Bechdel test for animation

from the "Dykes to Watch Out For" series, Alison Bechdel

It may have been invented as a joke, as well as a comment on contemporary cinema, but the Bechdel test is now a respectable metric of film industry's consistent tendency to default to the male. Briefly, the test - if you don't know it - asks Does the film have at least two women, do they communicate with each other, about something other than a man. It's a small test, and there are other things we could compare female vs male characters - number of speaking (or main) characters, % of screen time, % of dialogue, how well developed and visually differentiated are the characters. Big mainstream animations seem to be following the live action pattern - with some exceptions - of creating characters which are only female if their gender is a key issue. Ho Hum.

People are beginning to notice, to research it, and to publish their analyses, which is good... e.g. www.washingtonpost.com/. But meanwhile, I'm going to do an inventory of male and female roles in my own animations, and apply some of these tests



so, a quick survey of past animations: for comparison

Films with male protagonists	13
Films with female protagonists	16
Protagonists with no (apparent) gender	3
Films with NO women in	8
Films with NO men in	10
Total main characters (female)	29
Total main characters (male)	29
Films that wouldn't pass the bechdel test? if you discount those which have only one character or only characters without identifiable gender	15
Films that would pass the bechdel test	5

seems there is still work to be done then!

art...love...obsession

plus they have cracking sheds in Swaledale
(field barns actually, in Gunnerside)

so Henry Miller said that to paint is to love. and  I have just spent two days walking in Swaledale, loving the scenery, the wind, the sound of the sheep calling to the lambs, the extraordinary variation between the desolate, charred moors and the intimacy of tiny becks, with wood anemones under ancient moss-shaggy trees...

but I wouldn't want to paint it (too hard to attempt any improvement on nature? Lots of painters do, and some manage to put the love, the passion, the pride and a sense of enormity into it. I do take photographs...)

and I definitely wouldn't want to animate it (no story?). But this scenery is full of stories! The story of stones, of sheep, of communities...the timelapse story of the life of the land, mountains shrugging human endeavour off their backs and flower meadows washing over the greenfields and away again like waves on the sea...but unfortunately, as much as I love these places,I am doomed to make ludicrous animations of talking sheds and flying grannies. I love them even more.

animation will save the world

The infamous Dr Calamari  - a known squid - is unmasked
And if anyone else had suggested drawing a squid  trying
 to get out of a giant spider suit I would snort in derision

OH! yes, of course life would be easier if I made live action movies. I wouldn't have to knit every frame...
which is why I feel animation has to have something live action doesn't - mermaids, old ladies who can fly, spherical people... (hm. Splash/ Mary Poppins/ Monty Python)
It's not just that doing those things in live action would be expensive, tricky, involve expensive post-production and or stunt players.... Its not just that I like drawing, and prefer both the process and the end product of gesture, painting, splodgyness to those of photography...and not just that I prefer to work alone in what colleagues refer to as my splendid fortress of solitude, author - auteur if you must - of my own stories and characters...
It's more to do with the difference between a recording of reality (however artificially constructed) and the depiction of a dream (however lifelike). Building a dam to stop our imaginations running away down the valley of GrownUp...and eventually running dry.

...but is it art?

Malcolm ponders the nature of art & animation

Just visited my local art gallery (Biscuit Factory, Newcastle), and reflecting on animation as an art practice...(when I was studying Foundation and making choices, they didn't really have animation degrees) Interesting to see where Universities now place this study; within computing, design/illustration, journalism (?) and in Film Schools. Certainly animation covers a wide area, including storytelling/ narrative, drawing/ illustration, movement, sound, technology, communication/design. But so does Fine Art...and artist's film is well recognised as a genre/ even a section in film festival submissions... But what I'm wondering is why do there seem to be so few fine artists working in animation? (aside from the equipment, the time - which usually suggests teamwork, the difficulty of getting it shown, the lack of commercial saleability, the industry system, the un-fashionable-ness of narrative in fine art...hmm)

animation for adults

according to the BBC, the top ten animations for adults includes Bambi. (which I haven't seen; I hate the wide-eyed cuteness of Disney animals and can't forgive what they did to the Sword in the Stone). They are basing this list on feature-length movies, so some of the more joyous visuals and characterisations can't be included as they belong to TV series or to shorts.

But Id certainly agree with When the Wind Blows, Persepolis, and Belleville Rondez-vous...(Great storylines, great drawings with their own style ...and faithfully adapted from the books to recreate the whole mood). They have Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was great but if I could only take one Aardman onto a desert island it would be The Wrong Trousers. (Deeper exploration of the relationship between Wallace and Gromit, more visual energy...).But what makes an "adult animation"? (does rotoscoping count?) ... this list implies (apart from "adult themes" which might mean sex and/or drugs) darkness, depth, but also truth - historical fact, biography or documentary.. with a serious issue at its heart. A balance of joy and horror...

Matching

So this week I discovered something about matching...
At the beginning of a new animation, you plan your characters and you know what you want them to look like - simplified, light on gender-specifics...you worry about character development - or lack of it - but tell yourself this is a story about how people behave in groups, not individuals... But then you want to put in a dog.
The first dog was great, sort of a cross between two dogs from my past (Jason, a cocker spaniel, and Cassie, a german shepherd)...but much too...doggy. It made the people look half-made. It didn't match.
So I had to simplify it. The new one looks a bit like a sheep, but it works better...  There's a moral here - but not so much about the need for planning and storyboarding and pencil tests, more about looking for the simplified indicators of the character, of gender, of species. Oh and looking at what you're doing!!

Recycle, Remix, Return to Basics

First completed film of the year is Blue-Sky...a recut and savagely edited version of Islands (5 minutes plus down to 1'15)...not all of the narrative but the essence of the story with a different emphasis. This was a really interesting editing challenge and makes you think about the story/ the pace/ what is essential and what is spare....Letting go. Also, interesting to explore how not having time for lots of exposition at the beginning makes you ask yourself how do I establish the sense of community, friendliness, self-sufficiency? And oddly, this loss of context also affects the reading of gender...I found I needed to do some subtle redrawing of the characters here and there to clarify
Made for the Amy Johnson anniversary celebrations in Hull (my one-time home town)...Hope they decide to accept it. But either way, a big piece of learning....

Animation Research

So - helping to interview prospective students for the 'comics' degree at Teesside, being surprised by the popularity of one single style of cartoon and the stereotypes of how women and men are represented in them...This has made me decide to do some proper research into gender representation in animation.
The much quoted statement from head of animation for Disney's Frozen - "Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty" should be obviously irrelevant to most animators outside the BigBoxOffice - because in animation, as in life, women (or girls) are not necessarily pretty...and especially not when they are being crazed, furious, or triangular.
Please, if you are a student, or even if you are not...DO NOT suppose that to make your generic character female you should put a bow in its hair or enlarge its eyelashes. Especially if it is a robot. Instead, observe what signifies actual masculinity and maybe think about making your generic character male by e.g. giving him a moustache.
You will have to work harder to observe whether women and men actually have different facial characteristics and what they are... and to what extent they can be represented in a minimalistic cartoon. To notice whether men and women stand, move, gesture in different ways. And also to consider whether it really matters if people can instantly identify that robot as female or male anyway.

Networking

 I just found a facebook group for networking artists and musicians...it seems pretty quiet but I met a certain musician who is looking at composing something for Fresh Air. Although the original version has a sound track with foley and some Radio Quiz noises - which I voiced myself - I'm interested in considering multiple versions of the same short film with different soundtracks. Watch this space to see where this one goes!

Christmas

Every year now, I make a "stained glass" christmas card and an online, animated card. Christmas for me is about family and friends and renewing connections of love and kindness. So - regardless of anyone's religion, philosophy, or world model, Happy Xmas and a new year full of beauty and - er - animation. Here is an example... Actually I like to play with real stained glass too...

Feature-length Shorts

No, it just feels like it. At over 5 minutes, "Islands" was massively time-consuming for a solo project, not least because the visuals were full-colour and intricate...lots of experiments with patterns and patchwork quilts. This, and ASGC took up most of the year. It was a more expanded narrative and seemed to be more concerned with "beauty" that most of the films. Working on the glorious technicolour of ASGC seems to have had a lasting effect...so far. This is another project which made me look carefully at how gender is represented; its obvious to me these characters are all women/ when seen in relation to the men (hint: the men have wings) but is that what an audience conditioned to default to "man" when it sees a semi-abstract figure would see??

Animated Music Video

Apple Size Golden Clitoris - from the track/ album of the same name...A major challenge...working with an old friend and singer-songwriter Jan Allain on an animated music video. A long track, (over 5 minutes) and difficult to synchronise to the beat - not least because this is working backwards for me  - but made very much easier because I kept imagining Jan's explosive laugh in my ear in the good bits.
A very interesting project , which also involved the challenges of an absence of linear narrative, animating a clitoris, and representing someone else - professionally - through an animated portrait. What do you think of the end result? (Youtube) Beware; apparently its a persistent earworm.

Estings - or not

Channel 4 put out a call for 10 second ident animations for E4 Estings...so wish I'd done this BEFORE Jan's video as it really helped me work out the easiest way to synchronise when starting from the music. They didn't want it, but unfortunately it's no use for anything else. There's probably a moral there in picking your themes carefully and always having an eye on recycling!

Animated Portrait

This summer our Dean (Gerda Roper) retired, and the media crew decided to make her a video send-off. I thought it would be more appropriate to make my input as an animation So, I made a tiny tribute to her and her big influence on the shape of the School (SAM, Arts and Media). Making a portrait of someone as an animation is a new challenge - not really a caricature, but having recogniseable signs including in this case, expressions and big jewellery. So far, she doesn't seem to hate it!

Knit-your-own-Shed

Ongoing - this year I am working with Miki Z on an art/craft project knitting an installation. Now it also includes crochet (thanks for the instructions Mum) with broomhandles, and proggy. This may take the rest of our natural lives to complete... I sometimes miss the physical, gestural aspects of big painting and sculpture. So it's good to have artist friends who will suggest mad collaborations from time to time...

Referendum - animating the news

Just squeezed in film No.7 to 2014 - a tiny one-minute animation on the Scottish referendum which was made for the BBC Draw the News site. Open submission, and no fancy competition but great feedback and probably seen by more people that films at a festival; especially as it's still online. Again, the challenge was in the tight format - 60 seconds - and creating a semi-abstract figure to represent everypeasant.

Colin Rides Again

Colin the Dog has become a book chapter on Cinematic Representations of "North", part of a themed ;publication from the conference.... Its written, but who knows when it will be published. (Sheffield university Press...watch this space) Very strange to write a critical analysis of your own work...so long after leaving artschool and that PhD. A really useful exercise in articulating what you are trying to do and why...also makes you feel quite clever. It's the artists way of showing your working out, maybe.

Music for Animations

Baby...Success of the year for 2014 shown at Wimbledon 2014, Breeze Creatives event at Durham and at Whitley Bay Film Festival - installed in a pram. Baby was a silent film with a brilliant soundtrack composed and played by percussionist Nik Alevroyiannis. Looking forward to more possible collaborations with sound-people, this opens up a new depth to the animations, making a mood/ emotional space and giving it pace. These aren't commercial films, so I'm not in a position to "commission" music... but we are considering a reciprocal arrangement via animated music video...
Baby was an attempt to be less literal/ more abstract - free-er - with the figures... using the power of animation to enable powerful metaphors.
Photo from Whitley Bay: Miki Z

When Egg & Chips Collide

film number 6 of 2014 was Blue Moon Cafe. 1 minute short...which took three times as long as the last 1 minute short. But it is termtime at Teesside... and a book chapter to write...I love animation, but there's always other stuff to be done

I seem to be better at very short shorts - BMC was selected for, and subsequently winner of the Leamington Undeground Cinema festival 60 second Max challenge (2015) . Also selected for Wimbledon Short Film Festival 2015 . Plus you get more badges

BBC online - Freedom

I discovered that working to a theme is good for when you can't find the next story yet...It concentrates your mind...provided the theme is inspiring . "Freedom" was a response to an open submission call by the BBC, for a one-minute film. Time limits are also good - for helping you focus and edit down to the essentials of the story. In this film I was trying to combine black-and-white textured drawing with very bright, saturated colour like stained glass windows. Also to tell a story involving abstract concepts without any dialogue - just noises.