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Abstracts. English Information 2012


 

Releases

 

Història d’Este, by Pascual Pérez

Adrián Encinas Salamanca

Abstract: Speaking of Pascual Pérez means talking about high quality stop-motion animation, as this animator from Castellón has shown after his way through Aardman Studios, that clay is his natural means of expression. After his stay at Bristol, Pascual has returned to Spain to tell Història d’Este, a personal and independent work supported by IVAC-Generalitat Valenciana, the ICAA and Radiotelevisió Valencia Group. The film tells of a serious issue such as alcohol in a tone of humorous story, using a simple doll whose appearance recalls Peter Lord’s legendary character Morph.

Key Words: Stop-motion, alcoholism, showmanship, auteur film, clay.

Biography: Adrián Encinas Salamanca (Madrid, 1986) is a Civil Canals and Ports Engineer. His premature contact with the cinema of Ray Harryhausen made outcrops on a concern about the how and why of animation frame by frame, which materialized in 2006 in the creation of the Puppets & Clay blog, dedicated exclusively to the world of stop-motion. He has also worked for animation festivals such as Animayo and Animadrid, giving talks about stop-motion, and he has contributed to books (The Spanish Short in 100 names), magazines (FX Magazine, Stop-Motion Magazine) and fanzines (DATA, Amazing Monsters) focusing on this centennial animation technique from different points of view. He also works within STOPMOTIA, an association of lovers of stop-motion, where he tries to make this kind of animation technique stomp its way into every corner.

Contact: puppetsandclay@gmail.com

 

Birdboy, by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivero

Rafael Andrés López

Abstract: Birdboy is a short film directed by comic designer Alberto Vazquez and animation director Pedro Rivero, born as a side story to the comic Psiconautas, telling one of its episodes which was just illustrated. The short film was also conceived to promote the future realization of the movie Psiconautas, which can coexist perfectly with the previous work. The film tells the story of Dinki and her family life, and a lonely boy, Birdboy, hiding in the woods. The characters’ lives changed dramatically when an industrial accident that forever affects life on the island. The film is doing a good flight at international animation festivals, being nominated for the Spanish Academy “Goya” Awards 2012 for Best Animated Short Film.

Key Words: Birdboy, Psiconautas, tragic, rhythm, adaptation, comics, animation.

 

Biography: Rafael Andrés López was born in 1985 in Alcoy (Alicante). Over the years it has been formed as a creative illustration and animation, obtaining the title of Senior Technician in Art and Design at EASD Illustration of Alcoy in 2006 and he became Graduated in Fine Arts at Universitat Politècnica de València in 2011. She is currently attending a Masters in Arts Production and cooperates with the group of Animation: Art and Industry, Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia. He recently completed the short film Amrit as a final project career, and it has been selected in several international festivals and won the second prize at the festival Animation CortoComenius 2011.

Contact: rafandresart@gmail.com

 

Unanimated, a Short Film by Emilio Martí López

Anthony S. Nuckols

Abstract: Desanimado [Unanimated] is a 7-minute short film, produced and directed during 2010 and 2011, which reflects on difference with a comical tone and on animation itself, based primarily on the subtext of sexual diversity. Furthermore, the film was produced in the Universitat Politècnica, since its author, Emilio Martí López, came up with the idea for the shortfilm during his master’s studies in Artistic Production, directed by the professor Miquel Guillem. In this article, written by someone very close to the director, we highlight its principal characteristics and some key points of successful path the film has taken since it began being shown in various festivals and competitions.

Key Words: Metalanguage, comedy, homosexuality, rotoscopy, shortfilm.

Biography: Anthony Nuckols has a B.A. in Spanish Languauge and Literature from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, USA). He also has a Master’s degree in Hispanic Studies from the University of Valencia, where he presented and defended his Master’s Project on the role of the contemporary novel and the process of mourning on the Spanish Civil War.

Contact: antnuc@alumni.uv.es

 

Reports

 

20 YEARS to Tell a Dream

Miguel Vidal

Abstract: 20 Years is a film directed by Bárbaro Joel Ortiz, which opens a new style for the Cuban animated film. The first stop-motion films in Cuba appeared under the strict tradition of Czech and Polish puppet theaters. However, times are changing for the Cuban animation, where a new dramatic language emerges for stop-motion film from the hands of young and new talented artists. 20 Years makes a difference. The film has been selected by a number of festivals worldwide and animated film events, such as 2010 Annecy Festival in France, Anima Mundi Festival in Brazil, Cinanima in Portugal, Animadrid and Spain.

Key Words: Shortfilm, ICAIC, puppet, stop-motion, love, Ortiz.

Biography: Miguel Vidal Ortega is a Graduated at the University of Havana and Doctor of Fine Arts at Universitat Politècnica de València. He teaches animation at the Department of Design, Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, and he is also component of the Group Animation: Art and Industry, combining his creative work as an animator with academic research. He has been head animator and film director at ICAIC Animation Studios in Havana, Cuba, working as an animator, designer and director of numerous films, headers and music videos. Also he has taken part in festivals, conferences and art exhibitions.

Contact: mivior@dib.upv.es

 

Glimpsing Vuk Jevremovič. An Artist who as a Child Always Wanted to Draw

María Susana García Rams

Abstract: Vuk Jevremovič is a renowned artist and animator of Serbian origins, whose short films have received numerous international awards including an Oscars® nomination (for Panther, 1999). In March 2011 he gave a Masterclass in Animation Master UPV, and was one of the guest artists of the Cycle Grandes de la animación organized at Sala Parpalló (Valencia) in collaboration with the Masters degree. Vuk Jevremovič films possess a force that goes beyond the images, they caught you and transport you from perceptions to emotions. This article comes from an interview with the author on the intimate sense of his films and his creative process.

Key Words: Animation, memory, time, alchemy, creation.

Biography: Mª Susana Garcia Rams is PhD in Fine Arts, Senior Lecturer in animation at the UPV and at the Digital Animation Masters degree in Palermo, Italy. Her work and research revolve around art as a means of alchemic transformation for human beings. She has developed and coordinated the production of audiovisual projects including among others: curator of Joanna Quinn’s exhibition in Valencia; Project Escucharte with UNAM, Mexico; Simposio  Art and Health in Fine Arts; publications, exhibitions and the launching of  elchaflán: a new space for creativity and social exchange.

Contact: sgarciar@dib.upv.es

 

Profiles

 

Interview with Florence Henrard. Animation and its Many Techniques

M. Carmen Poveda

Abstract: Our interview with Florence Henrard introduces the work of this Belgian artist and succesfull freelance animator, and reveals her beginnings, her entering into animation world and her development as an artist. Florence also talks about her connection with music and how she has taken advantage of this specific knowledge at animation making. Through Florence’s lifework, we will meet different techniques within the field of animation and how they are selected and used according to a given script.

Key Words: Henrard, animation, character, techniques, language, freelance.

Biography: M. Carmen Poveda is Lecturer at the Department of Design, Faculty of Fine Arts at Universitat Politècnica de València. She is an artist specialized in traditional animation, who combines animated shorts filmmaking with her tasks as an illustrator. Some of her films are Un trozo de viento (2005) and La silla flamenca (2008).

Contact: mpoveda@dib.upv.es

 

Interview with Jordi Grangel, Creator of Styles and Characters

Rafael Andrés López

Abstract: Our interview with Jordi Grangel offers a brief overview of how Grangel Studio started in in the field of animation, giving us their artistic vision on the role of character and styles designers in animated films, in the search of a final design that animators use later as a reference.

Key Words: Character creation, visual style, artistic director, professionalism.

Biography: Rafael Andrés López was born in 1985 in Alcoy (Alicante). Over the years it has been formed as a creative illustration and animation, obtaining the title of Senior Technician in Art and Design at EASD Illustration of Alcoy in 2006, and he became Graduated in Fine Arts at Universitat Politècnica de València in 2011 . She is currently attending a Masters in Arts Production and cooperates with the group of Animation: Art and Industry, Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia. He recently completed the short film Amrit as a final project career, and it has been selected in several international festivals and won the second prize at the festival Animation CortoComenius 2011.

Contact: rafandresart@gmail.com

 

Exhibition Spaces

 

A Wish to Whistle. A View on Mostra Animac – Lleida

Isabel Herguera

Abstract: Animac- Mostra Internacional de Cinema d¹Animació of Catalonia has been described as a showcase for animation as well as other art forms that conform the discipline of animation. Thanks to its genuine and unique vision Animac is one of oldest and most important events on the Spanish animation scene. It has devoted retrospective shows to contemporary animation artist such as Gil Alkabetz, Michaela Pavlátová, Maureen Selwood, Vuk Jevremovič,Koji Yamamura, and Florence Miailhe who, among others, have been there to share their work and their experiences with the public. Isabel Herguera, who directed this festival over the past nine years, will tell us her experience in Animac.

Key Words: Animac, festival, art, retrospective, Lleida.

Biography: Isabel Herguera, Graduated in Fine Arts at University of the Basque Country (1985). She continued his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (1985-90) as a student of Nam June Paik and later at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles (1990-93), where he later worked in various animation studios. Since 2005, she coordinates the experimental animation course at NID – National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India; there she always escapes that can be drawn on old notebooks, especially at railway stations and bus stops. She directed Animac from 2003 to 2011.

Contact: isaherguera@terra.es

 

The Tool and the Code. Animation Cinema at Huesca International Film Festival

Orencio Boix Larrey

Abstract: Throughout their nearly forty-years history, the Huesca International Film Festival has devoted an important space to animation. During fifteen editions the festival featured a prize for the Best Animated Short, the Silver Dancer. Since 1997, animation entered the overall production of short films, compiting with other film languages. In addition, the event at Huesca has set various tributes and retrospectives, as well as several books devoted to international major figures at the animation scene have been published. One thought overflies this article: What is the role of animation within a festival dedicated to short film as a whole?

Key Words: Animation, festival, Cinema, Huesca, tributes, retrospectives.

Biography: Orencio Boix (Huesca, 1981) writer, director and editor, studied Film at the School of Performing Arts TAI. He has worked as a scriptwriter for several production companies, as Boca a Boca or Picasso Studio. He entered the world of documentary at Pyrene PV. With Javier Aquilué he forms the collective cultural management En vez de nada. He combines his work as general coordinator and film commissioner at the Peripheries Festival with his activity as writer and producer under his own production company, Sancta Sanctorum. As well, he works in the area of film and video at ArtLab Huesca, a laboratory for research and development of multimedia art projects. He has also directed music videos and documentaries. In 2011 he directed the 39thedition of Huesca International Film Festival.

Contact: orencioboix@gmail.com

 

Training

 

Stories to Share. Spain and Mali United by Tales (and Animation)

Beatriz Herráiz Zornoza

Abstract: Stories to share is a cultural cooperation project for the development, born with the purpose of raising awareness, and to revalue telling stories within the Malian culture. This is an initiative promoted by ARTS Culture and Development, a Valencia association that, through culture, offers comprehensive development tools in underdeveloped countries. This project was carried out at an universitary environment, between the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multimédia Balla Fasseke Kouyaté in Bamko, whose students have worked creatively on the mise-en-scène of different oral tradition stories, bringing them to life through both animation and illustration.

Key Words: Animation, Másters, training, experience, projects.

Biography: Beatriz Herráiz studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of San Carlos, Valencia, where he obtained her Doctorate in 2008. He is currently Assistant Professor Ph.D. in the same university. His professional career focuses particularly on motion graphics. She has been a graphic artist for Radio Televisión Valenciana and UPVRTV. He has also performed audiovisual developments for plays such as Bonnie and Clyde (Gallus Theatre Royal) and Consonants (Maduixa Theatre). In 2009 she began collaborating with ARTS Culture and Development, where she is responsible for audiovisual projects. Currently she combines teaching with cultural cooperation projects.

Contact: beaherzo@rtv.upv.es

 

To Young Animation Artists. The First Edition of UPV Masters Degree in Animation: A Shared Experience

Adriana Navarro

Abstract: This paper discusses the vision of a recent Graduated in Fine Arts, who later attended the first Edition of the UPV Masters in Animation Degree. The paper reveals an actual and direct experience and it is aimed to future students intending to join the world of animation within the artistic framework. When animation is chosen as a means of expression, a number of skills are needed: drawing, timing, action, pantomime, imagination, etc. We were born with all the potential requirements, but some still must be polished; others must awake from their long slumber. Read and observe can emancipate our minds; watch, watch and observe. Let’s be «Sponge Bobs», look at unusual situations, things and characters with a brand new sight.

Key Words: Animation, Masters, training, experience, projects.

Biography: Adriana Navarro (Barakaldo, 1986) is a Graduated in Fine Arts at Universitat Politècnica de València, where she is currently studying the Masters Degree in Artistic Production. She is interested in animation, performing arts and audiovisual language. She directed I’ll Give you my Dream as part of the Certificate in Animation: Art & Industry in 2008-09, specialized in Stop Motion animation. Subsequently she was part of the team that animated the short film Bona nit, Ombra, with the Estonian animator Riho Unt as supervisor. Her first short film, Cute Cat, was supervised by Israeli animator Gil Alkabetz.

http://adrimalillo.carbonmade.com/

Contact: baradri@hotmail.com

 

Guest Writer

 

Do Cypresses Believe in God? About Garbancito de la Mancha (Arturo Moreno, 1945)

Alejandro Montiel

Abstract: We describe the exceptional circumstances surrounding the production of Garbancito of La Mancha (1941), the first European color animated feature, analyzing both the contamination of the contemporary ideologies in Spain in the film in the early Franco age, and the most prominent aesthetic features of the narrative drawn. The analysis shows that the authors opted for a sui generis acclimatization of both forms and ideologized fantasy of Disney –most singularly in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – to the Spanish cultural life at the moment.

Key Words: Spanish animation, Postwar, Falangism, Disney.

Biography: Alejandro Montiel is Senior Lecturer at Universitat Politècnica de València, where he teaches Film History. He has written two volumes specifically on cinema (Teorías del cine. Un balance histórico, 1992, second edition 1999, and El desfile y la quietud. Análisis fílmico e Historia del Cine, 2002). He has participated in various collective works, primarily with contributions to the history of Spanish cinema. Between 1997 and 2002 he directed the 54 issues of the film magazine La madriguera. In 2003 he won the prize Best Paper Film of the Year, awarded by the Spanish Association of Historians of Cinema.

Contact: jmontiel@har.upv.es

 

Research

 

The Carnival of Animals: Animating Sex in Couple. Reviewing Sexual Imaginery from Irreverent Humour

Rosa Torres Pujol

Abstract: Now that Feminism is much more accepted in society already and women are appropriating of the animation media as authors, they appear other views, laughing at archetypes, reinventing what is told and how to tell it. The Carnival of the Animals (Michaela Pavlátová, 2006) is an example of this new dynamic which claims the sexual desire in a fun and irreverent way. It is also an against-speech made in couple, because her husband Vratislav Hlavatý, illustrator of exquisite obscene humor, participated in this animated production. Thus, we do not want to point out that the woman has a genuine way of animate about sex: there are many middle frontiers and we must dissolve them with the laught -minds restructured- because representation is is not any more than a performative act that should serve to deconstruct subjectivities.

Key Words: Stereotypes, Pavlátová, laughter, taboo, Postfeminism, desire.

Biography: Rosa Torres Pujol studied Audiovisual Communication at the University of Valencia (UV). She is interested in the possibilities of animation to approach social taboos, subject she has explored in the Artistic Production Master she just finished at the UPV. She has been a speaker at the Seminar on ICT in the UV (2008) and cooperating-teacher offering a class about «The annihilating animation of the stereotypes», from the Master’s Degree in Languages and Literatures (2010). Her short film Imperfecta was shown at the 26th edition of Cinema Jove and nowadays she is about to make an animated video installation.

Contact: rovaltorres@gmail.com

 

Controversy about the Origins of Anime. A New Perspective on Early Japanese Animation

Antonio Horno López

Abstract: Recent discoveries on the origins of Japanese animation show solid evidences on the first Nippon animation film could be dated around 1900. This find may put into question certain foundational aspects of animation history and traditional animation. This paper reviews the existing documentation on early Japanese animations, stating that this genuine style of animation could actually have an origin on its own.

Key Words: Anime, history, Tezuka, McCay

Biography: Antonio Horno López is Graduated in Fine Arts by Universidad de Granada, Spain. Now he is a researching students granted by Junta de Andalucía, and he works at the Department of Design at the same University. He is currently researching in animation techniques, developing an interactive CD on animation, basics concepts and history, as his final Degree project. Nowadays he is a PhD candidate, writing a thesis about Japanese animation.

Contact: ahorno@ugr.es

 

From Garbancito de la Mancha to Los sueños de Tay-Pi: An Approach to Balet & Blay Spanish Animated Cinema

Núria Nadal i Rovira

Abstract: Spanish animation cinema took a long time to be consolidated and it was not until 1945 when the first animated feature was released: Garbancito de la Mancha (Arturo Moreno, 1945). It was a success of critics and audience. Besides, the production company Balet y Blay produced two more animated features: Alegres Vacaciones (Arturo Moreno, 1948) and Los sueños de Tay-Pi (Franz Winterstein, 1948), but these were not as successful as their precedent. Why? This article approaches to the production, and its problems, of the animation movies presented by the Balet y Blay production company during the Fourties.

Key Words: Arturo Moreno, Franz Winterstein, Garbancito de la Mancha, Postwar, cartoons.

Biography: Núria Nadal i Rovira (Barcelona, 1984) is a Graduated in Art History and Communication Studies at Universitat de Barcelona (UB). She has actively collaborated with the photographic collection catalogue kept in the Arxiu de la Filmoteca de Catalunya. She also belonged to the research group Laboratori d’Investigació Audiovisual Audiovisual (LAIA) of the UB. She delivered with Jaume Duran the proceeding “El cinema d’animació dels primers temps i la reconstrucció de l’actualitat: el cas de L’enfonsament del Lusitania” at the 8th Seminary about the origins and history of cinema.

Contact: nurianadal@gmail.com

 

Lights, Camera, Render… The 3D Software: Technology, Ideology and Realism

Marcelo Dematei

Abstract: The paper addresses the problem of realism of synthetic images, primarily from the example of the Hollywood massive blockbuster filmmaking, which has a significant length of animation and synthetic image. The argument seeks to understand the mimesis of the image as a social requirement, not determined by the possibilities of technology but rather the reverse: as a condition for setting ideological machine technology IS & CA. This machine carries its own learning, its pedagogy and its poetics, which become particularly evident in the metaphors with which the machine builds the tool interface and associated work processes. The text proposes to reflect on these issues – specific to the nature of IS & CA – to treat it both in the professional field, and as for a teacher or a creator, without innocence.

Key Words: IS&CA (image synthesis and computer animation), showbusiness, photorealism, pedagogy, new media, ideology, animation, CG films, CGI.

Biography: Marcelo Dematei (Argentina, 1967). Director of Master in Animation IDEC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, during almost 10 years since 2002. He colaborated in the development of procedural facial expression tools for virtual characters as member of the Researcher in Interactive Technologies Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2006-2010). His art projects are focused in the confluence between art and technology, and structures of language, body, movement and representation. He has extensive experience as a designer and art director in publishing, audiovisual and multimedia. He currently works at his own studio on the development and production of cross-media projects.

www.marcelodematei.com / www.piaggiodematei.com

Contact: m@piaggiodematei.com

 

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