History of Animated Documentary

525 Words3 Pages
The first recognized example of this genre is Winsor McKay's 1918 12-minute-long film The Sinking of the Lusitania, which uses animation to portray the 1915 sinking of RMS Lusitania after it was struck by two torpedoes fired from a German U-boat; an event of which no recorded film footage is known to exist.[1] Since the 1920s, animation has been used in educational and social guidance films, and has often been used to illustrate abstract concepts in mainly live-action examples of these genres. Early examples of fully animated educational films are The Einstein Theory of Relativity (1923) and Evolution (1925) by Max and Dave Fleischer.[1] Walt Disney used it in films such as Victory Through Air Power (1943), How to Catch a Cold (1951) and Our Friend the Atom (1957).[1] In 1953, Norman McLaren's "Neighbours" won the Academy Awards for Best Documentary (Short Subject). The award is somewhat considered a mistake, but the fact that it was not only indicated into that category, but also won, shows that, somehow, the animated images spoke to the judges almost like a documentary. Of Stars and Men, a 1964 animated feature by John Hubley which tells of humankind's quest to find its place in the universe, won an award in the documentary category at the San Francisco Film Festival.[1] The 2007 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam featured a programme based around "documentaries that partly or completely consist of animation".[2] In the article written to accompany the event, Kees Driessen talked about the "least controversial" form of the genre; the "illustrated radio documentary", citing Aardman Animation's 1987 film Lip Synch: Going Equipped (directed by Peter Lord) as an example.[3] One of the most consistent creators of this form of animated documentary today is Paul Fierlinger.[4] His films from the late 1980s-onward typically feature recordings of people

More about History of Animated Documentary

Open Document