times it had been fed caviar, now the
man can only stuff its jaws with de-gutted sprats. Life is depressing and,
as if all this is still not enough, the ex-singer is forced to take up a job
at a shopping mall, entertaining children in a crocodile costume. The
children are cruel and take every opportunity to humiliate and de- base
him. One day, on his way to the shopping centre, he runs into a woman
dragging large bags, looking as depressed as himself. The eyes of these
two lonesomesouls meet and a mutual interest sparks immediately (this
spark of sympathy, on the woman’s part, may well be caused by the
crocodile costume peeking out of the man’s bag). Their hearts are filled
with love and soon enough the opera singer and his meat-eating plant
move in with the lady. Life seems rosy at first, the ex-soloist carries the
woman’s heavy shopping bags, filled with meat, home from thegrocery
store, and she keeps sewing on his button (which he then rips off, so
that the woman can sew it on over and over again). One day,the

156
ANIMASOPHY
button-sewing idyll is suddenly disrupted by a loud
noise from the bathroom, making the man wonder
if they really are alone in her apartment, if his lover is
actually cheating on him. Later, after the woman has
fallen deeply asleep under the influence of a sleeping
pill, the man decides to investigate the secrets of the
bathroom and determine what is behind these nois-
es, and where all the meat is going. Slightly opening
the bathroom door, the man is startled to discover
that a crocodile inhabits the tiny room. In shock, he
fetches the meat-eating plant and tiptoes out of the
house. The man cannot put up with the rival
crocodile and another meat-eating creature besides
his pot plant...
Crocodile is an extremely theatrical film: the char-
acters are tragic and their performances grotesquely
exaggerated, the protagonist first works in an opera
house, is later cast as a crocodile in a shopping cen-
tre and the film is partly set in a theatre (an opera
house). The whole film is full of contrasts: success-
ful singer versus degenerate alcoholic, disheartened
housewife versus happy mistress, merry and colour-
ful amusement park versus grey street etc. In short, theatre to the bone,
only animated.
There are two approaches to character-construction in the classical
animated film. Most generally, the characters are based on real-life pro-
totypes, which means the main task is to create convincing (realistic)
environments, movements, body language and facial expressions. The
majority of feature-length animated films, for example, subscribe to this
method (even if the characters appear to be rather unconventional or

157
otherworldly, as in Up (2009), Ice Age I-III (2002,
2006 and 2009), Shrek I–IV (2001, 2004, 2007 and
2010), Ratatouille (2007), Monster House (2006)
etc.)
The second approach treats characters as signs: in-
stead of particular creatures, the characters represent
these creatures as signs. Even if everything in a film
is part of the signification process, the sign-like char-
acters are much more static or ‘logo-like’, and far less
attention is paid to developing facial expressions.
Characters-as-signs are typical of auteur-animation
and, among others, Priit Pärn, Jancis’s professor at
the Turku Arts Academy in Finland, relies on this
type.
Jancis, however, has developed yet another approach
to characters, that of animated actors. His characters
seem to be portraying the film’s characters in a
theatrical and pretentious fashion. In particular, the
scenes of the unemployed opera soloist making his
living in the crocodile costume, performing patheti-
cally, clumsily and hesitantly, have been executed
with an outstanding mastery. An interesting detail is that some of the
characters in Crocodile have made previous appearances in Jancis’s ear-
lier films. Thus, he has created an animated cast which performs, with
occasional guest actors, in a whole array of his films. Both the hand-
drawn actors and the director of this animated theatre strive to follow
Stanislavski’s system of acting techniques, according to which the actors
do not play a role, but play with a role. Hence, the animated actors play
with their roles, emphasizing nuances that turn a tragic episode into a
comic one and induce tears and despair in comic situations.

158
ANIMASOPHY
The evolution of cinema (and especially fictional cinema) has been thor-
oughly shaped by theatre, especially in terms of performance and the
structuring of episodes. After all, many of the first film directors and ac-
tors came from theatre. The animated film, on the other hand, is mostly
rooted in fine arts, illustration and partly in puppet and shadowtheatre.
Jancis, however, has modelled his animated film on the traditions of ear-
ly narrative cinema, which tended to employ theatre actors and theatre-
based approaches to acting. In his animated films, Jancis is the successor
of the masters of silent cinema, such as Robert Wiene, F. W.Murnau and
Fritz Lang, who expected pompous performances from their actors. The
performers in silent films relied on overacting in order to unam-
biguously convey emotions and directorial intentions to the audience
without theuse ofsound. In theanimated film, too, overacting and over-
dramatizing are typical (as in the ‘Disney style’ with its ‘squash and
stretch’ principle), which, however, has mostly to do with mechanical al-
teration of the objects’ physical parameters in order to make movements
smoother and more playful. Jancis’s animated world resembles live ac-
tion cinema in that the physical parameters of the objects are stable.
However, he intensifies and broadens thescope of the characters’ style of
performance. The visual design of Crocodile belongs more to the 1950s
than to the contemporary digital age of abundant special effects. The
design, too, has a theatrical feel: carefully composed backgrounds that
always embody certain clear and specific objects, lacking any accidental
or ambiguous elements. It is like a cardboard backdrop mapping the
space of the stage for the actors. In this way, Jancis has managed tocre-
ate a delightful animated film, which is also theatre: animated theatre.

11. OnSound inthe AnimatedFilm
VJ Noriko Oraku and Max Hattler.

162
ANIMASOPHY
Until the birth of cinema, music was the only creative medium directly
connected to the particular duration and time defined by the performer.
Whether in a choral or in a shepherd’s whistle tune, the performer dic-
tated the rhythm of the piece and duration of the performance. In other
media, it was the ‘consumer’ who imposed the time and rhythm of re-
ception: for instance, how much time to spend on watching a painting
or reading a book.
When cinema came along, first in silent form, it quickly became themost
directly temporal medium. Neither the cries of the audience nor their
rapturous applause could interfere with the projection of a film at a
certain number of frames per second. Soon, in a peculiar, yet entirely
logical manner, cinema and sound joined forces in sound cinema. The
Jazz Singer (1927) is regarded as the first full-length sound film. Yet
experiments in visualizing sound date back to much earlier days. In
1725, the Frenchman Louis Bertrand Castel constructed the ocular
harpsichord (clavecin pour les yeux) for the performance of ‘colour-
music’. The German composer Georg Philipp Telemann became fasci-
nated with Castel’s theories of colours and music, and composed several
pieces for his novel instrument. In 1893, the British inventor Alexander
Rimington, inspired by Newton’s discovery that music and colour are
both essentially vibrations, patented a ‘colour-organ’. Rimington thus
combined an organ with light sources and attributed particular colours
to particular notes. Several painters have also attempted to create visual
(painted) music. Among the most persistent and devoted experimenters
in painted music was the Lithuanian composer and painter Mikalojus
Konstantinas Šiurlionis. Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, František Kupka
and others have also tried to capture music by means of painting tech-
niques. Nowadays, a number of computer programmes exist for turning
music into colours. The first in this long line of software was Kevin
‘Zaph’ Burfitt’s programme Cthugha (1994). Visual music created with
Cthugha became immensely popular in ‘decorating’ discotheques and

163
ON SOUND IN THE ANIMATED FILM
Mikalojus Konstantinas Šiurlionis, Anda nte (1908),
from the cycle Sonata of the Stars.
clubs. Additionally, VJs, essentially video artists who create visuals for
music in real time, have firmly established their presence in the club
scene.
The efforts to visualize musichave been complemented by several com-
posers looking for inspiration from visual arts and turning images into
music. For example, Franz Liszt’s suite Years of Pilgrimage (Années de
pèlerinage) contains a piece inspired by a Raphael painting. The musi-
cologist Monika Fink lists 711 musical works of this kind in her Musik
nach Bildern (1988)!
Thus music and fine arts shared a close relationship long before the
advent of cinema, searching for interconnections and mutual forms of
expression, even though they were conclusively united only with the
birth of sound cinema.
Essentially, the use of music in documentaries, narrative cinema and
animated films is subject to the same general theories of film and music.

164
ANIMASOPHY
Due to the abstract nature of music, audiences perceive musicand visual
elements of a film not as a whole but as separate, although mutually
complementary phenomena. At the same time, synchronous sound and
sound effects are understood as intertwined with visual images. Docu-
mentary and live action narrative cinema always strive to create the illu-
sion of realism, and thus synchronous sound should convince audiences
of the total unity of image and sound, as well as of the authenticity of
the particular combination. In animated films, however, the situation is
diametrically different. Instead of representations of characters and
objects producing real sounds, animation constructs abstract universes.
Animated characters do not generate any sounds, at least not in any way
comparable to characters in documentaries or live action fiction films.
Furthermore, with a few exceptions in the field of experimental
animation, animated films usually lack authentic synchronous sound. In
live action narrative cinema, synchronous sound is only created in post-
production, whether partly or entirely, mainly for technical reasons, for
example when the recording of original synchronous sound has failed or
proved technically impossible, but the ultimate objective is still to
achieve the utmost fidelity (‘life-likeness’) of sounds. In animated films,
on the other hand, all synchronous sounds are created in postproduc-
tion, resulting in fiction without any real physical connection with the
visually rendered action. As Paul Wells has maintained, ‘[i]t is crucial to
remember that the animated film soundtrack is completely artificial. It
WaltDisney,Steamboat Willie(1928). Walt Disney, Fantasia (1940).

165
has to be completely constructed, must accommodate all facets of a live
action track, and be made highly specific to the animated image’ (Wells
2007b: 37). The creation of sound effects in postproduction is called the
Foley process, named for Jack Donovan Foley, a pioneering sound
editor, who started to add music and effect tracks to previously silent
movies (Place-Verghnes 2006: 13).
Animated film is essentially a visualized idea. Thus synchronous sound
and sound effects are significantly more abstract and ‘animation-like’
than in live action cinema. Fidelity in animation does not rely so much
on the authenticity of synchronous sound compared to real-world
sounds as on the harmony between the sound and the abstract visual
universe of the animated film.
It can be argued that the wide popularity of animation in general (and
Disney’s production in particular) is greatly indebted to the early in-
troduction of music in this genre. Namely, the fledging animator Walt
Disney decided in 1928 to add music to his newest animated short
Steamboat Willie, with Mickey Mouse as the protagonist. This cartoon
became the cornerstone of both Mickey’s glory and Disney’s empire of
animation. It was one of the first sound films in the world, establishing
Disney’s reputation as an innovator. It is worth recalling that not all film
directors of that time were keen on adding music to their films. For
example, Charlie Chaplin ‘strongly disapproved of sound in the cinema’
(Lotman 1976: 15). Disney also made the first commercial film released
in multi-channel sound – Fantasia (1940). While in the early days of
sound cinema live action film-makers often struggled to achieve the syn-
chronicity of sound and image, animated film was, by nature, better
equipped to tackle these issues, for as Esther Leslie has argued, ‘[m]usic
and film both move through time, but in cartooning, with its frame-by-
frame fully controllable structure, the links between sound and image
could be drawn so tightly that a symbiosis, a perfect rhythmic synchro-

166
ANIMASOPHY
nization, could occur’ (Leslie 2002: 26–27). The idiosyncratic frame- by-
frame structure of animation made it possible to use sound and moving
images in a totally integrated fashion: Disney’s cartoons started to
employ a method whereby music was recorded in advance of the image
track (movements of characters), which followed the rhythm of the
music. This has come to be known as Mickey Mousing: movement
(action) of characters in complete synchronization with the rhythms of
music(Bordwell and Thompson 2004: 360). Yet this image of a modern
and innovative spirit did not remain long with Disney. In 1941, ‘rebel-
lions’ of directors broke out in Disney’s studio, and many young anima-
tors left. The reasons behind this discord were certainly varied, among
others the onset of World WarII and the concurrent economic crisis in
the Hollywood film industry, but a number of film historians have seen
this as a generation conflict between the clashing musical tastes of the
older and younger ranks of Disney employees. Thus, by 1941, Walt
Disney and his older peers constituted the conservative wing, whose
tastes were limited to classical romantic music. The younger generation,
on the other hand, was fascinated by jazz, yet without the support and
understanding of their senior colleagues they were unable to utilize it.
United Productions of America (UPA, 1944) is the most well-known
among the studios established by the directors who left Disney. UPA
had a significant impact on general trends in animated films: instead of
Robert Cannon, Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950). John Hubley, Rooty Toot Toot (1951).

167
romantic fairy tales, audiences gradually came to prefer everyday situa-
tion comedies. The best examples of this revamped style include Robert
Cannon’s Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) and John Hubley’s RootyToot
Toot(1951).
Other major studios, such as Warner Bros. and
MGM, also attempted to provide viable competi-
tion for Disney’s productions. In the early 1940s,
MGM realized that copying Disney’s style was no
longer technically feasible and decided instead to
consciously seek alternatives to Disney’s harmonious
animations (Place-Verghnes 2006: 31). In 1942, af-
ter Tex Avery (aka Frederick Bean Avery), a talented
animator and director, joined MGM, the studio’s
Tex Avery.
style took a decisive turn towards a violent, rebellious and masculine
approach. Another way to distinguish films from Disney’s was to adopt
a different viewpoint on synchronous sound: whileDisney aimed for the
effect of utmost realism and harmony, Tex Avery chose to use exagger-
ated sound effects that were far from anything in the real world. Yet they
were perfectly appropriate for the animated film, sounding extremely
convincing and accurate. Today, the Tex-Averyesque approach to film
sound has come to be known as ‘cartoon sound’.
Although animation was also produced in Europe prior to World War
II, its adherents worked on their own or in the framework of different
art movements, rather than under the auspices of larger studios. For in-
stance, a group of Dadaists tried to create visual musicby means of ani-
mation, relying more on musical canons than on the traditional modeof
storytelling. This tendency to compose and edit animated films ac-
cording to musical principles is especially noticeable if one considers the
titles of these productions, which are predominantly derived from musi-
cal terminology: Viking Eggeling’s Symphonie diagonale (1924), Hans

168
ANIMASOPHY
Viking Eggeling,Symphonie diagonale (1924). Hans Richter, Rhythmus 21 (1921).
Richter’s series Rhythmus (1921, 1923, 1925), Walter Ruttmann’s series
Lichtspiel: Opus I–IV (1921, 1923–1925) etc. The attempts of these ear-
ly European pioneers to create visual music laid the foundations forthe
later European auteur-animation. Their legacy has been revived and fos-
tered by a numberof subsequent animation-makers, such as Géza Tóth,
whose animated shorts and visualizations draw from Béla Bartók’s com-
positions, Miloš Tomis, Priit Tender, Max Hattler et al. Canada-based
Steven Woloshen’soeuvreis especially remarkable for his exploration of
the combined effects of direct animation and (jazz) music.
World WarII froze the development of the European animated film for
a couple of decades, establishing the United States as the leading agent
Géza Tóth, Ergo (2008).

169
a-ha’s ‘Take on Me’ (1985), a music video combining animated material with live action sequences.
Animated by Steve Barron.
of animation, as well as of cinema in general. By the mid-20th century,
animated film had become, under the direction of its American advo-
cates, a branch of the film industry targeted mainly at young audiences
and catering largely to television. Even though a few lone wolfs, such as
Norman McLaren, Len Lye, Caroline Leaf and Stan Brakhage, struggled
to move against the tide, the animated film was, by and large, synony-
mous with the children’s film.
Beginning in the 1960s, the interplay of music and visual arts intensi-
fied considerably: with the emergence of the rock-and-roll age, pop mu-
sic had an increasingly strong effect on works of visual artists, and vice
versa: pop musicians have continuously drawn fresh ideas from visual
media. By 1981, the American musicindustry had reached a stage where
Music Television (MTV), the first cable television channel broadcasting
exclusively music videos, was launched. This, in effect, naturally created
a growing market for music videos. At first, the music industry was not

170
ANIMASOPHY
particularly interested in using animation in music videos, as it was still
considered a children’s medium. Nevertheless, MTV provided a seedbed
for several aspiring animation makers, who laid the foundations of their
future success with short animated clips for MTV. In 1985, an entirely
unknown pop group, a-ha, shot to fame with the single ‘Take on Me’, in
no small part due to the appearance of its largely animated video (di-
rector Steve Barron, animator Michael Patterson) on MTV. This video
brought wide acclaim to the hitherto obscure Norwegian pop band, and
changed the attitude of the entire industry towards using animation in
music videos. After the immense success of a-ha’s video, animation
became a staple of music videos. Some of the most memorable ani-
mated musicvideos have been made for Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’
(1986), by Aardman Animations, and by the Quay brothers, for Prince’s
‘Sign ‘‫’ڱ‬ the Times’ (1987) and for Softlightes’s ‘Heart Made of Sound’
(2006). MTV thus obliterated the dogma of animated film being a
children’s medium. MTV was also the channel that aired Beavis and
Butt-head (1993–1997), an animated series that became exceptionally
popular with adult audiences, encouraging other channels to produce
animated television series for grown-ups. Todayit is nearly impossibleto
think of a visual medium entirely untouched by animation. To a greater
or lesser extent, animation can be found everywhere: on television, com-
puters, phones, displays etc.
The contemporary entertainment industryhas also turned independ-ent
soundtracks (i.e. separate from films) into significant commodities,
which are often more successful than regular albums: for example, in
1994 one of the best-selling albums of the year was the soundtrack of
The Lion King, with over seven million copies sold.
The animation theorist Paul Wells lists some sound elements which can
be found in any type of film (Wells 2005: 97–98):
1. voiceover [omnipotent narrator] (non-diegetic)

171
2. character monologue(diegetic)
3. character monologue(non-diegetic)
4. character dialogue (diegetic)
5. character dialogue (non-diegetic)
6. instrumental music (diegetic)
7. instrumental music (non-diegetic)
8. song [musicwith lyrics] (diegetic)
9. song [musicwith lyrics] (non-diegetic)
10. sound effects (diegetic)
11. sound effects (non-diegetic)
12. atmosphere tracks
Norman Roger, the most famous
composer of animate d films, has created
original scores for more than 200
animated films, collaborating with
Frederick Back, Paul Driessen, Michaël
Dudok de Wit, Caroline Leaf, Wendy
Tilby and Vladimir Leschiov.
Generally these categories of sound occur in some
sort of combination and are only rarely individually discernible. Never-
theless, the analysis of film sound includes a full range of possible sound
elements. This classification is based on the physical source of sound and
on the relationship of sound with filmic space (the story world). Sound
that has a source in the story world is called diegetic sound. Diegetic im-
ages of a film are visible objects in the frame, or objects whose existence
in filmic space is indisputable. Non-diegetic sound lacks a clear source
in filmic space and it is only ‘audible’ to the audience and not to the
characters.
The inventory above lists the possible elements of film sound. Besides
this, film sound has three additional dimensions: rhythm, spatiality and
fidelity (Bordwell and Thompson 2004: 359ff). Precisely these supple-
mentary dimensions play an important part in creating a masterly and
imaginative animated film. Nearly everything, both material and im-
material phenomena, has a rhythm – every person, and their speech and
movement, has a characteristic rhythm, but also, for instance, particular
feelings and situations are sonically patterned. The rhythm represented
by film sound helps to convey a film’s atmosphere, the nature of its

172
ANIMASOPHY
characters and the suspense of situations. On the other hand, a director
can also intentionally go against the rhythm of visual narration and thus
establish a new, counter-rhythm. Spatial dimensions of sound describe
the perceptible filmic space. Sound turns a two-dimensional picture into
a three-dimensional space. It is extremely important to emphasise that
this spatial dimension also encompasses the fourth dimension – that of
time. Film sound can describe bygone events, memories and dreams,
even in situations where images simultaneously represent a different
temporal dimension.
Uzi Geffenbald, the famous animation director, has asserted that the
most important function of sound in the animated film is to make the
spectators believe in what they see (Wells 2007b: 153). In the case of
animated film, fidelity of sound is, in a way, the most important aspect,
as animation always visualizes the fantasies of film-makers. Thus film
sound – synchronous sound and sound effects – is the key to the cred-
ibility of the film as a whole. However, sound does not have to be natu-
ralistic in order to achieve the utmost fidelity in the whole film; rather, it
has to correspond to the visual abstraction of the film. The harmonious
relationship between the visual design and sound of the animated film
is the foundation of its fidelity and the measure of its artistic quality.

173
Kitchen Dimensions
In terms ofgenre, Priit Tender’s KitchenDimensions
(Köögi dimensioonid, 2008) can be classified as an
animated musical, as the whole film is dominated by
music and the image track comes across as an il-
lustration ofthe sound track. The film combines two
story-lines marked by different approaches: on the
one hand, there is an abstract style, where actions
and movements are determined by musical rhythms
(without synchronous sound in its classical sense)
and, on the other hand, a realist style, which is based
on the interrelationship between actions and syn-
chronous sound (without music).
At first glance, there seems to be no immediate link
between the two story-lines: in the realistic sequence
a man cooks in a kitchen and, in the following ab-
stract sequence, the screen is filled with floating
geometrical figures. The film contains three abstract
sequences. The first one is the longest, dominated by
low-pitched tonality; in the second and third, the
music is rapid and higher-pitched. The opening se-
quence is realistic in style, depicting a man in the
kitchen, his back turned to the viewers, apparently
getting ready to prepare a meal for himself. Sud-
denly the kitchen table comes to life and the im-ages
transform into abstract geometric figures as the
music commences. There is no obvious connection
between the two story-lines (the realistic and theab-
stract), yet transitions between the two are always
indicated in some way. The three abstract sequences
Priit Tender.

174
ANIMASOPHY
can be loosely interpreted as (1) memories of the ta-
ble (the beginning of the sequence is marked by the
kitchen table coming to life), (2) the essence of news
(marked by a newspaper coming to life), and (3) the
metaphysics of water (marked by the animation of
coffee).
The realistic sequences alternating with the abstract
ones demonstrate a strong sense of neutrality: the
movements are slow, the character has turned his
back to the viewers, hiding his facial expressions, and
there is no musical score to suggest a particular
mood. That is, the director provides no key for the
viewers to make sense of the film’s atmosphere.
Nevertheless, the dominant ambience of the musi-
cally shaped abstract sequences overflows to the fol-
lowing realistic sequences, because, as the famous
Soviet film-maker Lev Kuleshov demonstrated in his
experiments of the 1920s, the audience inevitably
forms associations between consecutive shots.
Tender’s animated film grants its viewers the ability
to see the connections between the real world and
metaphysical abstraction, as on a subconscious level
the chronology of events alone suggests the presence
of a cause-effect chain. In a way, the transitional real-
ist sequences function as pauses, giving the audience
some breathing space between spells of intensive
musical and visual information.
Unlike many other films striving for a ‘visual mu-
sic’, Tenderdoes not associate musicwith colours in
any direct manner. Tender’s characteristic approach

175
to colour is evident in his earlier works, most no-
tably in A Vegetated Director (Taimne direktor),his
contribution to Black Ceiling (Must lagi, 2007), a
collection ofshort animated films based on Estonian
poetry. Several modernist painters, such as Wass- ily
Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Mikalojus Konstantinas
Šiurlionis and František Kupka, experimented with
the concept of visual music in the early 20th centu-
ry, but they concentrated on associating music with
colour, and to a much lesser extent with forms and
shapes. Tender, on the other hand, builds his visual
music primarily from forms, by means of moving
figures and their metamorphoses. His film is replete
with the latter, thus continuing the series of trans-
mutations launched in his previous film, A Vegetated
Director. At times, the colours and images bring to
mind Mati Kütt’s paintings, yet Tender’s approach is
more graphic and relies on a repetition of elements,
similar to musical works in general, where variations
of a particular theme or phrase are repeated over and
over again.
In 1911, WassilyKandinsky, one of the first fine art-
ists to create visual music, suddenly became inter-
ested in modern music. After a concert by Arnold
Schönberg, which made an unforgettable impres-
sion on him, Kandinsky sent a thank-you note to the
composer. In his letter, Kandinsky confessed that he
had found in Schönberg’s music the exact com-
position he had been looking for in his paintings.
(Interestingly, Märt-Mattias Lill, the author of the
score ofKitchenDimensions, serves asthechair ofthe

176
ANIMASOPHY
Estonian Arnold Schönberg Society.) In his film, Tender has visualized
Lill’s score, by building the images around his music. Indeed, Tender’s
film should be analysed in terms of musical canons, rather than from
the point of view of classical narrative conventions. His film constitutes
a visual equivalent to Lill’s musical composition. (By the way, the con-
cept of composition literally means juxtaposition or combination of ele-
ments.) To an extent, Lill’s oeuvre resembles Schönberg’s work, as both
of them avoid, in some measure, the rules of functional harmony. In
Kitchen Dimensions, the harmony between the musical score and the
image track is a result of an integral composition. Unlike the way music
videos employimages in order to illustrate the music, in Kitchen Dimen-
sions thevisual information becomes part of themusic, almost as ifsome
notes can be perceived only by sight. Cinema is predominantly consid-
ered a visual art. Yet, in the case of Tender’s films, it is more appropriate
to talk about listening – whether one has heard the film, rather than seen
it. And in this instance the concept of listening needs to be understood
on a broader scale, because Tender has managed to create a truly visual
music, where listening also becomes possible on a visual, and not only
on an aural level. The superb performers of this excellent (visual) mu-
sic also deserve proper credit: the NYYD Ensemble, with its conductor
Olari Elts, working with the animators of Eesti Joonisfilm.
The approach of Kitchen Dimensions is closely related to the avant-
garde cinema of the early 20th century. The realist sequences of Tender’s
film bear a strong resemblance to the city symphonies of the 1920s,
celebrating urban culture and metropolitan environments (e.g. Walter
Ruttmann’s Berlin:Symphony of a Great City (Berlin. Die Sinfonie der
Großstadt, 1927) orDzigaVertov’sManwitha Movie Camera (Chelovek
s kino-apparatom, 1929)). In these films, real city noises dominate as
synchronized sounds: the wailing of sirens, the clickety-clack of railway
tracks, the whistles of locomotives, and the rattle of cash registers. Both
films depict city and quotidian urban life in the course of an ordinary

177
day, concentrating on everyday routines, rather than singling out par-
ticular outstanding events. Urban noises, heretofore seen as mere ca-
cophony, are structured to form a harmonious soundscape, creating a
novel symbiosis – a veritable poetry of noise, composed of thevery same
sounds thefilm-makers tried so hard to avoid in the early days of sound,
considering them too mundane and ordinary. In a similar vein, Tender’s
goal is not to present extraordinary events; on the contrary, he prefers to
describe prosaic processes. Instead of the totality of the urban universe,
he is drawn to a single individual. The object of his observation is cook-
ing, in the course of which every movement is carefully accentuated with
synchronized sounds of the most realistic nature. As a result, the ordi-
nary sounds of cooking form a poetry of their own, a musicto be heard
with the eyes and seen with the ears. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that,
while a century ago film-makers were fascinated by the hustleand bustle
of metropolises, seeing them as organic creatures, now Tender is
interested in the culinary enterprises of a single individual. Even if urban
surroundings can be vaguely sensed somewhere in the background, this
backdrop never gains any prominence. At the same time, every detail of
cooking and the emotional states of the chef are spiritualised and my-
thologised. Abstract images (metaphysics on a molecular level) appearas
living notes in Tender’s film, describing and creating the music. In
contemporary times, food and dietary habits are popular topics of dis-
cussion (both in mass media and in private conversations), arising much
more frequently than the problem of urbanization did in the period after
the industrial revolution. Debates about food, E-numbers, eco-
friendliness, fast food, slow food, Lactobacillus etc. can be as passionate
as the preoccupation of the early 20th century artists with futurism and
urbanism. Then, it was said that you are where you live. Nowadays, you
are what you eat. In the 2000s, preparing food is as mystical as the new
metropolises of Berlin and Moscow were for the film-makers of the
1920s. Every era has its topics.

Milestonesof Animation
Poster of Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).

180
ANIMASOPHY
The following list is undoubtedlyan incomplete inventory of milestones
of animation; it broadly summarizes the path of the animated film to
fame, both as an art form and as an essential part of popular culture.
Furthermore, it should provide useful orientation in relation to the mass
of examples given in previous chapters.
C. 380 BC Plato (424/423–348/347 BC) illustrates his Repub-
lic with the Allegory of the Cave, which serves as an
interesting theoretical explanation of the essence of
animation.
C. 335 BC Aristotle (360–322 BC) examines, in his Poetics (M‹qì
noı4ıınyç), the structure and elements of story (nar-
rative) in dramatic works. He is also among the first
to describe the optical principle ofcamera obscura.
C. 70 BC Lucretius (c. 99 – c. 55 BC) describes, in his De rerum
natura, a mechanism for projecting moving draw-
ings.
180 AD Ting Huan ( ) invents a device for presenting
moving images.
965–1039 Alhazen (Ali al-±asan ibn al-±asan ibn al-Haytham,
(965 – c. 1039) examines several optical phenomena
and gives the first clear description of the camera ob-
scura’s working principle.
1478–1519 Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) Codex Atlanticus
includes an account of camera obscura.
1645–1646 Athanasius Kircher’s (1602–1680) Ars Magna Lucis et
Umbrae explains the principles of the magic lantern
(Laterna Magica).

181
MILESTONES OF ANIMATION
1725 Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757) constructs the
ocular harpsichord (clavecin pour les yeux) for per-
forming ‘colour-music’, inspiring Georg Philipp Tele-
mann (1681–1767) to compose musicfor it.
1825 Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) publishes a paper de-
scribing the theory of ‘persistence of vision’, influenc-
ing the development of the Thaumatrope.
1826 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833) produces the
world’s first photograph.
1832 Joseph Plateau (1801–1883) invents the Phenakisto-
scope.
1833 Simon Ritter von Stampfer (1792–1864) patents the
Stroboscope.
1834 William George Horner (1786–1837) invents the
Zoetrope.
1839 Louis Daguerre (1787–1851) advances photography
by inventing the daguerreotype process.
1887 Ottomar Anschütz (1846–1907) invents the Electro-
tachyscope.
1892 Charles-Émile Reynaud (1844–1918) presents the
Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin in Paris. The
first public animation screenings take place, showing
Reynaud’s cartoons A Good Beer (Un bonbock, 1892),
The Clown and His Dogs (Le Clown et ses chiens, 1892)
and Poor Pete (Pauve Pierrot, 1892).

182
ANIMASOPHY
1893 Alexander Rimington (1854–1918) patents the ‘col-
our-organ’.
1894 Herman Casler (1867–1939) invents the Mutoscope.
1895–1896 Cinema is born. Several authors in a numberof countries
in parallel create and screen moving pictures. The
inventions of the brothers Auguste (1862–1954) and
Louis Lumière (1864–1948) (Cinematographe),
Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) (Kinetoscope and
Vitascope) and the brothers Max (1863–1939) and
Emil 1866–1945) Skladanowsky (Bioscope) are pre-
sented.
1900 The American James Stuart Blackton (1875–1941)
directs The Enchanted Drawing, ashort film employ-
ing the animation technique. It combines live action
with hand-drawn animation: the author draws a face
on an easel, which then starts to move.
1902 Georges Méliès’s (1861–1938) live action film The
Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune) uses the
animation technique to create numerous special ef-
fects.
1906 Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is made.
The cartoonist draws faces on a blackboard, which
then ‘come to life’ by means of the animation tech -
nique.
1908 The Frenchman Émile Cohl (1857–1938) directs
Fantasmagorie, one of the first European animated
films. Between 1908 and 1921, Cohl makes over 250
short cartoons.

183
The Spaniard Segundo de Chomón’s (1871–1929)
film TheElectric Hotel (El hotel eléctrico) is oneofthe
first experiments with pixilation and puppet anima-
tion.
1911 The American Winsor McCay (1867–1934) makes the
cartoon Little Nemo.
1912 Ladislas Starevich (born Władysław Starewicz, 1882–
1965), the Polish-Lithuanian animator, makes his first
animated film, The Cameraman’s Revenge (Mest’
kinematograficheskogo operatora). He uses three-di-
mensional objects in his films and is a pioneer of pup-
pet animation.
Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) publishes a descrip-
tion of the phi phenomenon, an alternative theory
explaining the illusion of motion.
1914 Winsor McCay’s animated cartoon Gertie the Dino-
saur is made, which, due to its high level of artistic
and technological quality, is regarded by many histo-
rians as the first animated film.
The first animation studios are established: Raoul
Barré’s (1874–1932) Barré-Nolan Studio (Barré was
the first to employ the peg system in hand-drawn
animation) and John Randolph Bray’s (1879–1978)
Bray Production. Bray and Earl Hurd (1880–1940)
develop the technique of cel animation, whereby the
animated image is composed of drawings on multiple
clear sheets of celluloid.
1915 Max Fleischer (1883–1972) patents the technique of
rotoscoping.

184
ANIMASOPHY
1917 Hekoten Shimokawa (1892–1973) makes the first
Japanese animation (1892–1973), The Story of the
Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa (Imokawa Mukuz
genkanban no maki).
1918 The premiere of WinsorMcCay’s The Sinking Lusita-
nia, arguably the first animated documentary.
1920 Edwin Georg Lutz publishes thebookAnimated Car-
toons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Develop -
ment (New York), which is the first survey of anima-
tion-making.
1921 Brothers Max and Dave (1894–1979) Fleischer estab-
lish the Fleischer Studios. Before World War II, it is
the only studio capable of competing with Disney. Its
most famous characters include Betty Boop, Popeye
the Sailor and Superman.
Hans Richter (1888–1976), Walter Ruttmann
(1887–1941) and Viking Eggeling (1880–1925)
launch the era of abstract animation in Europe.
1922 The German Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967) makes
his first animated films, labelling his unique approach
to abstract animation ‘absolute animation’.
1923 Walter Elias Disney (1901–1966) establishes the Dis-
ney Brothers Cartoon Studio, laying the foundations
for the Disney animation empire.
1925 Harry O. Hoyt’s (1885–1961) feature film The Lost
World is thefirst to present animated dinosaurs as spe-
cial effects. The animated effects are created by Wil-

185
lis O’Brien (1886–1962), who is best known for his
special effects in King Kong (1933).
1926 The German Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981) completes
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des
Prinzen Achmed), the first feature-length silhouette
animation (later historians discover that the honourof
the first feature animation belongs to an Argentine
author, but the film is lost).
1928 Walt Disney produces the cartoon Steamboat Willie,
featuring Mickey Mouse as the protagonist. It be-
comes immensely successful, turning the animated
film into the flagship of popular culture and estab-
lishing Mickey Mouse as its icon.
1930 Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) meets Walt Disney in
Hollywood and is fascinated by his work. Eisenstein’s
writings make him one of the earliest theorists of ani-
mation, and one of Disney’s keenest admirers andad-
vocates in the Soviet Union.
Max Fleischer’s character Betty Boop makes her first
screen appearance.
1932 Disney produces thefirst colour cartoon, Flowers and
Trees. It wins the first Academy Award for cartoons.
Berthold Bartosch’s (1893–1968) 30 minuteanimat-
ed film The Idea (L’Idee) is made in Paris; it is known
as the first tragic and socially conscious work of ani-
mation.
1933 Alexandre Alexeïeff (1901–1982) makes Night on
Bald Mountain (Une nuit sur le mont chauve), the first
pinscreen animation.

186
ANIMASOPHY
Mary Ellen Bute (1906–1983), one of the first female
animators to make abstract films and experiment with
visual music, debuts with Synchromy.
1935 Aleksandr Ptushko’s (1900–1973) feature animation
TheNewGulliver (NovyyGullivyer)ismadeintheSo-
viet Union.
Len Lye (1901–1980), an animator from New Zea-
land, makes the first direct animations, A Colour Box
and Kaleidoscope, in England.
Oskar Fischinger completes Komposition in Blau.
Chuck Jones (1912–2002) starts his career in anima-
tion and later becomes a true cult animator and direc-
tor at Warner Bros.
1936 Soyuzmultfilm studio is established in Moscow. The
studio produces more than 1500 films during its
existence, including Winnie-the-Pooh (Vinni-Puh,
1969), Nu, pogodi! (1969–2006), Hedgehog in the
Fog (Jozhikvtumane, 1975), TheMystery ofthe Third
Planet (Tajna tret’ej planet, 1981) etc.
1937 Ladislas Starevitch’s feature-length puppet animation
The Tale of the Fox (Reinicke Fuchs) is made.
Disney releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the
first full-length cel-animated feature; it becomes an
immediate box-office hit, thus inspiring the entire
animation industry to produce full-length animated
films.
1939 Fleischer Studios produce their first feature anima-
tion, Gulliver’s Travels.
Disney releases its second feature animation, Pinoc-
chio.

187
1941 Disney’s feature animation Fantasia is made.
Norman McLaren (1914–1987) becomes an em-
ployee of the National Film Board of Canada, where
soon a department of animation is created. NFBC
later becomes one of the world’s leading producers of
animated films.
1943 United Productions of America (UPA) is established
by directors and animators who left Disney’s employ-
ment. In contrast to Disney’s romantic style, the UPA
directors develop, under John Hubley’s (1914–1977)
direction, the style of ‘modern animation’.
1945 Mitsuyo Seo’s (b. 1911) Momotaro, Sacred Sailors
(Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei) is released. It is the first
Japanese full-length animated film, commissioned as
anti-American war propaganda by the Japanese Naval
Ministry.
1947 Se-ma-for, a Polish animation studio is established. Its
most famous productions include Tango (1983) and
Peter & the Wolf (Piotrus i wilk, 2006).
The Czech author Jiší Trnka (1912–1969) makes his
first feature-length puppet animation, The Czech Year
(Špalíšek). Trnka is the founder of the poetic school
of puppet animation.
1949 Jiší Trnkamakes the puppet animation The Emperor’s
Nightingale (Císašuv slavík).
1950 A number of small studios merge to form the Shang-
hai Animation Film Studio.

188
ANIMASOPHY
Osamu Tezuka’s (1928–1989) series Jungle Emperor,
akaKimbatheWhite Lion(Jangurutaitei),islaunched.
Osamu Tezukais considered the father of anime.
1951 John Hubley makes Rooty TootToot.
1952 Norman McLaren makes Neighbours.
1954 John Halas (1912–1995) and Joy Batchelor (1914–
1991) adapt George Orwell’s (1903–1950) Animal
Farm (1945) as a feature animation.
1955 Disneyland opens in the United States.
1956 The Zagreb Film Studio is established in Yugoslavia,
becoming the trendsetter for all of Eastern Europe
and later establishing its own distinctive style of ani-
mation-making, known as the Zagreb School.
1957 Hanna-Barbera Productions is formed in the United
States, and later dominates North American televi-
sion animation.
Elbert Tuganov (1920–2007) initiates the establish-
ment of the forerunner of the later Nukufilm Studio,
a department of puppet animation in Tallinnfilm.
1960 The Annecy International Animation Film Fes- tival
(Festival International du Film d’Animation
d’Annecy) is launched. It is now the most important
animation film festival in the world.
The International Animated Film Association (Asso-
ciation Internationale du Film d’Animation), ASIFA,
is founded.

189
1961 Dušan Vukotis’s (1927–1998) Ersatz (Surogat) is the
first non-American short animated film to win an Os-
car.
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), one of
the world’s leading animation schools, is founded.
1962 Fyodor Khitruk (b. 1917) makes his first animation
work, The Story of a Crime (Istoriya odnogo prestu-
pleniya). Khitruk and his films retain pioneering sta-
tus in Soviet animation for a long time.
1963 JapaneseTelevisionairs theseries Astro Boy(Tetsuwan
Atomu), directed by Osamu Tezuka.
1964 The Czech Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934) debuts with The
Last Trick (Poslední trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana
Edgara). He becomes the most important representa-
tive of surrealist animation.
Disney’s Mary Poppins is made. It is a live action fic-
tion film with numerous animated characters.
1968 Georg Dunning (1920–1977) makes Yellow Subma-
rine.
Andrei Khrzhanovsky (b. 1939) makes the much-cel-
ebrated surrealist animated film The Glass Harmonica
(Steklyannaya garmonika).
Bill Plympton (b. 1946), an important author of
American underground animation, debuts with The
Great Turn On.
1969 Marv Newland (b. 1947) makes Bambi Meets Godzil-
la.

190
ANIMASOPHY
1970 The Dutchman Paul Driessen (b. 1940) makes his first
animation, The Story of Little John Bailey.
Jules Engel (1909–2003) sets up the Department of
Experimental Animation at CalArts.
1971 Georges Schwizgebel (b. 1944), a celebrated director
of painted animation, debuts with Patchwork.
1972 The Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films (Ani-
mafest Zagreb) is founded, now a ‘category one’ ani-
mated film festival.
Osvaldo Cavandoli (1920–2007) launches the series
of short animated cartoons The Line (La Linea).
Jerzy Kucia (b. 1942) debuts with Return (Powrót).
1973 The premiere of René Laloux’s (1929–2004) feature-
length surrealist animated film Fantastic Planet (La
Planète sauvage).
1975 Yuri Norshtein (b. 1941) makes Hedgehog in the Fog.
Ivo Caprino’s (1920–2001) feature-length puppet an-
imation Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (Flåklypa Grand Prix )
is released.
The first Ottawa International Animation Festival is
held, an event that today is one of the ‘category one’
animation film festivals.
1976 Caroline Leaf (b. 1946) makes the animated short
The Street.
Peter Lord (b. 1953) and David Sproxton (b. 1954)
establish the Aardman Animations studio in England,
which later develops into the world’s leading produc-
er of puppet animation. Aardman’s most well-known
characters are Wallace and Gromit.

191
1977 Priit Pärn (b. 1946) debuts with Is the Earth Round?
(Kas maakera on ümmargune?).
1978 Zdenko Gašparovis (b. 1937) makes Satiemania.
1979 Yuri Norshtein completes his most famous film, Tale
of Tales (Skazka skazok). It receives the title of Great-
est Animated Film of all Time in Los Angeles in 1984
and in Zagreb in 2002.
Zlatko Grgis (1931–1988) makes Dream Doll(Lutka
snova).
1980 Lucasfilm studio establishes a division of computer
animation.
Zbigniew Rybczynski (b. 1949), the Polish director,
makes Tango, the most awarded animated film of all
time.
1981 MTV (Music Television) is launched in New York
City, later becoming one of the most important chan-
nels of distribution for experimental short animation.
1982 The first animated commercial, ‘I want my MTV’,
appears on MTV.
Walt Disney studio produces Tron, a film that in-
cludes 15 minutes of computer animation.
1985 Jiší Barta (b. 1948) completes an expressionist puppet
animation, The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Krysau).
Sayoko (b. 1945) and Renzo (1936–1997) Kinoshita
establish the Hiroshima International Animation Fes-
tival, another ‘category one’ animation festival.

192
ANIMASOPHY
1986 John Lasseter’s (b. 1957) computer animated short
Luxo Jr. is made, anticipating the subsequent triumph
of computer animation.
Street of Crocodiles, bythe twin brothers Stephen and
Timothy Quay (b. 1947), exemplifies the aesthetic
mastery of stop-motion animation.
1987 The Simpsons (byMatt Groening, b. 1954) make their
first appearance on television.
Bill Plympton makes the Academy Award-nominated
animated short Your Face.
Priit Pärn completes TheLuncheon onthe Grass (Eine
murul).
The Canadian animator Frédéric Back (b. 1924)
makes the Oscar-winning animated short The Man
Who Planted Trees (L’Homme qui plantait des arbres).
Stan Brakhage (1933–2003) makes the experimental
animated short Dante Quartet.
1988 Robert Zemekis’s(b.1951) directs Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?, a film cast with human actors and cartoon
characters.
The first private animation studio in the Soviet Un-
ion, Pilot, is founded in Moscow.
1989 Aleksandr Petrov (b. 1957) makes The Cow (Korova).
Nick Park’s (b. 1958) film A Grand Day Out is re-
leased in England, launching the screen careers of
Wallace and Gromit.
Barry J. C. Purves’s (b. 1955) Next: The Infinite Vari-
ety Show is released.
1991 John Kricfalusi (b. 1955) creates The Ren & Stimpy
Show.

193
1992 Priit Pärn makes Hotel E, a film about the repressive
effects of a totalitarian society.
Piotr Dumała (b. 1956) makes Franz Kafka.
Bill Plympton’s The Tune is released, becoming the
first theatrically successful feature animation created
by a single author.
The launch of the The Cartoon Network, a cable tel-
evision channel featuring round the clock animated
programming.
1993 Steven Spielberg’s (b. 1946) Jurassic Park, alive action
film featuring animated dinosaurs, is released to im-
mediate box-office success.
The British independent animation studio bolex-
brothers (founded by Dave Borthwick and Dave Alex
Riddett) produces the stop-motion animation The
Secret Adventures ofTom Thumb.
Henry Selick (b. 1952) makes The Nightmare Before
Christmas.
Beavis and Butt-head, an American animated tel-
evision series by Mike Judge (b. 1962), premiers on
MTV.
Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers is
completed.
1994 Walt Disney studio produces The Lion King.
Giannalberto Bendazzi’s (b. 1946) study Cartoons:
One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation is publishe d,
a book still considered the most comprehensive ac-
count of the history of the animated film.
1995 Michaela Pavlatova (b. 1961) makes Repete.
Pixar Animation Studios produces the first feature-
length computer animation, Toy Story, directed by

194
ANIMASOPHY
John Lasseter. With this film, an entirely new era
dawns in animation, which continues to enjoy un-
precedented success. Its popularity is underpinned by
the rapid development of the Internet and electronic
media. The technical potential of computer anima-
tion makes it the most widespread animation tech -
nique.
Mamoru Oshii (b. 1951) completes Ghost in the Shell
(Gosuto in za sheru), a true masterpiece of anime.
The American underground animator Don Hertzfeldt
(b. 1976) debuts with Ah, L’Amour.
1996 The producer Ron Diamond (b. 1958) launches the
Animation World Network, www.awn.com.
1997 Whirlgirl, the first animated series exclusively distrib-
uted online, appears.
1999 Aleksandr Petrov makes The Old Man and the Sea.
Trey Parker’s (b. 1969) feature-length cut-out anima-
tionSouth Park:Bigger,Longer &Uncut, replete with
political incorrectness, is released.
2000 Michaël Dudok de Wit (b. 1953) makes the Academy
Award winning animated short Father and Daughter.
Andreas Hykade (b. 1968) completes Ring of Fire.
Piotr Dumała makes Crime and Punishment (Zbrod-
nia i kara).
2001 Virgil Widrich’s (b. 1967) Copy Shop.
2002 Koji Yamamura’s(b. 1964) Mt. Head (Atama Yama).
Mati Kütt’s (b. 1947) Button’s Odyssey (Nööbiodüs-
seia).

2003 Adam Elliot’s (b. 1972) Harvie Krumpet.
Virgil Widrich’s Fast Film.
2004 Chris Landreth’s (b. 1961) Ryan.
2005 Kihachiro Kawamoto’s (b. 1925) feature-length stop-
motion animation The Book of the Dead (Shisha no
sho).
Don Hertzfeldt’s The Meaning of Life.
2006 Suzie Templeton’s (b. 1967) Peter & the Wolf(Piotrus
i wilk).
Andreas Hykade’s The Runt.
2007 Marjane Satrapi (b. 1969) makes the feature-length
animation Persepolis. It is a classical black-and-white
hand-drawn animation, which premieres at the 2007
Cannes Film Festival, winning the Jury Prize. It also
reaches wide acclaim outside the film world because
of its politically controversial approach.
Dennis Tupicoff’’s (b. 1951) Chainsaw.
2008 Bill Plympton’s feature-length animated film Idiots
and Angels.
Tatia Rosenthal’s (b. 1971) feature-length stop-mo-
tion animation $9.99.
2009 Henry Selick’s full-length puppet animation Coraline.
James Cameron (b. 1954) directs Avatar, a film com-
bining elements of live action cinema and animation,
which takes film production to an entirely new level.
Animation becomes an integral part of live action
film-making.

196
ANIMASOPHY
References
Armstrong,Karen 2005. AShortHistoryofMyth. Edinburgh,NewYork:
Canongate.
Ashbee, Brian 2003. “Animation, art and digitality: From Termite Ter-
race to motion painting.” In Architectures of Illusion: From Mo-
tion Pictures to Navigable Interactive Environments. Eds. François
Penz and Maureen Thomas. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 1–50.
Bachelard, Gaston 1997. “Poetics of space (Extract).” In Rethinking Ar-
chitecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Ed. Neil Leach. Londo n,
New York: Routledge, pp. 86–99.
Ball, Ryan 2008. “Oldest animation discovered in Iran.” Animation
Magazine, 12 March, http://www.animationmagazine.net/arti-
cle/8045 (accessed 23 July 2010).
Bazin, André 1967. “Theater and Cinema. Part Two.” In Whatis Cine-
ma? Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 95–124.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto 1994. Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema
Animation. London: John Libbey.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto 2007. “Defining animation – a proposal.”
Puehlídka animovaného filmu/Festival of Film Animation.
(Kon)texty/(Con)texts, http://ww w.pifpaf.cz/cs/kontexty/3 0 -
kontexty/160-defining-animation-a-proposal accessed 24 July
2010).
Blumenthal, Eileen 2005. Puppetry: A World History. New York: Harry
N. Abrams.
Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin 2004. Film Art: An Introduc-
tion. Seventh edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

197
REFERENCES
Byrne, Eleanor and McQuillan, Martin 1999. Deconstructing Disney.
London, Sterling: Pluto Press.
Canemaker, John 2004. “A part-human, part-cartoon species.” The New
York Times, 3 October, http://ww w.nytim es.com /2004/10 / 03 /
movies/03cane.html (accessed 13 July 2010).
Cavell, Stanley 1979. The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of
Film. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press.
Cowgill, Linda 1999. Secrets of Screenplay Structure: How to Recognize
and Emulate the Structural Framew orks of Great Films. Los An-
geles: Lone Eagle.
Furniss, Maureen 1998. Art inMotion: Animation Aesthetics. London:
John Libbey.
Furniss, Maureen 2008. The Animation Bible: A Guide to Everything –
From Flipbooks to Flash. London: Laurence King.
Gidal, Peter 1976. Structural FilmAnthology. London: British Film In-
stitute.
Griffin, George 2009. “Cartoon, anti-cartoon.” In Animation – Art and
Industry. Ed. Maureen Furniss. New Barnet: John Libbey, pp.
189–198.
Hahn,Don2008. The AlchemyofAnimation: Making anAnimated Film
in the Modern Age. New York: Disney Enterprises.
Heidegger, Martin 2002. “The origin of the work of art (1935–36).” In
Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track. Eds. Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 1–56.
Hess, Beth B. et al. 1988. Sociology. New York: Macmillan.
Hooks, Ed 2000. Acting for Animators: A Complete Guide to Performa n ce
Animation. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Hoppál, Mihály 2003. Šamaanid Aasias ja Euroopas. Tallinn: Varrak.
Jackson Hall, Wendy 2006. “Animated kids: An analysis of comprehen-
sion of animation logic in young children.” Paper presented at
the 2002 Society for Animation Studies Conference, Glendale,

198
ANIMASOPHY
CA. Stop Motion Works, http://ww w.stopm otionworks.com /arti-
cles/animkidswj.htm (accessed 27 July 2010).
Kabakov, Ilya 1996. On Ülo Sooster’s Paintings: Subjective Notes. Tallinn:
Kunst.
Leslie, Esther 2002. Hollyw ood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and
the Avant-Garde. London: Verso.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1967. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Lindvall, Terry and Melton, Matthew 2009. “Toward a postmodern
animated discourse: Bakhtin, intertextuality and the cartoon
carnival (1994).” In Animation – Art and Industry. Ed. Maureen
Furniss. New Barnet: John Libbey, pp. 63–77.
Lips, Julius E. 1949. The Origin of Things: A Cultural History of Man.
London: Harrap.
Lotman, Jurij 1976. Semiotics of Cinema. Michigan Slavic Contributions
5. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Lotman, Yuri 1981. “On the language of animated cartoons.” In Film
Theory and General Semiotics. Russian Poetics in Translation 8.
Eds. Lawrence O’Toole Michael and Ann Shukman. Oxford:
Holdan Books, pp. 36–39.
Lotman, Juri 1991. Kultuurisemiootika: tekst–kirjandus–kultuur. Tallinn:
Olion.
Lukkarila, Matti 1991. Sininen valo:Béla Balázs ja hänen elokuvateori-
ansa. Oulu: Pohjoinen.
Macrae, Fiona 2010. “The secret of a film’s success is all down to math-
ematics, claim scientists.” Mail Online, 18 February, http://
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1251833/The-secret-
films-success-mathematics-claim-scientists.html (accessed 27
July 2010).
Manovich, Lev 1997. “’Reality’ effects in computer animation.” In A
Reader in Animation Studies. Ed. Jayne Pilling. London: John
Libbey, pp. 5–15.

199
KASUTATUD KIRJANDUS
Manovich, Lev 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts: MIT Press.
Marshack, Alexander 1975. “Exploring the mind of Ice Age man.” Na-
tional Geographic, vol. 147 (1), pp. 64–89.
McCloud, Scott 1993. Understanding Comics:The InvisibleArt. North-
ampton: Kitchen Sink Press.
Meos, Indrek 2000. Antiikfilosoofia. Tallinn: Koolibri.
Mitry, Jean 2000. Semiotics and the Analysis of Film. London: Athlone
Press.
Montagu, Ivor 1964. Film World:A Guide to Cinema. Baltimore: Pen-
guin Books.
Oida, Yoshi and Marshall, Lorna 1997. The Invisible Actor. London:
Methuen.
Patel, AniruddhD. 2008. Music, Language, and the Brain. Oxford, New
York: Oxford University Press.
Patton, Phil 2009. “Before creating the car, Ford designs the driver.” The
New York Times, 16 July, http://ww w.nytim es.com /2009/07 / 19 /
automobiles/19design.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 13 July
2010).
Pentikäinen, Juha1989. “The structure and the function of legend.” In
Studies in Oral Narrative. Studia Fennica. Review of Finnish
Linguistics and Ethnology 33. Ed. Anna-Leena Siikala. Helsinki:
Finnish Literature Society, pp. 176–186.
Place-Verghnes, Floriane 2006. Tex Avery: A Unique Legacy (1942–
1955). London: John Libbey.
Putman, John J. 1988. “The search for modern humans.” National Geo-
graphic, vol. 174 (4), pp. 439–477.
Raffaelli, Luca 1997. “Disney, Warner Bros. and Japanese animation.” In
A Reader in Animation Studies. Ed. Jayne Pilling. Sydney: Lib-
bey, pp. 112–135.
Reinke, Steve 2005. “The world is a cartoon: Stray notes on anima-
tion.” In The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema.

200
ANIMASOPHY
Eds. Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke. Toronto: YYZ Books, pp.
9–26.
Richards, Jonathan 2008. “Lifelike animation heralds new era for
computer games.” Times Online, 18 August, http://technology.
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece
(accessed 13 July 2010).
Rickitt, Richard 2007. Special Effects: The History and Technique. New
York, London: Billboard Books.
Rowley, Stephen 2005. “Life reproduced in drawings: Preliminary com-
ments upon realism in animation.” Animation Journal, no. 13,
pp. 65–85.
Sassoon, Donald 2006. The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the
Present. London: Harper Press.
Small, Edward S. and Levinson, Eugene 1989. “Toward a theory of ani-
mation.” The VelvetLight Trap, no. 24, pp. 67–74.
Uus, Undo 2005. “Teadvuse probleem füüsiku silmade läbi.” Kirikiri, 8
March, http://www.kirikiri.ee/article.php3?id_article=124 (ac-
cessed 12 July 2010).
Wells, Paul 2002. Animation in America. New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press.
Wells, Paul 2005. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
Wells, Paul 2006. The Fundamentals of Animation. Lausanne: AVA.
Wells, Paul 2007a. Animation, Genre and Authorship. London: Wall-
flower Press.
Wells, Paul 2007b. Scriptwriting. Lausanne: AVA.
Wood, Gaby 2002. “Living dolls: A magical history of the quest for me-
chanical life.” guardian.co.uk, 16 February, http://www.guard-
ian.co.uk/books/2002/feb/16/extract.gabywood (accessed 15
July 2010).

Animasophy

More Related Content

What's hot (11)

Similar to Animasophy (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Animasophy