Books by Annabelle Honess Roe
Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary, 2019
Edited collection published by Bloomsbury. This examines a previously neglected topic in the fiel... more Edited collection published by Bloomsbury. This examines a previously neglected topic in the field of documentary studies: the political, aesthetic and affective functions that voices assume. Topics range from celebrity voice-over to ventriloquism... rockumentary screams to feminist vocal politics.
The Animation Studies Reader, 2019
Collection of short chapters on key concepts and themes in animation studies. Aimed as a teaching... more Collection of short chapters on key concepts and themes in animation studies. Aimed as a teaching and research resource.
Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion, 2020
Edited Collection on UK animation studio, Aardman Animations. First scholarly book on the studio.
Animation and documentary may seem an odd couple, but Animated Documentary shows how the use of a... more Animation and documentary may seem an odd couple, but Animated Documentary shows how the use of animation as a representational strategy for documentary enhances and expands the realm of nonfiction film and television. From prehistory to states of mind, animation can show and evoke things that elude live-action. The current boom in animated documentary production is situated in the historical context of the cross-pollination of animation and documentary, before exploring the different ways animation functions in the animated documentary. Through analyzing films and television programmes such as Waltz With Bashir and Walking With Dinosaurs, this volume – the first to be published on this fascinating topic – demonstrates that while animation might at first seem to destabilize documentary's claim to represent reality, the opposite is in fact the case.
Journal Articles by Annabelle Honess Roe
Studies in Documentary Film, 2021
This article refines previously made claims that evocative animated documentaries enable us to ga... more This article refines previously made claims that evocative animated documentaries enable us to gain knowledge about unfamiliar states of mind and mental experiences through prompting our imagination. Building on recent scholarship in philosophy of mind, cognitive film theory and film and animation studies, I argue that it is evocative animated documentaries that do not, counterintuitively, invite audiences to identify or empathise with individual characters or documentary subjects that effectively prompt knowledge-through-imagination. This is because these films elicit a primarily epistemological rather than emotional response. The films in question, which include the Animated Minds films (2003-ongoing) and An Eyeful of Sound (Samantha Moore, 2010), feature documentary subjects that stand-in for a mental health condition or psychological state that we are invited to primarily understand rather than feel. It is in this way that these evocative animated documentaries are less like fiction than their live-action documentary counterparts, despite their animated form. Applying philosophical ideas on the relationship between imagination and knowledge to a new filmic context, this article offers a way of understanding how these films work and how they are effective as documentaries of subjective, psychological experience
This article explores animated segments that appear in otherwise live action, mainstream commerci... more This article explores animated segments that appear in otherwise live action, mainstream commercial documentaries made since 2000. An examination of films including The Age of Stupid, Bowling for Columbine, Searching for Sugar Man, Camp 14: Total Control Zone, Cobain: Montage of Heck and Everything’s Cool suggests that animated sequences function either as ‘connective tissue’ or ‘disruptive interjection’ and that this function is not necessarily determined by the animation being aesthetically or ontologically distinct from the live action context in which it appears. Instead, other narrative and rhetorical devices determine to what extent an animated section interjects. Ultimately, the author suggests that the ability to interject into the realist veneer of documentary representation demonstrates animation’s critical and political potential within a non-fiction context.
Animated documentaries have been written about in a mostly positive way that explores the way the... more Animated documentaries have been written about in a mostly positive way that explores the way the form enhances and expands the documentary agenda. This is true of scholarly and academic writing as well as that in the popular press and film reviews. However, some authors have taken issue with the ascription of the term ‘documentary’ to animated documentaries. In addition, there are potential issues regarding audience response to animated documentaries and the technical proficiency of the films themselves as they become more ubiquitous. This chapter explores the existing, and potential objections to and criticisms of animated documentary and suggests that a more ‘360-degree’ discussion of the form will enrich the scholarly discourse on animated documentary.
Animation-an Interdisciplinary Journal, 2012
This article considers the several animated interviews made by Bob Sabiston between 1997 and 2007... more This article considers the several animated interviews made by Bob Sabiston between 1997 and 2007, and the implications of considering these films as documentaries. The author argues that the films are liminal, discursive texts that negotiate tensions between reality and make-believe, observation and interpretation, and presence and absence. Textual analysis of the short films in question demonstrates an aesthetic presentation that confirms their documentary status at the same time as exploiting the expressionistic potential of Rotoshop. The nature of Rotoshop also emphasizes the absence of the physical body of the interviewee, replacing it with an excessively present style of animation. Other conventional markers of documentary authenticity and evidence, such as the visual index, are also absent in these films. These absences, coupled with the presence of an aesthetically liminal style of animation infer a pleasurably complex and challenging epistemological and phenomenological viewing experience.
Animation-an Interdisciplinary Journal, 2011
This article gives an overview of the history of animated documentary, both in regard to the form... more 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.
Journal of British Cinema and Television, 2007
Book Chapters by Annabelle Honess Roe
Documenting the Visual Arts, 2020
This chapter explores the short-lived phenomenon of the live broadcast of museum exhibitions into... more This chapter explores the short-lived phenomenon of the live broadcast of museum exhibitions into cinemas between 2011 and 2014, including Leonardo Live (2011) from London’s National Gallery, Pompeii Live (2013) and Vikings Live (2014) from the British Museum, and Matisse Live (2014) from the Tate Modern. These incongruous broadcasts, part arts documentary, part promotional material for their respective museums and exhibitions, appeared at the peak of the rapid growth of event cinema that took place at this time. However, unlike theater and other live performance, museum exhibitions and cinema exhibition are two distinct very distinct “media,” visually, temporally, and spatially. This chapter argues that this intermedial incompatibility is evidenced in the broadcasts’ use of cinematography and liveness and they are also a response to questions surrounding curatorial intent in museum exhibitions.
Final version of chapter from forthcoming The Animation Studies Reader (Bloomsbury, 2018). Co-edi... more Final version of chapter from forthcoming The Animation Studies Reader (Bloomsbury, 2018). Co-edited with Nichola Dobson, Amy Ratelle and Caroline Ruddell.
This chapter explores the centrality of performance to animation. Historically, animation has often utilised profilimic performance - early animators often appeared on screen and later studios such as Disney made use of pre-shot reference footage as the basis for their animation. Similarly, rotoscoping and its digital descendants, motion and performance capture, use data collected from the filmed bodies of actors and performers to create animated material. In addition, the process of animation can be thought of as similar to acting, requiring similar skills of embodiment to bring a character to life. Performance can be argued as a fundamental aspect of animation and the process of bringing animated characters and images 'into being' on screen.
Final version of chapter from the forthcoming book Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary (Bloo... more Final version of chapter from the forthcoming book Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary (Bloomsbury, 2018). Co-edited with Maria Pramaggiore
This chapter argues that the post-2000 rise of well-known actors, with reconigisable voices, narrating documentary film and television challenges the way the voice of God has been theorised in documentary studies. The power of the voice of God has typically been understood as coming from the documentary narrator's status as unseen and anonymous and the fact that the voice cannot be 'yoked to a body', as Mary Ann Doane put it. However, the casting of actors such as Kenneth Branagh and Morgan Freeman to narrate mainstream, commercial documentaries suggests that the power of the contemporary documentary voice of God is vested more in the narrator's star persona, which includes the unique and recognisable quality of their voice, and the intertextual baggage they carry with them from their on- and off-screen lives. Far from the disembodied voice of God of the classical documentary, the power of the star narrator rests firmly in a specific body and voice.
Final Accepted Version of book chapter to be published in 2017
This chapter analyses the 2013 fi... more Final Accepted Version of book chapter to be published in 2017
This chapter analyses the 2013 film adaptation of Graham Chapman’s autobiography A Liar's Autobiography and questions its surface interpretation as an unreliable biopic that undermines the conventional goals of the genre. At first glance, the film’s freewheeling narrative and fragmented visual style that uses fourteen different styles of animation could be argued as representing the unknowability of its subject. However, this chapter argues that through rejecting the typical aims and approaches of the biopic, this film in fact works to reveal much about Chapman’s personal life and his creative work with Monty Python.
Contemporary Documentary (eds. Salmin Kara and Daniel Marcus), 2016
This chapter gives an overview of the textual and scholarly developments in animated documentary ... more This chapter gives an overview of the textual and scholarly developments in animated documentary since the 1990s. It discusses the history of the emergence of the animated documentary, with particular attention to developments from the late 1990s onwards. It addresses the different scholarly approaches to understanding animated documentaries and outlines three ways animation functions in documentary. It then goes on to analyse several films, including an in-depth case study of the 2008 feature length animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. Ultimately, the chapter suggests that while animation and documentary might have once felt like an ‘odd couple’ that animation has now become an accepted tool in the documentary maker’s toolbox.
New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses (eds. C. Hight, C. Summerhayes & K. Nash) , 2014
Learning From Mickey, Walt and Donald: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films (ed. B. Van Riper), 2011
Falling in Love Again: The Contemporary Romantic Comedy (eds. S. Abbott & D. Jermyn), 2009
Talks by Annabelle Honess Roe
Keynote talk given at 'The Essay Film Form and Animation: Intersectionality in Motion' conference... more Keynote talk given at 'The Essay Film Form and Animation: Intersectionality in Motion' conference. London, June 2019
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Books by Annabelle Honess Roe
Journal Articles by Annabelle Honess Roe
Book Chapters by Annabelle Honess Roe
This chapter explores the centrality of performance to animation. Historically, animation has often utilised profilimic performance - early animators often appeared on screen and later studios such as Disney made use of pre-shot reference footage as the basis for their animation. Similarly, rotoscoping and its digital descendants, motion and performance capture, use data collected from the filmed bodies of actors and performers to create animated material. In addition, the process of animation can be thought of as similar to acting, requiring similar skills of embodiment to bring a character to life. Performance can be argued as a fundamental aspect of animation and the process of bringing animated characters and images 'into being' on screen.
This chapter argues that the post-2000 rise of well-known actors, with reconigisable voices, narrating documentary film and television challenges the way the voice of God has been theorised in documentary studies. The power of the voice of God has typically been understood as coming from the documentary narrator's status as unseen and anonymous and the fact that the voice cannot be 'yoked to a body', as Mary Ann Doane put it. However, the casting of actors such as Kenneth Branagh and Morgan Freeman to narrate mainstream, commercial documentaries suggests that the power of the contemporary documentary voice of God is vested more in the narrator's star persona, which includes the unique and recognisable quality of their voice, and the intertextual baggage they carry with them from their on- and off-screen lives. Far from the disembodied voice of God of the classical documentary, the power of the star narrator rests firmly in a specific body and voice.
This chapter analyses the 2013 film adaptation of Graham Chapman’s autobiography A Liar's Autobiography and questions its surface interpretation as an unreliable biopic that undermines the conventional goals of the genre. At first glance, the film’s freewheeling narrative and fragmented visual style that uses fourteen different styles of animation could be argued as representing the unknowability of its subject. However, this chapter argues that through rejecting the typical aims and approaches of the biopic, this film in fact works to reveal much about Chapman’s personal life and his creative work with Monty Python.
Talks by Annabelle Honess Roe
This chapter explores the centrality of performance to animation. Historically, animation has often utilised profilimic performance - early animators often appeared on screen and later studios such as Disney made use of pre-shot reference footage as the basis for their animation. Similarly, rotoscoping and its digital descendants, motion and performance capture, use data collected from the filmed bodies of actors and performers to create animated material. In addition, the process of animation can be thought of as similar to acting, requiring similar skills of embodiment to bring a character to life. Performance can be argued as a fundamental aspect of animation and the process of bringing animated characters and images 'into being' on screen.
This chapter argues that the post-2000 rise of well-known actors, with reconigisable voices, narrating documentary film and television challenges the way the voice of God has been theorised in documentary studies. The power of the voice of God has typically been understood as coming from the documentary narrator's status as unseen and anonymous and the fact that the voice cannot be 'yoked to a body', as Mary Ann Doane put it. However, the casting of actors such as Kenneth Branagh and Morgan Freeman to narrate mainstream, commercial documentaries suggests that the power of the contemporary documentary voice of God is vested more in the narrator's star persona, which includes the unique and recognisable quality of their voice, and the intertextual baggage they carry with them from their on- and off-screen lives. Far from the disembodied voice of God of the classical documentary, the power of the star narrator rests firmly in a specific body and voice.
This chapter analyses the 2013 film adaptation of Graham Chapman’s autobiography A Liar's Autobiography and questions its surface interpretation as an unreliable biopic that undermines the conventional goals of the genre. At first glance, the film’s freewheeling narrative and fragmented visual style that uses fourteen different styles of animation could be argued as representing the unknowability of its subject. However, this chapter argues that through rejecting the typical aims and approaches of the biopic, this film in fact works to reveal much about Chapman’s personal life and his creative work with Monty Python.