Absence, Excess and Epistemological Expansion: Towards a Framework for the Study of Animated Documentary

This article gives an overview of the history of animated documentary, both in regard to the form itself and how it has been studied. It then goes on to present a new way of thinking about animated documentary, in terms of the way the animation functions in the texts by asking what the animation doe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnimation : an interdisciplinary journal Vol. 6; no. 3; pp. 215 - 230
Main Author Roe, Annabelle Honess
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.11.2011
Subjects
epistemology
animated documentary
The Sinking of the Lusitania
mimesis
Walking with Dinosaurs
realism
documentary
animation
Creature Comforts
documentary modes
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Summary:This article gives an overview of the history of animated documentary, both in regard to the form itself and how it has been studied. It then goes on to present a new way of thinking about animated documentary, in terms of the way the animation functions in the texts by asking what the animation does that the live-action alternative could not. Three functions are suggested: mimetic substitution, non-mimetic substitution and evocation. The author suggests that, by thinking about animated documentary in this way, we can see how animation has broadened and deepened documentary’s epistemological project by opening it up to subject matters that previously eluded live-action film.
ISSN:1746-8477
1746-8485
DOI:10.1177/1746847711417954