ANIMAFEST PRO | ANIMAFEST SCANNER XI | Panel 1: Studying Early Animation (Tracing Some Basics)

KEYNOTE: Tracing Back to Some Basics of Analogue Animation - Ingo Petzke (Animafest Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies)

KEYNOTE
04/06 TUE 09:30-10:25 KIC

In our times of digital inundation and consequential digital image inflation, it has become increasingly difficult to remember what animation is. Once upon a time it started as a film photographed, single frame by single frame, onto a celluloid strip. This in contrast to shooting by letting the camera roll. Or simply pressing a button on a control panel, for that matter.

This lecture aims to look back and remember the qualities of analogue film:

• Firstly, by looking at how still photography is – falsely - perceived as moving. Nothing is moving on the screen, as we all know. Movement is simply the result of our most unreliable organ of perception – our eyes.

• And secondly – as Helmut Herbst famously claimed – examining how the ‘resistance of the (film) material’ could be overcome.

With the loss of the analogue film strip to digital files, we also lost the enthusiastic joy of discovering, which once upon a time was prevailing: How have these imaginary visuals been created? How could this be achieved? The question was always ‘how’ – not ‘what’ or ‘why’.

In the olden days, surely not everything was better. But maybe there had to be more depth of thought? The makers needed more manual producing skills, more creativity, to be able to achieve their goal of a film matching their vision as perfectly as possible.

This is a reminder of the strong ties linking experimental and animation film. Some outstanding animation films are experimental – and vice versa. We will have a look at some great examples.

Lecture accompanied by seven film excerpts.

Professor Ingo Petzke, PhD (1947) holds titles of Professor Emeritus (Film) at Technical University Würzburg, Germany;Associate Professor, Bond University, Australia; Adjunct Professor, James-Cook University Townsville, Australia;Guest Professor, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Metro Manila, Philippines. He is a filmmaker, curator, festival founder, distributor, and author of 15 books and numerous articles. He has held lectures, seminars, workshops in 34 countries around the world.

He was supervisor of more than 2,000 student films/videos, including approximately 70 films as Diploma/Bachelor/Masters final works. His research focus is history of experimental/avant-garde film and Australian cinema.