13th SAS Conference 2001

Report about the 13th Annual SAS Conference
Montreal, Canada, 22 – 25 October 2001

“Animation, Economics and Politics”

The participants to the 13th Conference of the Society for Animation Studies were greeted in Montréal by a beautiful, crisp fall day, when one could enjoy the rich colors of the maple tree across from our accommodations, the Hotel Maritime Plaza. Although there was intermittent rain during several days of the conference, it did not spoil the beauty of the city nor keep us from the variety of activities planned by our conference organizers, SAS President Ton Crone, Marcy Page of the National Film Board of Canada and Peter Rist of Concordia University.

The first day of the conference was spent at an open house sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). As SAS participants convened in the “Chairy Tale” room, we were provided with an overview of NFB web-based activities (be certain to visit the NFB website at www.nfb.ca).
Then we were treated to a screening of recent NFB animation, including A Hunting Lesson by Jacques Drouin, Christopher, Please Clean-Up Your Room! by Vincent Gauthier, La Solitude de Monsieur Turgeon by Jeanne Crepeau, Ludovic – Des vacances chez grand-papa by Co Hoedeman, The Magic of Anansi by Jamie Mason, Aria by Piotr Sapegin, and Ame Noire/Black Soul by Martine Chartrand.
After the screening, the NFB graciously provided a delicious buffet to get us ready for an afternoon that was packed with events. It began with a screening by guest animator Koji Yamamura who presented a brief overview of his career than screened Imagination (1993), Bavel’s Book (1996), Your Choice (1996), and other short commercial pieces. His presentation was only the first in an afternoon full of introductions to animators as SAS participants divided into smaller groups and toured the NFB animation studios. The tour included demonstrations by a number of different animation directors whose media and styles varied from traditional cel animation (Tali) to pinscreen (Jacques Drouin) to stereoptic (Munro Ferguson and Paul Morstad) to computer 3-D animation (Alison Loader). We also met Co Hoedeman, Michele Cournoyer, Michele Lemieux, Yuan Zhang, Paul Driessen, Chris Hinton, John Weldon, and Christine Tang. Each animator presented an overview of his/her techniques and work then allowed the SAS participants to touch various animation tools – such as the pinscreen – or see a shot as it was established on a preprogrammed camera crane. Despite a hectic schedule, the animators very graciously answered a variety of questions and provided as much information as time would allow. In addition to the tour of the studios, the NFB also provided a guided tour of their archives and vault. At the close of the day the NFB offered another screening of recent animation productions including Micronutrients UNICEF by Jamie Mason, Strange Invaders by Cordell Barker, Lights for Gita by Michel Vo, A Monster’s Calling/L’appel du Monstre by Louise Johnson, Chassepapillon/The Song-Catcher by Philippe Vaucher, Zodiac by Oerd Van Cuijlenborg, and Glasses by Brian Duchscherer.
Our sincere thanks to all of the folks at NFB who made our visit so enjoyable.

In his speech at the opening of the paper presentations Ton Crone thanked the selection committee, comprising Mark Langer, Peter Rist and Michael Friersson, for their work in assessing the papers. He also thanked the members of the Norman McLaren – Evelyn Lambert Award Committee, comprising Michael Frierson, Maureen Furniss and Pierre Floquet, for their selection of the best scholarly book about animation film.
Last but not least, the President also touched on the events of September 11, 2001. Owing to the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington and Philadelphia and the reactions of various authorities, some of the members selected from Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA were unable to attend the conference to present their papers.

Several of the panels at the conference included papers on Asian animation. In the first panel David Ehrlich discussed “Genghis Khan: Two Animated Studies from The Secret History of the Mongols.” The first film was a 1990 Soviet-style, cel animation titled “Genghis Khan” by Miagmar Sodnompilin that focused upon the origin of Temujin, later to be known as Genghis Khan. The second was a film produced through the collaboration of Sodnompilin and Ehrlich, in which they attempted to be more stylistically authentic to the culture. Ehrlich elaborated on the political difficulties in dealing with such a controversial historical figure and the economic compromises that had to be made in order to get funding for the film.
In her paper “Havoc in Heaven: Bridging the Gap Between Tradition and Modernization“, Shannon Rogers discussed animator Wan Laiming‘s combination of classic forms of the Beijing Opera with modern forms, such as vivid scenery, to produce a film that would appeal to a broad audience but at the same time retain the artistic heritage of his country. In “Murder and the Exploitation of Women: Animation by Kireet Khurana“, Ellen Sugar discussed the plight of young women in Nepal who are sold into prostitution and use of symbolism and imagery to represent their plight by Kireet Khurana.

In a second panel John Lent & Xu Ying presented a paper titled “Animation in China Yesterday and Today – The Pioneers Speak Out.” They discussed the changes in Chinese animation from a reliance on the traditional arts (such as the opera and drama) and traditional techniques (such as paper folding and puppetry) to the adoption of Disney techniques in order to attract foreign commercial interests to fund production. In her paper “Animation and the Cinematic” Yuk Ting Chan examined the cinematography, color and lighting in Memories, the use of the camera in Princess Mononoke, editing and montage in AKIRA, mise-en-scene in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The last paper in this panel was presented by Peter Rist, Zhang Yuan & Tammy Smith and discussed “Chinese Water-Colour Animation“, screening some beautiful examples.

In another panel, two papers that addressed the conference theme of Animation, Economics and Politics also focused upon Asian animation.
The first was “Usurping the Cinematic Screen – Prince of the Sun: The Great Adventures of Hols“. In this paper Gigi Ho Tze Yue noted that the creators of Prince of the Sun were young animators who wanted to express their political and social concerns in a film with quality aesthetics and production values. Although the film was a commercial flop, it was an important milestone in Japanese history, spirit, and ideology. In second Asian paper to address the conference theme was “Economical Failure and Success in the Feature Animations of Mamoru Oshii.” In this paper Masao Yokota and Masashi Koide trace the rise of Mamoru Oshii from the director of Uruseiyatura (a television serial) to the Uruseiyatura feature films to his more recent productions at Production IG. Although he achieved limited early success, his first films at Production IG were unsuccessful, because his protagonists were solitary and destructive. Later, as he channeled these anti-social tendencies into criminals (for example in Patolabor the Movie), he found greater success.

In a panel that focused upon the history of US animation, Michael Frierson, examined “The Carry Over Dissolve in UPA Animation” as it was used in Gerald McBoing Boing and Madeline to expand or alter space and time. Joanna Bouldin discussed “Technologies of the Body and Politics of the Real: Race, Reality and the Rotoscope in Fleischer Animated Cartoons.” She suggests “that animation, to greater or lesser degrees, is always negotiating its place between the real and the really made up….the shifting, often ambivalent status of the ‘real’ in animation has a significant impact on how we experience animation and the animated body.” Brian Oakes concluded this panel with “Jam Handy Animation: Visualizing the Invisible.” Although not an animator, Handy’s company produced non-theatrical films for advertising, training, and education using techniques that varied from traditional cel animation to stop-motion animation and also combined animation with live action.

In a separate panel, Roger Palmer examined the establishment of Australia’s animated film industry in “Graphic Artists and Techno-Art into Moving Pictures Down-Under.” He noted that the early history of Australian animation is more easily traced through the history of advertising than of film. He offered evidence that the Salvation Army was the first animated film producer then traced the history of animation between the First and Second World Wars to advertising and illustrations in documentaries. However, the animation industry in Australia did not really become viable until the advent of television.

In panels that focused on technology and technique, Mark Langer declared “The End of Animation History.” Using Francis Fukuyama’s thesis that “history is composed of distinctions or conflicts between competing systems,” Langer argued that changes in technology have brought us to the end of a historical period in which there is a commonly conceived distinction between animation and other forms of image generation such as live action cinema. Deanna Morse explored a new realm of animation, “Experimental Animation: Creating a DVD.“

In a panel that examined narrative and form, Suzanne Buchan discussed new formalist theories that allow idiosyncratic interpretations that are contextualized. Her presentation was titled “Neoformalist Analysis and the Auteur Animation Film.” Martin McNamara discussed “Reverse Chronology in Animated Narrative.” And, Richard Leskosky deconstructed the titles of animated films of the studios of the 1930s and 1940s by examining the differences in types of titles (disjunctive rather than discursive), their grammatical construction, the use of puns, and the various linguistic structures of the titles.

In a panel which looked at sociological issues in animation, Gonen Hacohen examined the polysemic satire in “The Simpsons: Semiotic Analysis of Primetime Animation Satire,” while Miriam Harris examined the collapse of the boundaries between adulthood and childhood in “Dynamite in the Diaper: The Coexistence within Animation of Child and Adult Influences.” She examined the movement from A Boy Named Charlie Brown to the carnivalesque – The Simpsons, South Park, Ren and Stimpy and Shrek, which include “frequent references to bodily excesses, scatological themes, the inversion of ‘high’ and ‘low’ elements, and the warping of traditional narrative expectations.”
Finally the work of Norman McLaren was examined by Terence Dobson in his paper “The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful” and Elaine Dobson in “McLaren, the Musician.” These two presentations linked up well with the presentation of the Norman McLaren – Evelyn Lambert Award the evening before in the Cinémathèque Québécois. Don McWilliams, a former colleague of Norman McLaren at the National Film Board of Canada, gave a fascinating, personal account of the unknown work by McLaren, namely the sound accompanying some of his films. At the close, Michael Frierson presented the jury report for the selection committee for the best scholarly book about animation film. The winner of the prize, Robin Allen from the United Kingdom with his winning book “Walt Disney and Europe” was unable to attend; Ton Crone received the prize – sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada – on his behalf.

Other interesting presentations included a special presentation and discussion of the Halas and Batchelor and the Bob Godfrey archives and the Animation Research Centre at The Surrey Institute of Art and Design by Suzanne Buchan, Head of the Animation Research Centre.
Another treat for SAS participants was a tour and presentation by Marco DeBlois, animation curator of the Cinémathèque Québécois, followed by a reception hosted by ASIFA Canada. The Conference ended on a high note with a reception and animation tour sponsored by our hosts at Concordia University.
Our thanks to the National Film Board of Canada, Cinémathèque Québécois and especially to Concordia University for their hospitality.

Suzanne Williams Rautiola