Thesis Proposal: Research, Findings and Structure – Page 2

Thesis Idea- Viewer engagement with Animated Documentary

Going forward with a thesis topic for this coming year, the area of research around viewer engagement with the animated documentary is something I wish to pursue. This is due to the fact that not only will its finding benefit my final major project, but could potentially benefit the area of animated documentary in my findings of with method of animation best accentuates the portrayal of personal experiences in the most visually engaging ways. Key areas I wish to look into include the emotional response of facial expression and scientific areas such as the mirror neuron system which take into considerations aspects of human empathy. I also wish to delve into areas that look at anonymity provided by animation, and confessional and therapeutic aspects of creating personal documentation through animation.

Previous/ Similar Studies Found-

Animated documentary: Viewer engagement, emotion, and performativity – AUBREI – Arts University Bournemouth Research Excellence and Impact (Emotion in Animated film)

Some Research References-

Hill, Annette. “Documentary Modes of Engagement.” In: Austen, Thomas and Wilma De Jong (Eds.). Rethinking Documentary: New Perspectives, New Practices . New York: Open University Press, 2008: 217– 231.
Emotion in Animated Films, edited by Meike Uhrig, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=5548779.
Created from ual on 2022-02-11 13:13:12.]

Canet, Fernando and Héctor Perez. “Character Engagement as Central to the Filmmaker– Subject Relationship: En Construcción (José Luis Guerin, 2001) as a Case Study.” Studies in Documentary Film , 10(3), 2016: 215– 232.
Emotion in Animated Films, edited by Meike Uhrig, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=5548779.
Created from ual on 2022-02-11 13:14:05.

Fore, Steve. “Reenacting Ryan: The Fantasmatic and the Animated Documentary.” animation: an interdisciplinary journal , 6(3) 2011: 277– 292.
Emotion in Animated Films, edited by Meike Uhrig, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=5548779.
Created from ual on 2022-02-11 13:15:10.

Experimental Animation Example Task

It can be argued that Fantasmagoire by Emile Cohl (19dhdhd) is entirely experimental animation, as it represents animation in one of its earliest rudimentary ‘modern’ forms. It experiments with character movement, expression and emotions in ways that, while being a source of entertainment, provide a foundation for the basis of character animation as we have become to know it. While it has a narrative foundation, I feel there is a deeper element at play that could arguably define it further as experimentation.

Making reference to Paul Wells Understanding Animation, Wells states that experimental animation heavily involves abstraction that “redefines ‘the body’ or resists using it as an illustrative image” (1998, p.43). While Phantasmagoria clearly represents characterised human bodies, there is a metamorphic element that explores the ‘interpretive form’ of the characters that “reconstruct a different conception of narrative” that arguably “prioritises abstract forms in motion” over conventional and linear storytelling (Wells, 1998 pp. 43-44). I think its key explorative elements and its founding ideas of assisting in the definition of animation as an art form over entertainment in conception, are what stands out as an experimental piece of work. Wells expansion of the ‘presence of the artist’ is also prevalent in this piece of work, narratively and also psychically as he demonstrates at the start the direct relationship between craft and craftsman, showing Cohls hand directly influencing the draw figure (1998, p.45). I think what separates the work from more conventional animation in its formation is the ‘dream-like’ non-linear narrative provided in the piece that distances itself from relation and has its “ own abstract logic” such as decapitation and defiance of the laws of gravity (Wells, 1998, p.45). I feel this is also accentuated in its titles direct name ‘A fantasy’.

As a piece that is also argued as the first animated cartoon, it is created with intention to create and discover drawn motion and characterisation that distinctly gives it a purpose other than purely entertainment factor, which associates well with the ideaology of experimentation within film and the animated medium.

References

Wells, P. 1998. Understanding Animation. Routledge: Oxon, United Kingdom.

Performative Documentary Form

Researching into the ideas of Bill Nichols and his book Blurred Boundaries (1994), the documentary can have more metaphysical and symbolic methods of representing reality. Nichols Points out Roman Jacobson’s ‘six aspects of communication’, which include expression, referential, poetic, rhetoric, phatic and metacommunicative (1994, p.94).

Hollywood Fiction– This largely includes the ‘absence of reality, fantastical at times.

Expository Documentary– Stems from the 1930s, and directly addresses the real- ‘Overly Didactic.’

Observational Documentary– from the 1960s. Avoids direct commentary makes a record of things as they are happening. This can include a lack of context and historical facts.

Interactive Documentary– From the 1960s- 1970s. However, the person’s interview puts excessive faith in the witness and provides a ‘naive account of history’.

Reflexive Documentary-1980. Arises question to the documentary form. It can be considered too abstract and can lose insight into the factual issues at hand.

Performative Documentary– 1980s-1990s. ‘ Stresses the subjective of classically objective discourses’. The ‘loss of referential emphasis may relegate such films as avant-garde’ and can contain the overuse of style over fact.

Nichols states how the first four types of documentary modes emphasise the referent, while the performative documentary ‘inflects’ these modes into a different form of factual presentation (1994, p.95). Adding more metaphorical and inadvertently ambiguous meaning behind the real world’s presentation can help build a further sense of identity in the documentary, similar to the filmmaker Auter in style. Associating with my thesis topic at hand, the process of conveying personal experience through performative documentary methods could add a further level of emotional empathy in accentuating the symbolic representation of experience and provide interesting points when going into CGI documentary creation. Due to its artificial nature, the creation of assets and environments to accentuate personal recounts of events adds a deeper level of ‘performativity’, which could create additional points against the reliability of animated documentary, further blurring the line between fictional storytelling and factual account.

I feel these points and ideals could link to aspects such as Waltz with Bashir (Folman, 2008), which uses a lot of performative and non inherently overtly referential aspects in the way it represents hallucinatory and mentally constructed accounts of war, however, poses an intriguing statement that supports the real-life experience of the individuals involved. While previously covered in the critical report, the validity of personal experience through animation is something that can be explored further into its effectiveness of genre classification.

A Point Nichols brings forward is the point that performative documentary can embody an ‘existential situatedness’ that is relevant and a precondition of specific ‘class consciousness’ that arises watching more referentially created documentary. These are aspects to consider when viewing and partaking in the creation of the performative documentary as it may not be inherently accessible.

References

Nichols, B. (1994) Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.