The tension between spectacle and narrative is investigated through the seminal work of Tom Gunning and his formulation of the “cinema of attractions” in this latest Footnote episode, in which Chris and Alex hold cinema’s propensity for exhibitionist visual display and its later development of story in delicate balance.
Read MoreFresh from their discussion of hyper-realism in the previous Footnote episode, Chris and Alex discuss ‘photorealism’ in this latest instalment - a term that denotes the aesthetic mimicking of lens-based media to create the appearance of a world as viewed through a camera.
Read MoreThe podcast's first engagement with questions of ‘realism’ in animation takes centre stage in Footnote #24, where Chris and Alex historicise and interrogate the function of realism and hyper-realist traditions within a multitude of media and aesthetic traditions.
Read MoreThe story of phantasy (with a ‘ph’) forms the basis of this latest Footnote episode, a term that is as muddy and complex as its more familiar ‘f’ counterpart. Whereas ‘fantasy’ is associated with carefree, escapist enjoyment in the imagination, phantasy describes a process of meaning making within the human psyche, and is a psychological act that is a regular part of our engagement with - and understanding of - the world.
Read MoreThe second Fantasy/Animation footnote of the year sees Chris and Alex discuss boiling, an often-unintentional aesthetic effect involving the visibility of undulating animated lines that surfaces due to slight deviations within repeating drawn images.
Read MoreThe Fantasy/Animation Footnote podcasts return for 2023 with this 10-minute discussion of world-building, which examines both fantasy and animation’s ability to create believable and credible ‘worldly’ spaces. Chris and Alex wrestle with a number of ideas related to the appreciation of cinema beyond character and narrative, drawing on V.F. Perkins’ influential writing on film’s many fictional worlds to discuss the question of art’s relationship world-building, worldliness, and worldhood.
Read MoreWhat makes a Christmas film, and why are fantasy and animated films so popular during this festive period? How is cinema consumed and ‘used’ at Christmas by both the popular film industry and families as a source of comfort? How is Christmas is narratively and thematically presented in our favourite festive-themed films?
Read MoreAnimation’s potential for quick change is the focus of Footnote #19, as Chris and Alex go through questions of transformation via a 10-minute look at morphing.
Read MoreThe latest Footnote episode of the podcast sees the return of Professor Susan Napier (Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International Literary and Cultural Studies at Tufts University), who straight from her guest turn on Chris and Alex’s discussion of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2002) chats about the animated works and philosophy of Studio Ghibli.
Read MoreThe power of symbolism and the creativity of the metaphorical are the focus of Footnote #17, which seeks to distinguish Metaphor through animation’s identity as a ‘metaphorical’ medium and, as a consequence, its fundamental rhetorical and symbolic potential.
Read MoreRecent podcast guest Dr Noel Brown (Senior Lecturer in Film and Programme Leader for Film and Visual Culture, Liverpool Hope University) returns for this Footnote episode on Dual Address, and the ways in which children’s fiction (and cultural products more broadly) might engage a double register and include meaning for both child and adult audiences.
Read MoreThe Fantasy/Animation Footnotes return with a new podcast episode on the form and function of motion capture as mode of computerised performance in an era of digital mediation.
Read MoreAlex is once again in the spotlight for Footnote #14 as he explains to Chris the notion of ‘thinning,’ a term recommended on social media as a potential subject for a bite-sized Fantasy/Animation podcast.
Read MoreAlex takes the reins for this double tale of folklore and the folkloric, two terms that are fully implicated in the history of fantasy storytelling and cultural expression, as he navigates through and defines each for this latest Footnote episode.
Read MoreJoining Chris and Alex for this lightning quick journey through the origins and aesthetics of the lightning sketch tradition in Footnote #12 of the podcast is Dr Malcolm Cook, Associate Professor in Film Studies (University of Southampton), author of Early British Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens (2018) and co-editor (with Professor Kirsten Moana Thompson) of the collection Animation and Advertising (2019).
Read MoreFootnote #11 comes live from the 33rd annual Society for Animation Studies conference, which took place in late-June and early-July 2022 at Teesside University. Joining Chris and Alex for this rundown of the society as an “international organisation dedicated to the study of animation history and theory” is the current SAS President, Dr Chris Pallant (Canterbury Christ Church University), previously a special guest on our Bagpuss (Peter Firmin & Oliver Postgate, 1974) episode of the podcast.
Read MoreThe mixed media potential of animation is the subject of Footnote #10, which takes on hybridity via the combination of multiple animated styles, as well as the spectatorial effects that such blended images might conjure.
Read MoreThe history and application of sword and sorcery - a term initially used to describe a wave of pre-Tolkien fantasy writing - is the latest subject for Chris and Alex in Footnote #9, which plots the relationship between this kind of ‘rough’ historical fiction and questions of world-building, magic, and myth.
Read MoreFootnote #8 offers a brief detour to the abridged and incomplete animated writings of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein from the 1940s, and in particular his notorious concept of “plasmaticness” that he argued was a way of understanding the appeal and attraction of Walt Disney’s cartoon images
Read MoreThe fantasy of the fantastic is the subject of Footnote #7, as Alex takes listeners (including Chris) on a journey through the origins of the fantastique and a term that often describes certain stories with impossible elements.
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