Fantasy/Animation
261 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago - ★★★★ - 4 ratingsChristopher Holliday researches animation history and digital media at King’s College London (UK).
Alexander Sergeant is a Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK), specialising in the history and theory of fantasy cinema.
Each episode, they look in detail at a film or television show, taking listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.
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Episodes
Toy Story (1995) (with Lucy Fife Donaldson)
April 22, 2024 08:27 - 1 hour - 58.1 MBThe Fantasy/Animation podcast finally tackles the seminal Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), with Episode 138 looking at Pixar’s computer-animated feature and the film that transformed animation in Hollywood - and beyond - into a digital medium. Joining Chris and Alex to examine Toy Story’s computerised production and the pleasures of its pristine visual illusionism is Dr Lucy Fife Donaldson, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, whose work focuses on film and televi...
Footnote #46 - Multiplanarity
April 15, 2024 07:53 - 14 minutes - 16.7 MBFootnote #46 responds to a listener email by focusing on the speeds and spaces of the “multiplanar” image, a term theorised in Thomas Lamarre’s writing on anime and its techniques which looks at how motion is able to divide animated landscapes into different planes of action. In this episode, Chris treats Alex to a rundown of Lamarre’s work on multiplanarity via the author’s citation of the optical logic of foreground and background spaces in relation to the window of a moving train; the par...
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) (with Sarah Thomas)
April 08, 2024 12:33 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBEpisode 137 appropriately begins at the end of the commercially and critically successful Indiana Jones franchise with this discussion of the fifth and final feature Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold, 2023) featuring special guest Dr Sarah Thomas. Sarah is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media in the School of Arts, whose research expertise centres on stardom/celebrity, media industries, and screen performance in Hollywood and transnational cinemas. She is the author ...
Footnote #45 - The Disney Renaissance (with Peter Kunze)
April 01, 2024 10:33 - 17 minutes - 16.1 MBChris and Alex once again draw on the expertise of Dr Peter Kunze (Tulane University) for this discussion of the form and function of the period critically and culturally known as the Disney Renaissance. Listen as they reflect on the complex and often contradictory place of the Renaissance as a crucial phase of renewal within Disney’s own internal history; the contribution made to the studio’s animated features by the repeating presence of key creative personnel; the influential role of Broa...
Beauty and the Beast (1991) (with Peter Kunze)
March 25, 2024 13:04 - 1 hour - 63.7 MBThe author of Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance (Rutgers University Press, 2023), Dr Peter Kunze (Tulane University), is the special guest for Episode 136 of the podcast which looks at the impact of Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991) and both the industrial and stylistic stakes of the film’s adoption of a Broadway style of musical arrangement. Topics include the film’s place within the Disney Renaissance period of the studi...
Footnote #44 - Hanna-Barbera (with Jared Bahir Browsh)
March 18, 2024 09:00 - 12 minutes - 13.2 MBA deep dive into the U.S. animation studio Hanna-Barbera provides the focus of Footnote #44, as Chris and Alex are once again joined by Dr Jared Bahir Browsh to discuss the origins of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s influential and prolific production company that strengthened the cartoon’s move from theatrical exhibition to television. Topics include the studio’s origins and defining animated products; their particular application of limited animation and the relationship to elements of ...
The Flintstones (1960-1966) (with Jared Bahir Browsh)
March 11, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBChris and Alex are delighted to welcome Dr Jared Bahir Browsh (Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Colorado Boulder) to the podcast to discuss William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s landmark animated sitcom The Flintstones (1960-1966), the first cartoon series to occupy a prime time slot on U.S. television. Listen as they discuss Dr Browsh’s research into the political economics of the media and his recent book Hanna-Barbera: A History (2022) through a consideration of The Flintstones as...
Footnote #43 - Disney Princesses (with Robyn Muir)
March 04, 2024 11:01 - 14 minutes - 14.3 MBFresh from their discussion of Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023), Chris and Alex are once again joined by Dr Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communication (University of Surrey), author of The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis (2023), and founder and director of the Disney, Culture and Society Research Network to discuss the historical and cultural power of Disney princesses, a phenomenon that traverses films, merchandise, and several ancillary media. Topics for Fo...
Wish (2023) (with Robyn Muir)
February 26, 2024 14:46 - 1 hour - 69.3 MBTo celebrate Disney’s computer-animated film musical Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023) and the company’s recent centenary year, Chris and Alex are joined by Dr Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communication in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Robyn’s research is interested in how identity is constructed and interpreted within cultural phenomena, including images of femininity in the Disney Princess franchise. Her book The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Femi...
Footnote #42 - Tolkien’s On Fairy Stories
February 19, 2024 12:08 - 15 minutes - 18.5 MBFollowing up last week’s feature-length episode on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2003), the latest Footnote looks at J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal essay “On Fairy Stories” that engages the definitions, origins, and applications of the fairy story; the fairy vs. faerie distinction and questions of magic and imagination; sub-creation and secondary belief in the construction of fantasy’s logically-consistent fictional worlds; and how Tolkien’s defense of fantasy liter...
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
February 12, 2024 10:20 - 1 hour - 71.7 MBChris and Alex conclude their journey through Middle-Earth with this episode on the third and final entry into Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy - The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2003) - where they reflect on the stylistic influence and cultural legacy of the franchise since its culmination over twenty years ago. Listen as they discuss the role of vertical space in fantasy cinema and its contrast with the portrayal of New Zealand’s sprawling landscapes; Andy Serkis, motion-cap...
Footnote #41 - Canons
February 05, 2024 10:15 - 12 minutes - 15.1 MBFootnote #41 looks at canon formation and value judgments in relation to the selection and privilege of art and culture’s masterworks, with Chris and Alex tackling the relationship between canons and consensus. Topics include canonisation as a political process of inclusion and exclusion; core-periphery models of how so-called untouchable art secures its prominence; the contributions of fan cultures to discourses of ownership, authenticity, and what is considered ‘official’; and the implicat...
Life, Animated (2016) (with Janet Harbord)
January 29, 2024 09:15 - 1 hour - 56.4 MBSpecial guest Janet Harbord, Professor of Film Studies at Queen Mary, joins Chris and Alex to discuss the intersections between fantasy, animation, and autism in this examination of documentary Life, Animated (Roger Ross Williams, 2016), a film that reflects on the value and fantasies of animated media at the same time as it navigates and represents autistic apprehensions of the world. Janet’s research is primarily involved with cinema’s ability to create relationships between bodies, feelin...
Footnote #40 - Puppetry
January 22, 2024 09:53 - 15 minutes - 13.7 MBWhat is puppet animation, and are puppets a form of animation? The historical and theoretical implications of fantasy and animation’s relationship to puppet performance are the focus of Footnote #40, with Chris and Alex looking at the defining role of puppets in fantasy’s fête and carnival culture origins; the phantasmagoria of the puppet and the desire to express fantasy through puppetry; links to the earliest stop-motion shorts and rise of motion-capture technologies in an era of virtual p...
The Dark Crystal (1982) (with Tanya Kirk)
January 15, 2024 11:12 - 1 hour - 61 MB2024 kicks off with this episode on The Dark Crystal (Jim Henson & Frank Oz, 1982), recorded at the British Library with Tanya Kirk, Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections 1601–1900, and one of the organisers and curators of the Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition that runs at the library until February of this year. The exhibition explores the history of the fantasy genre from its origins in fairy and folk tales to more recent incarnations in literature and film, and features or...
Arthur Christmas (2011)
December 18, 2023 15:27 - 1 hour - 62.4 MBThe Christmas special of the Fantasy/Animation podcast is finally delivered, and a perfectly wrapped episode it is too (!), with Chris and Alex enjoying the magic and mayhem of Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith, 2011) - the Aardman studio’s second foray into computer animation and a film that confronts head-on Christmas as a collective fantasy through the comedic conflicts between generations. Listen as they discuss tensions between old and new, magic and technology, in the film’s playful portra...
Footnote #39 - Special Effects
December 11, 2023 08:22 - 15 minutes - 16.9 MBWhat is so special about special effects? What role does technological innovation play in their convincing construction of illusion? What distinguishes ‘special’ from ‘visual’ effects? In this Footnote episode, Chris and Alex play with ideas of special effects in relation to fantasy and animation, going back to early cinema and the animated fantasies (or fantastical animations) of Georges Méliès to think about the history of pro-filmic illusions captured on camera; practical vs. digital dist...
Disney: A Tale of Technology and Innovation (Live at the British Film Institute) (with Chris McKenna)
December 04, 2023 08:55 - 45 minutes - 43.3 MBEpisode 129 sees Chris flying solo in this conversation recorded live at the recent Once Upon A Time: A Disney Day held at the British Film Institute in London back in July, which was part of the Making Magic: 100 Years of Disney two-month season that ran throughout 2023. Discussing the Disney studio’s longstanding relationship to technological innovation is returning special guest Chris McKenna, current Head of Creative Operations at the VFX studio Moving Picture Company, who featured on th...
Footnote #38 - Storybook Openings
November 27, 2023 08:58 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBFootnote #38 tackles the recurrent motif of the storybook that so often begins Disney’s animated features, but which also takes other forms and styles as part of the studio’s sustained dramatisation of storytelling. Listen as Chris and Alex discuss the importance of the prologue within definitions of the Disney formula; animation’s decorative function as a way of actualising and illustrating narrative events; visual developments in the trope and the role of literary legitimisation; and how t...
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) (with Taylor Driggers)
November 20, 2023 08:01 - 1 hour - 86.7 MBChris and Alex continue their journey through the world of Harry Potter for Episode 128 of the podcast, looking at the fourth instalment Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005) accompanied by special guest Dr Taylor Driggers. Taylor is an academic researcher specialising in fantasy literature, theology and religious studies, gender, and sexuality, whose PhD in English Literature from the University of Glasgow focused on fantasy literature’s potential to offer queer and femini...
Footnote #37 - Silent Cinema (with Lawrence Napper)
November 13, 2023 08:50 - 14 minutes - 13.8 MBSpecial guest Dr Lawrence Napper, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London and expert in early silent and British cinemas, joins Chris and Alex once again - this time to talk about silent cinema in this Footnote episode of the podcast. Topics include the role of piano accompaniments, string quartets, and full orchestras within early film culture; the locating of silent cinema as a Victorian leisure practice and connections to pantomime; aesthetic shifts in narrative, editing,...
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) (with Lawrence Napper)
November 06, 2023 18:18 - 1 hour - 63.3 MBFor Episode 127 of the podcast, Chris and Alex travel through (film) history to examine the negotiation of the past through computer manipulation, focusing on Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) and its use of digital techniques to re-articulate the sounds and images of the First World War. Joining them to discuss the technological mediation of national traumas and triumphs is Dr Lawrence Napper, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London, who is an expert in early s...
Footnote #36 - Horror Cinema (with Stacey Abbott)
October 30, 2023 06:58 - 14 minutes - 12.4 MBWhat is horror cinema, and where did it come from? What are its unsettling spectatorial effects and uncomfortable provocations? What codes and conventions define its big screen history, and at which points does it splinter into slasher sub-genres and monstrous cycles? What role does the gothic and supernatural play in its generic construction? And how does the body as both threat and as threatened play into horror’s fascination with the impacts of difference and otherness? Answers to all the...
ParaNorman (2012) (with Stacey Abbott)
October 23, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBAs Halloween rolls around once more, things take a positively spooky turn as Chris and Alex discuss the stop-motion animated horror film ParaNorman (Sam Fell & Chris Butler, 2012) with very special guest Professor Stacey Abbott, who is incoming Professor of Film at Northumbria University and an expert in histories of gothic and horror in film and television. Topics for this discussion include the role of horror cinema in processing trauma, including the special case of children’s horror that...
Footnote #35 - Twice Told Tales
October 16, 2023 12:23 - 12 minutes - 11.3 MBChris and Alex return to the Footnote format for this latest episode on “twice told tales” - a term that, following its Shakespearean origins, has been applied by writers of fantasy to refer to fantasy’s relationship to oral literature and fairytales. Topics include the fairytale’s codification of oral culture; legacies of literary structures and the power of (re)telling the beats of a story; shifting narrative templates and the act of adding one story ‘on top’ of another; and the spectatori...
Cats (2019)
October 09, 2023 14:56 - 1 hour - 69.9 MBChris and Alex return from their extended summer break with this discussion of the much-maligned musical Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019), a film whose reputation as a big-budget misjudgment has perhaps overwhelmed the intricacies of its uncanny constitution, and in particular how the narrative’s negotiation of its A-list performers speaks to the vexed question of actorly labour and agency in an age of heightened visual effects production. Listen as they wade through Cats’ unsettling feline character...
Fantasy/Animation - Announcement
July 31, 2023 16:08 - 1 minute - 1.69 MBA quick message about Fantasy/Animation's Summer Break, as well as ways that you can get in touch to support all things fantastical and animated. From listening back through our podcast archive and leaving us a quick review and star rating, to dropping us an email or sending in a blog post idea or submission ready for when we return, we would love to hear from you! In the meantime, have happy summers wherever you are and see you in October!
Footnote #34 - Science Fiction (with Mark Bould)
July 24, 2023 18:38 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBChris and Alex are joined once more by Mark Bould, Professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, for this Footnote episode that explores the origins and definitions of science-fiction storytelling. Expect turns to genre theory and the evolution of generic cycles, including the shifting ways that science fiction gets defined (and by whom); how science fiction moved from print magazines and paperback publishing to movie serials and the international and U.S. blockbuster; ...
Free Guy (2021) (with Mark Bould)
July 17, 2023 06:12 - 1 hour - 59 MBThe Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) meets They Live (John Carpenter, 1988) in Shawn Levy’s science-fiction comedy Free Guy (2021), which marks the director’s first collaboration with charming Canadian Ryan Reynolds and is a film that confronts head-on contemporary anxieties around technology, choice, security, and artificial intelligence. Joining Chris and Alex to separate out their NPCs from their AI engines is Mark Bould, Professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, a...
Footnote #33 - Can Colour Blind People Work in VFX? (with Chris McKenna)
July 10, 2023 09:05 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MBSpecial guest Chris McKenna, current Head of Creative Operations at the VFX studio Moving Picture Company, joins Chris and Alex for this latest Footnote episode on the VFX industry, with a particular focus on artists with colour blindness and advice on the best avenues for getting into animation lighting and design. From understanding the specific challenges of colour blindness for VFX artistry to the question of industry accessibility, the trio discuss the process of animation visualisation...
Dumbo (2019) (with Chris McKenna)
July 03, 2023 09:57 - 1 hour - 67.1 MBThe emergence of Disney’s so-called ‘live-action’ remakes provides the focus of Episode 123, with the recent adaptation of Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019) offering Chris and Alex plenty to get their teeth into thanks to the film’s particular brand of digital realism as well as director Tim Burton’s reflections on the very nature of spectacle itself. Special guest for this discussion is Chris McKenna, current Head of Creative Operations at the VFX studio Moving Picture Company, and Lead Technical An...
Footnote #32 - 3D (with Nick Jones)
June 26, 2023 13:05 - 11 minutes - 10.7 MBFresh from their discussion of Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021), Chris, Alex and special guest Dr Nick Jones (Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Digital Culture, University of York) return for this short Footnote episode on the marvel and magic of 3D technology. Topics include cinema’s own history of size, space, and spectacle from the Lumière brothers to James Cameron; the kinds of depth cues offered by 3D cinema that extends perception beyond the real-world; technological inn...
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) (with Nick Jones)
June 19, 2023 15:35 - 1 hour - 55 MBThe MCU comes calling once again for Episode 122 of the podcast, as Chris and Alex navigate the complex web of storylines and superheroes that build the world of Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021). Joining them to reflect on the genre’s enduring appeal alongside the contemporary pleasures of Hollywood’s increasing multiversal madness is Dr Nick Jones, who is Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Digital Culture at the University of York. Nick is the author of the monographs Hollywoo...
Footnote #31 - Claymation
June 12, 2023 04:15 - 12 minutes - 12.2 MBFrom the invention of Plasticine by William Harbutt in Britain in 1897 to the use of malleable materials in the earliest stop-motion ‘trick films’ of Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, and the Fleischer Brothers, the application of clay in animation has a history as long as the medium itself. In Footnote #31 of the podcast, Chris and Alex deliberate the evolution of clay animation, including the patenting of ‘Claymation’ in the early-1980s and its emergent synonymy with the Bristol-based A...
Monster House (2006) (with Jane Batkin)
June 05, 2023 05:45 - 1 hour - 53.7 MBChris and Alex delve into motion-capture, murder mystery, and monster houses for this discussion of Gil Kenan’s 2006 computer-animated film Monster House, a digital feature produced by the ImageMovers company founded by renowned filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and a specialist in animation utilising mo-cap technologies. Joining them for Episode 121 of the podcast is Dr Jane Batkin, an animation film theorist and Associate Professor in the School of Film, Media and Journalism at the University of L...
Footnote #30 - Franchises
May 29, 2023 09:39 - 13 minutes - 12.4 MBThe economy of the Hollywood franchise is the focus of Footnote #30, where Chris and Alex examine the multimedia conglomeration of the U.S. cinema industry in the blockbuster era of the 1970s, and the subsequent impact on the post-2000 phase of Hollywood film production and its intensified franchise mentality. To unpack the so-called ‘genius of the system,’ they take a journey through the history of sequels, serials, and series as far back as early Hollywood, and discuss the value of ‘pre-so...
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) (with Rhianna Dhillon)
May 22, 2023 07:33 - 1 hour - 67.2 MBNo sooner have Chris and Alex finished their examination of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002) than they make a swift return to Hogwarts for the third (and best?) in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuarón, 2004). Joining them in this instalment to separate their Leaky Cauldrons from their Time-Turners is very special guest Rhianna Dhillon, Film/TV critic and Presenter who has featured on BBC Radio One, Front Row, Sky News, and Chan...
Footnote #29 - Transmedia
May 15, 2023 09:00 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MBDrawing on the seminal work of scholar Henry Jenkins, this latest Footnote episode engages the question of transmedia storytelling, industrial organisation, cultures of appreciation, and the consumption of media in an era of convergence. Alex takes the lead in discussing how contemporary entertainment experiences involve the dispersal of content across interacting, co-ordinated, and co-dependent media platforms. From medium specificity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the idea of ‘transmedi...
Arab Animation (1937-2015) (with Omar Sayfo)
May 08, 2023 06:39 - 1 hour - 65.9 MBSpecial guest Dr. Omar Sayfo joins Chris and Alex for Episode 119 of the podcast, which features a rundown of Arab Animation covering a range of cartoons from Egypt, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a discussion of Omar’s recent book Arab Animation: Images of Identity (2021). Omar is an Affiliated Researcher in the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University, and a researcher at the Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, who has published articles in anima...
Footnote #28 - Adult Animation
May 01, 2023 16:53 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBAnimation’s rude and crude history is the topic of Footnote #28 of the podcast as Chris and Alex take up the complex issue of adult animation. Topics include adult animation as the medium’s cultural ‘other’ and how it is a term involved in exclusionary tactics of classification; associations between the ‘adult’ of adult animation and taboo themes, strong language, and graphic sexual content; alternate definitions of adultness rooted in everything from the medium’s potential for satire, parod...
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) (with David Sorfa)
April 24, 2023 15:20 - 1 hour - 54.4 MBPrepare for more multiverse madness as Chris and Alex dive into the world of Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022), the Oscar-winning absurdist sci-fi action adventure that engages head-on with the question of what it means to be human set against the backdrop of forking path storylines, a sumptuous mise-en-scène of colliding visual styles, and a maelstrom of digital VFX. The special guest for Episode 118 is Dr David Sorfa, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies a...
Footnote #27 - Surrealism
April 17, 2023 09:52 - 12 minutes - 11.9 MBFollowing up episodes on hyper-realism and photorealism, this latest instalment completes the unofficial Fantasy/Animation ‘realism’ trilogy (!) by focusing on the history, politics, and aesthetic concerns of surrealism. Chris and Alex take a surrealist turn through the crisis of realism in the arts and the advent of photography; dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, and unconscious desires; postwar intellectualism, Salvador Dalí, and Dadaism; and how both fantasy and animation work in relat...
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) (with Jyotsna Kapur)
April 10, 2023 13:13 - 1 hour - 70.7 MBWhomping willows, Ford Anglias, and so much more are covered in episode 117 of the podcast, which (better late than never!) returns to Hogwarts for the second instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise and an adaptation of the 1998 novel originally released back in November 2002. Joining Chris and Alex for a closer look at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002) is Jyotsna Kapur, who is a Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Southern Illinois University. Jyotsna...
Footnote #26 - The Cinema of Attractions
April 03, 2023 14:59 - 13 minutes - 13.4 MBThe 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. Listen as they reflect on the emergence of actuality shorts, travelogues, and the ‘trick’ films of Georges Méliès; the acquisition and integration of narrative by cinema that...
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) (with Daniel White)
March 27, 2023 16:51 - 1 hour - 80.8 MBFinally following up their podcast on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001), Episode 116 has Chris and Alex picking up the story of Middle-earth with this instalment on the second film in the franchise, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002). Joining them is special guest Dr Daniel White, who is Senior Lecturer in Musicology in the Department of Music & Design Arts at the University of Huddersfield, and author of a number of publications...
Footnote #25 - Photorealism
March 13, 2023 09:14 - 11 minutes - 11.5 MBFresh 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. Listen as they discuss photorealism’s relationship to the animated illusion of pro-filmic activity; links with hyper-realism as a broader aesthetic category of representation; the role of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in...
Peppa Pig Revisited (with Sarah Ann Kennedy)
March 06, 2023 09:55 - 58 minutes - 50.6 MBEpisode 115 celebrates Chris and Alex’s return to Peppa Pig (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2004-) for a part-interview, part-reflection on this staple of contemporary British animation and culture, which (unofficially at least!) follows on from the earlier podcast instalment discussing the style and tone of the series. The guest for this special ‘revisited’ episode is voice artist Sarah Ann Kennedy, who voices both Miss Rabbit and Mummy Rabbit in the show, alongside performing as Nanny Plum i...
Footnote #24 - Hyper-Realism
February 27, 2023 13:53 - 12 minutes - 12.7 MBThe 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. Topics include hyper-realism’s place in relation to painting and sculpture; the uncanny quality of hyper-realist art and issues of resemblance; the parameters of Disney’s ‘hyper-realist’ animated style against earlier ‘plasmatic’ se...
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
February 20, 2023 10:33 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBThe Netflix feature The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, 2021) gets the Fantasy/Animation treatment, as Chris and Alex offer up a discussion in this episode of the film’s dysfunctional family dynamics, road movie structure, and its spectacular sentient robots techno-narrative. Topics include the contribution of Sony Pictures Animation to the Hollywood computer-animated film industry and stylistic links to both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2009) a...
Footnote #23 - Phantasy
February 13, 2023 08:51 - 12 minutes - 12.2 MBThe 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. In Alex’s 10-minute survey of the term, topics include its relationshi...