The following excerpt includes the first part
of the chapter, through section ii, cameraless animation. Endnotes are
not included. Photo credits appear at the end.
A. Modes of production
A previous chapter demonstrated how live-action and animation can be discussed as a continuum within the general category of 'motion picture production techniques.' This chapter demonstrates that 'industrial animation' (also known as commercial animation) and 'independent animation' also form a kind of continuum, under the general heading of 'modes of animation production.' It shows that industrial and independently-produced animation are not completely separate modes of production, but in fact are interrelated in complex ways.
Film scholar David James discusses the nature of marginalized forms in relation to dominant modes of production, finding that any alternative practice "speaks not only of what it is, it speaks of what it is not, it speaks of its other." That is, any mode that exists as an alternative--as avant-garde or experimental--does so only in contrast to the dominant, conventional form. Therefore, the two cannot be seen as separate entities; they can be characterized only in relation to each other. James explains that some influential historians, such as P. Adams Sitney, erroneously have viewed the independent and commercial modes of production as two separate entities. He contends that such readings result from an "inability to accommodate the diversity of the alternative cinemas and their ongoing negotiations with Hollywood."
Although James's observations focus primarily on live-action films, they are relevant to a discussion of animation. It is impossible to understand independent animation as a cultural product without acknowledging its relationship to hegemonic forms, whether they be studio animation or live-action Hollywood films. Likewise, other industrial products, such as made-for-television animation and animated advertising, influence the independent 'fine art' animator and his or her work. To realize this, one need only consider that most of the celebrated practitioners of independent animation at some point have worked on a large studio production or created advertising.
A more complex variation on the continuum model used previously in this
book demonstrates the characteristics of commercial and independent production.
The two columns represent extremes to which few cultural products could
adhere completely, but by evaluating a particular text in terms of the
various paradigms it is possible to see a given work as generally being
related to one mode of production or the other.
TRADITIONAL/INDUSTRIAL/
EXPERIMENTAL/INDEPENDENT/
HEGEMONIC FORMS
SUBVERSIVE FORMS
TEND TO
TEND TO
have big budgets
have small budgets
be made by a group
be made by an individual
utilize traditional techniques
utilize other techniques
(including cels, for animation)
and alter the media
be intended for mainstream
be limited to personal or
audience
small scale exhibition
be dominated by marketing
be dominated by aesthetic
concerns
concerns
be narrative
be non-narrative
be mimetic (representational)
be abstract
be linear
be non-linear
reflect Western, traditional
reflect alternative
societal norms
lifestyles
support dominant beliefs
challenge dominant beliefs
be made by artists from
be made by artists from
dominant social groups
marginalized social groups
and reflect their concerns
and reflect their concerns
Fig. 2. Tendencies of industrial and independent forms.
The model depicted in Figure 2 alleviates the need to make exacting distinctions between independent animation and commercial production. Virtually every independent animator--even one who works exclusively in a one-person-one-film mode of production--has some degree of commercial affiliation. If nothing else, an artist generally depends on the commercial world for equipment and materials. If an animated work is going to be publicly exhibited, he or she will be influenced by systems of distribution and exhibition.
This model helps overcome some discriminatory beliefs that have been
held by animation scholars. For example, take the case of what collectively
may be called 'Saturday Morning Cartoons'; until the late 1980s, it was
not uncommon to see animation historians such as Charles Solomon and Leonard 
Maltin
deny the association of most television series with so-called 'real' animation
because it had lower budgets and aesthetic standards that were quite different
from theatrical features. The model shown in this chapter is non-judgmental
because it allows us to discuss made-for-television series, or any other
kind of animated production, for what it is: one form of animation among
many.
The model provided here also addresses an assumption held by some new-comers to the field, that most artists who begin working in a relatively independent mode are trying to expand into a more industrial model (that is, the desire is to achieve widespread 'commercial success'). This assumption is sometimes based on stories of how first-time directors working with limited means, such as the live-action filmmakers Jim Jarmusch and Spike Lee, have 'graduated' to higher budgets and more complex productions after gaining initial acceptance. It is important to understand that a sizable number of individuals do not see independent production as a step toward greater fame and more complex production methods. Rather, they operate within the independent realm in order to achieve goals not generally associated with the commercial sector. These concerns are suggested in the right-hand column of the model.
This figure suggests that independent artists are not as concerned with exhibition, which is in some respects misleading. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that these artists tend to not cater to expectations about what the commercial marketplace finds useful and, therefore, their work generally finds limited exhibition opportunities. However, in recent years, there has been a growing number of venues for the exhibition and distribution of motion pictures made by independent animators. One of the primary ways in which this kind of work is shown today is in the context of animation festivals, which occur in many places throughout the world. Major competitions take place every two years in Annecy, France; Hiroshima, Japan; Ottawa, Canada; Zagreb, Croatia; and many other places throughout the world. These festivals tend to focus on independently-produced animated shorts, but often have categories for commercial features, advertising, made-for-television series, and other kinds of productions.
After the festival circuit has been completed, some independent animators find distribution possibilities in touring festival packages of animation and the home entertainment mediums of video cassettes and laserdiscs. Today, the internet also provides substantial opportunities for the exhibition of independent work; for example, the world wide web site "Absolut Panushka," produced by American animator Christine Panushka for Absolut Vodka, contains information about many experimental artists as well as clips of their works (its address is http://www.absolutvodka.com). The dissemination of animation through such media as laserdiscs, video cassettes and the internet provide many professional advantages for independent artists, even beyond possible royalties. Works that students and scholars can view easily tend to remain in the public awareness because they are incorporated into teaching programs and books. The availability of materials great affects the writing of history and possibly the prestige obtained by any given artist. Historical merit and prestige can, in turn, affect one's ability to sell work, get commissioned for projects, and be supported by grants.
The model employed here also suggests that independent artists tend
to employ production techniques that differ from mainstream commercial
processes. The remainder of this chapter will focus on some of the techniques
that offer an alternative to industrial cel animation practices. It focuses
on two-dimensional animation (2D - created using media that have
height and width, but no depth); three dimensional animation (3D - created
using media that have all three dimensions, such as clay and puppets) are
discussed in chapter eight.
B. Two-dimensional animation as an extension of other arts
Many independent animators have worked as fine artists in various media, often using the time-based medium of animation as a way to expand their explorations of movement and temporality in still paintings and drawings. During the 1920s, a number of animated films were created by artists who had gained renown within the realm of the avant-garde: examples include Marcel Duchamp's Anémic cinéma (Anemic Cinema, 1927), Fernand Léger's Ballet mécanique (Mechanical Ballet, 1924), Walter Ruttmann's "Opus" series (ca. early 1920s), Hans Richter's Rhythmus 21 (1921), and Viking Eggeling's Diagonal Symphonie (1924). Throughout the twentieth century, many other examples of 'fine art' animation have been produced with various 2D techniques.
This chapter overviews some of these techniques and their aesthetics. To begin, there is a discussion of the wide range of animation made with drawing and painting, but not employing cels in the dominant studio style. Other techniques discussed here are cameraless animation, as well as animation made with drawings and paintings on paper, silhouettes, underlit sand, collages, stratacut clay and wax, or a pinboard. In each of these categories, certain practitioners have gained prominence by developing the technique and exploring its unique aesthetic potential. The following discussion focuses on these exemplary uses, and does not attempt to fully explicate the history of the use of each technique.
i. drawing and painting
From the beginning of animation history, one of the most common alternatives to drawing and painting on clear cels has been drawing or painting on various other surfaces: most notably on paper, but also on frosted (or opaque, as opposed to clear) cels and other materials.
In the early years of animation history, drawing and inking on paper was an alternative used by industrial studios in large measure because the cost of the cels or the license to use the patented technique was too high; however, drawing and painting as techniques of animation always have appealed to independent animators for aesthetic reasons. As suggested previously, the temporal element of animation has been attractive to artists who wish to explore elements of time or movement. A great many animators who began as artists working in the realms of still drawing or painting have become interested in animation because it offers an opportunity to set their images in motion.
Drawn animation can be created with the use of regular pencils, colored pencils, pens, pastels, conté crayons, aquarelles or any other materials available to still artists. These items can be used in combination with various bases, including paper and frosted cels, each with different results. The advantage of using frosted cels is that it is possible to draw on their surface using any of the above materials; only acetate-adhering inks and paints can be used on clear cels. The main problem with frosted cels is that, because you cannot see through them very well, they cannot be used in multiple layers. However, an opaque cel can be varnished, so that its surface turns clear, in which case multiple levels and backgrounds can be used.
Paper presents its own challenges. Sheets of paper are generally too dense to be used in multiple layers, unless they are underlit (allowing the lines on lower sheets of paper to show through). Even if they are underlit, sheets of paper are opaque and textured (both in terms of the surface, with may range from smooth to rough, and the fibers that show through when paper is underlit). It is often the case that animated productions created with images composed on paper are rendered so that all images appear on one sheet (moving images, still images, backgrounds, etc.). For that reason, everything must be entirely redrawn for every new frame. In the early days of animation history, artists such as Winsor McCay worked in that way.
The possibilities of drawn or painted animation are virtually endless.
In Sisyphus (1974), Hungarian Marcell Jankovics employs bold black lines
and deceptively-simple character design on a white background. British
animator Joanna Quinn uses kinetic, sketchy caricatures in her film Britannia
(1994). British artist Candy Guard uses cleaner lines and cartoony style
in films such as Wishful 
Thinking
(1988) and What about Me? (1990). In Preludes in Magical Time (originally
entitled Picture Window, 1987), American Sara Petty lets the texture of
the paper show through her abstract forms rendered with prismacolor pencils
and a bit of charcoal. In Furies (1977), Petty achieves a soft texture
by using pastels and newsprint, which has a very smooth surface. In some
of his work, American David Ehrlich creates hazy, dreamlike images with
soft lines by using a combination of prismacolor pencils and tracing paper,
sometimes layered and lit from below; examples include Vermont Etude (1977),
Vermont Etude, No. 2 (1979) and A Child's Dream (1990). American
Paul Glabicki's hard-edged figures in Object Conversation (1985) seem more
like computer-generated renderings than the hand-drawn illustrations that
they are. The relatively hard, contrasty look of photocopied images is
employed in Deadsy (1990), a collaboration between British animator David
Anderson and writer Russell Hoban on the subject of the arms race between
nations of the world. Each of these artists' techniques creates a certain
ambiance in his or her work, affecting the way in which the viewer experiences
it.
In L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The Man Who Planted Trees, 1987), which
won an Academy Award as well as thirty other international awards, German
artist Frédéric Back used colored pencils with turpentine
on frosted cels. This process causes his sketchy lines to blur together,
so that they almost appear to be painted. Back used a similar style in
his next film, Le Fleuve aux grandes eaux (The Mighty River, 1993). He
describes his drawing style as "very realistic, especially in [these two]
films, because I want to create dreamlike images that are close to reality."
It took Back more than five years to complete The Man Who Planted Trees,
a thirty-minute film, because he tends to create most of his drawings himself.
He explains that he used a similar production process in The Mighty River:
"About 80 percent of the drawings I did myself. I had one assistant who
did the in-betweens in some places, but most of the work I had to do myself.
There are so many different scenes in the film, so I had to do the animation,
the calculations for the camera work, the backgrounds and the colouring."
As in my previous films, I used colour pencils on frosted cels. When the drawing is finished, I sometimes varnish off the frosting around the drawing to get the transparency of a normal cel. When I did all the animation in one drawing, I only used one level of cels. But when I had landscapes, water and ships, I had to use three or four levels, sometimes even five or six. So I had to have good transparency.
Back complains that he has trouble with the type of frosted acetate that is currently being manufactured, because it is made primarily for the use of engineers and architects. He says it is "too smooth and does not keep the colour of the pencils as did the older material, which was more granulated, but also more fragile. One can still get acetate similar to the old stuff, but I had great difficulties when making Le Fleuve aux grandes eaux with this less interesting acetate--the colours do not come out so well and the lines are not as strong."
In most cases, animators who choose to draw their images, whether on acetate cels or paper, must create many different drawings. However, it is sometimes the case that an artist will use a 'modified base' technique, in which a single base image is created and recorded as it is constantly modified. Although many drawing tools (such as pencils and pens) remain relatively fixed on a drawing surface, pastel chalks and charcoals are soft enough that they can be erased or smudged for use in a modified base technique. One artist who is known for his use of a modified base technique is Polish animator Piotr Dumala, who paints and etches images into a plaster base and photographs each modification frame by frame. This method was used to create his film Franz Kafka (1992), which was modified into a ten-second commercial for MTV in 1995.
Norman McLaren applied the modified base technique in La Poulette Grise (The Grey Hen, 1947). In his film notes, he explains, "The visuals were shot in 16mm by a continuous chain of abutting 40-frame camera mixes or dissolves, with the camera trained on a single colour-pastel drawing, which was modified between each mix." The modified base technique works well with painted images, particularly if the animator uses oils, which are relatively malleable. Oil paints remain wet for long periods of time, allowing the artist to modify his or her work with relative ease; animators who have used oil paints often work on glass or another hard surface, to facilitate the movement of the paint.
Two very different effects of using oil paints were achieved by the
German-born Oskar Fischinger in Motion Painting No. 1 (1947), which is
mostly composed of oil paint on Plexiglas, and Russian animator Alexander
Petrov in Korova (The Cow, 1989), which is made with black paint on glass. 
Fischinger's
film uses well-defined, brightly colored geometric images and was painted
as an experimental work, in order to reveal the process by which a painting
develops. On the other hand, Petrov's work is a narrative film using representational
figures and soft, dreamlike imagery in neutral tones. Through a combination
of top lighting and underlighting he has created a luminous quality that
compliments the film's story, a boy's fond recollections of his family's
cow.
Using paint on glass, Welsh painter Clive Walley has made a series of six animated films collectively entitled "Divertimenti 1991-1994." In these films, Walley combines his still and motion picture work through a type of motion painting, achieving a multiplane effect by shooting through several sheets of glass placed some distance from each other. His films are derived "from the paintings by virtue of a special but simple, multi-plane rig, which conceptually extends the techniques of painting directly to the cinema/TV screen." His Divertimento no. 3 - Brushwork, which opens and closes with views of an artist's easel, has been described as a "contemplative, strangely dimensioned world which opens up to a painter when the work is in progress." As the action progresses, in what appears to be a zoom out through planes of space located within a painting, various images appear before the viewer: we track through a door, see a vase compose itself, watch a woman appear on a chair. Walley explains that, in the films, he was exploring "the axis of depth in a painting which archives its history . . . And more than that, I was interested in imaging the process of painting rather than the results, because in much analysis of modern painting process is a key idea. The problem is that people who are not painters have no feeling for what 'process' might contribute to the meaning of a painting, so Brushwork was an attempt to use the extra dimension of time in a moving image to emphasise it." Each of Walley's "Divertimenti" are different in character, ranging from total abstraction to relative representation, and sometimes hinting at character--for example, in Divertimento no. 5 - Slapstick, globs of paint run through various containers and channels, seeming to overcome hurdles and blockages.
Because it has body, or plasticity, paint offers the possibility of
actual surface texture and a certain amount of dimensionality (oils can
be applied thickly, as can acrylic paints). One example can be found in
Walley's Divertimento no. 2 - Love Song, which includes both smooth and
dimensional 
surfaces.
Similarly, the texture of paints can be seen to varying degrees in the
films of Swiss animator Georges Schwizgebel; for example, in La Course
à l'abîme (The Ride to the Abyss, 1992) and L'année
du daim (The Year of the Deer, 1995). Paints such as watercolors, tempera
and India inks lack body and do not offer the same malleability and texture
as oils; however, a bit of oil can be mixed with these water-based paints
to prevent them from drying so quickly.
However, some artists prefer the more translucent quality of waterbased paints. An excellent example can be found in Le moine et le poisson (The Monk and the Fish, 1995), an Academy-Award nominated film by Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit. The animator used a brush and india ink to render the lines of his cel figures and felt that watercolors on paper provided an aesthetically pleasing background for these images, though both choices increased the time and work involved in the production. He explains, "I did hundreds of watercolor [backgrounds] and only selected sixty. This is something you cannot touch up. . . I chose watercolor becuase the ink line of the characters is liquid and watercolor is liquid and I wanted the two to be harmonious. . . . you can really tell it has been done by hand."
American Caroline Leaf used a combination of paints in her ten-minute film, The Street (1974), which took a year and a half to complete. She explains that she "did a lot of experimenting and ended up using waterbase tempera colours on milk glass with some oil added, to keep the paint from drying. It was like finger painting. . . . I wanted something that would be waterbased, so that it would be easy to wipe up with a cloth."
While some animators prefer the unique qualities that oil-based paints offer, others--such as American Faith Hubley--prefer to use watercolors. In Women of the World (1975) and most of the other films by Hubley, watercolors are used to create muted tones and soft edges that compliment her themes of compassion for all things and non-violent living. Watercolors, like drawings, require that separate images be created for each frame.
With so many media to use, perhaps the most important aesthetic consideration is how a given technique will help to create meaning in a work. In order to create a desired affect, it may be necessary to employ not one, but many different animation techniques. In Slike iz Sjecanja (Pictures from Memory, 1989), Zagreb animator Nedeljko Drajic used various types of painting, along with different drawing styles, to depict memories of what occurred in his life between 1940 and 1960. The artist's multi-media approach seems well-suited to the depiction of different types of memories, from the child-like caricatures of youth to the splattered abstractions of war and the 'perfect' icons of American culture that invaded his country as well.
Drawing and painting on paper or frosted acetate are techniques that have tended to remain in the realm of independent animation. In a purely technical sense, they are not well suited to a commercial studio mode of production because they do not lend themselves to an assembly-line method to the degree that cel animation does. This is particularly true of the modified base technique, in which most of the work occurs under the camera and not in pre-production.
Caroline Leaf explains why her method of making films is not well suited to commercial production. She says that "the way I work, under the camera, I don't think I can work as a team"; she adds that her techniques are not commercially viable because, without explicit storyboards, a client "couldn't see beforehand what I was going to do." When John Canemaker asked Leaf, "If it were possible to direct other people in your technique, would you be interested in doing a feature?," she responded, "No, I wouldn't. I can't imagine directing other people, and also I have a lot of fun when my fingers are doing it and I discover for myself little things. That's what keeps me going." Leaf's comments reflect some of the motivations for the creation of independent animation, as well as the difficulties of incorporating alternate techniques into the commercial studio system.
ii. cameraless animation
It is not necessary to record images with a camera in order to create animation. Cameraless animation, also called direct-on-film animation, is made by working directly on the surface of clear, white, or black film leader, or on pieces of exposed and developed film containing other images. Some artists choose to work in a relatively conventional way, treating each frame of film as a separate image, while others think of the entire strip of film as a 'canvas' and so create images up and down the acetate without consideration of where each frame lies. In any case, a variety of visual effects can be achieved. Linear images created along the length of the film move fluidly in a vertical motion when projected. Horizontal images seem to float in space. Random images pop on and off the screen in a split-second's time.
This technique, which represents a variation on the drawn and painted
animation discussed previously, may seem to be a very simple way to create
animation, but actually it can be one of the most challenging. There are
three primary reasons for possible difficulty: the relatively small size
of the drawing, the near impossibility of maintaining the registration
of images (as a result, the images of cameraless animation tend to be fairly
shaky), and the necessity for the artist to work on the project with little
or no assistance from a crew (because of the size of the working area and
due to the fact that every image created becomes a permanent fixture in
the flow of the animation, the artist him or herself usually takes total
control of the project).
However, there are ways to minimize the difficulties inherent in cameraless
animation. For example, to combat the problem of image size, artists often
work on larger film stocks--though any size of film is relatively small
in comparison to most other drawing surfaces. When she made Two Sisters
(1990), Caroline Leaf used 70mm color film stock. It took Leaf a year and
a half to scratch the drawings necessary to create thirteen minutes of
film. She explains that she worked on two pieces of film, "so that frame
1, 3, 5, 7 would be on one strip, then frame 2, 4, 6, 8 on the other one.
I had a little metal plate with two pegs the same size as the sprocket
holes in the film that I laid on a light-table. I laid my first strip down
and did the first drawing, put the second strip on top of that so I could
see through, and did the next frame." To achieve color in the film, she
removed various amounts of emulsion. She explains, "if I scratch a strip
of colour film and scratch just a little bit, the red emulsion comes off
and you get the green, and if I scratch more I get to the yellow and when
I scratch all the way down, it is white. As for the blue, I used blue film."
Most artists who create cameraless animation tend to capitalize on rather than fight against the technique's kinetic qualities. In fact, animators working in cameraless animation tend to be artists who are interested in exploring qualities of movement in a general sense. Such was the nature of the Scotsman Norman McLaren, who was a master of virtually every animation technique, including cameraless animation. Works such as Fiddle Dee Dee (1947) and Begone Dull Care (1949), both created during McLaren's long employment with the National Film Board of Canada, exemplify the kineticism that is characteristic of the form. These films were made by first recording a soundtrack and then cutting lengths of film to match various parts of the music. The strips of film were then painted with inks and dyes that were given texture by various means.
However, in contrast to these exuberantly kinetic films, McLaren also created cameraless animation with imagery that is greatly controlled in its movement: Lines Vertical (1960), Lines Horizontal (1962), and Mosaic (1965). McLaren made these films as a personal challenge, to see if he could create direct-on-film animation that had the smoothness of movement generally found in more conventionally-created animation. He made Lines Vertical by etching on 35mm black leader. The lines were made by knives sharpened to various thicknesses and run along a straight-edge draftsman's rule that was six feet in length (which was the length of the film strips being used). After the film was completed, its score was composed by Maurice Blackburn. It should be noted that McLaren worked with an assistant in creating his cameraless animations and other projects. In many cases it was Evelyn Lambart, an artist who McLaren felt closely shared his aesthetic sensibilities.
Actually, McLaren's two "Lines" films and Mosaic are all the same film, in a manner of speaking. Two years after he completed Lines Vertical, he made Lines Horizontal by flipping each frame of the previously-made film on its side. With a new soundtrack (composed by Pete Seeger), the film became an entirely new viewing experience. In 1965, the third film in the series, Mosaic, was created by running the other two films through an optical printer at the same time. In the new film, white dots appeared wherever the lines of the other works intersected. In this case, a live-action introduction and closing was added: a man walking on and off camera provides a frame for the abstract animations.
Throughout history, other artists have become known for their use of cameraless animation. New Zealander Len Lye was one of the masters of this technique. In fact, it is said that he influenced McLaren's work. Lye's film, Colour Box (1936), was created as an advertisement for the British General Post Office, and is thought to be the first cameraless animation to be publicly screened. Another of Lye's British-government-sponsored films, Trade Tattoo (1937), was created by working directly onto pieces of documentary film footage that show various workers at their jobs. Harry Smith is another artist who worked directly on film in several of his earliest abstract works (which are titled as numbers in a series, from 1 to 7, and are presumed to have been created during the late 1940s and 1950s). Although Smith was secretive about his production techniques, it is apparent that he employed such methods as drawing, scraping, spray painting and bleaching.
Another distinctive artist to work directly on live-action film footage
is American Stan Brakhage, who manipulates the celluloid surface in all
manner of ways: from scratching and drawing on it, to altering its appearance
with chemicals and burning. Dog Star Man (1961-1964) and many of his other
films were created using these and other means. Brakhage's film, Mothlight
(1963), represents another type of cameraless animation. To make this film,
Brakhage adhered bits of moth bodies, leaves and other natural materials
to mylar splicing tape. When projected on the screen, these objects appear
to be randomly placed semi-abstractions.
In recent years, German filmmaker Bärbel Neubauer also has establisheda reputation for the creation of award winning cameraless animation, includingAlgorithmen (Algorithems, 1994) and Roots (1996). Images from oneof her most recent films, Mondlicht (Moonlight, 1997), which was createdby scratching on black leader, suggest the kind of energy that is characteristicof direct on film animation.
Image credits: Pond Life," Candy Guard, England, 1996; L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The Man Who Planted Trees), Frederic Back, Canada, 1987; The Cow, Alexander Petrov, Russia, 1989; La Course à l'abîme (The Ride to the Abyss), Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland, 1994; A Colour Box and Colour Flight, Len Lye, England, 1935, 1937; Two Sisters, Caroline Leaf, Canada; Algorithmen (Algorithms), Bärbel Neubauer, Germany, 1994.