An animation workshop at The Ark aims to develop children's critical awareness of how cartoons work. Christine Madden drops in.
'All people want," remarked Fred Flintstone once, "is a little fun in their life, and a little life in their fun." Fred's not exactly the kind of cartoon character one expects to utter philosophical aphorisms on the spur of the moment, but this perhaps says more about us than about him. Animation has often been relegated to the "less serious" - but lucrative - realm of children's entertainment. Animation at The Ark, the latest programme running at the children's cultural centre in Temple Bar, Dublin, sets out to challenge this, while at the same time providing an opportunity for children (and adults) to have fun. The programme is also designed to help children to begin to develop a critical awareness of how animation works, and how it works on them.
"Animation is known as 'the innocent medium'," explains Eric Fraad, artistic director of The Ark. "It's basically just painted cells, drawings, pieces of clay, and they can pose as being innocent and childlike. So animation is considered to be a child's medium, but it can also be used in other, more subversive ways, and then it can hide behind that childlike facade again."
To accommodate the three-tiered core of the programme, The Ark building is fitted out to incorporate the screenings, exhibition and workshop elements that describe the nature of animation. Participants begin with a screening of Gertie the Dinosaur, by Winsor McCay, one of the first animated films made.
At this stage in its history, animation closely resembled its predecessors, the flip-book and mechanised drawings, which created the illusion of figure movement when operated. And, although animation has become immeasurably sophisticated when compared with these crude beginnings, its principle of operation - the rapid succession of minutely altered images to simulate movement - has remained the same.
"Effectively, even when new technologies are being employed, the process of constructing an animated film is still constructed in that hands-on, artisan sort of way," explains Paul Wells, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Teeside, in the UK. Wells (together with Tony Donoghue, lecturer and animation historian at the Dún Laoghaire Institute's School of Art and Design) is, according to Fraad, the "curatorial and intellectual backbone of the exhibition" .
Wells says: "Even when it's done on a computer, you're still working in essence frame by frame, but with the manipulation of pixels as opposed to the manipulation of models themselves." Visitors to The Ark, snaking their way along the animation time-line that winds through the building, learn how animation works by following its historical development. I tagged along after a class from St Ernan's School, in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, to observe.
As the exhibition is interspersed with screenings of animation sequences, the boys (just!) managed to keep their concentration on the proceedings. They were amazed at the zoetrope, invented in 1834 by William Horner, a device for creating a moving picture.
Their attention was drawn to a series of cut-outs stretched out across one tableau, which they recognised as different poses of Ellie, from "Backyard Tales" in the Morbegs RTÉ television programme. Then the switch was flipped, and there was Ellie on screen, moving in a sequence of the images they had just studied - magic!
The boys physically explored the technique of creating depth in animation by walking into frames the size of room dividers. Original cells (drawings on acetate used in creating animation frames), illustrations and models were examined with fascination and awe: particularly the models, whose intricate internal construction allows for complex movement, as with the actual model of Mac - from the animation film Chicken Run (made by Oscar-winning Nick Park and his Aardman Animations team) her toothy grin gleaming out from inside the display case.
Upstairs, in the workshop area, the boys were finally invited to create their own animated films. Irish animator Bronagh O'Hanlon initiated the Herculean task of getting a group of eight-year-old boys to sit down and create a finished product in 20 minutes. Amazingly, it worked, thanks to the clever conceptual preparation undertaken.
After a brief moment of inhibition and "what do I do?", the boys took O'Hanlon's basic plot and ran with it, demonstrating what they had learned from their own viewing. Finished films featured starry or spiralling eyes to indicate shock and pain, eyebrows moved down the face to become a moustache, while toy cars were travelling in one ear and out the other.
Older groups are able take the workshops a bit further, exploring not only characterisation, but also the creation of a storyline. The oldest group of children (11-14) the exhibition is pitched at are introduced to the language of animation and the ways in which animation speaks to us. The Ark also welcomes adults to take part in seminars and discussions which explore the concept of children as "consumers" of animation. Issues of gender and racial representation and violence in animation are also discussed.
Since Disney produced the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, in 1937, children have been drawn to animation's bright, bold images and disregard for empirical, physical reality. But animation is more than simply a children's medium. "I've always believed that that's a myth," says Wells. "Animation right from its inception has been made by adults. And because the language of animation is so flexible in that way, you can watch the very same thing and get two levels out of it. So whether it's The Simpsons or a Warner Brothers cartoon, the kids will get their understanding and enjoyment out of it, but equally, there'll be an adult agenda which can be embraced by adults, because it's been made by adults."
Grown-ups shouldn't feel they are dumbing down about their enjoyment of animation, says Wells. This filmic medium holds the potential to be sensitive and profound. And, despite fears that children take the violence and the disrespect for physical reality in animation seriously, they demonstrate an intuitive, subconscious understanding of its special language, he argues.
"Studies around children and cartoon-effects prove they are much more sophisticated in their understanding of animation than one might originally have thought. They see it as a medium which is about fantasy and illusion, and not necessarily related to our real world and our life and live-action representations.
"Basically, what they embrace about it on a thematic level is an understanding of archetypes - good vs evil - and it gives them a chance to rehearse those agendas in a safe way. It's very much like fairytales. You can't sort of bowdlerise them and take out the difficult bits. "On an artistic and creative level, they understand the nature of the fantasy, of the creation of that imagery. And it's colourful, bright and dynamic, and it's very affecting in that way - a very buoyant, optimistic view of the world."
This year, two Irish animated short films - Give Up Your Aul Sins, produced by Brown Bag and directed by Cathal Gaffney; and Fifty Percent Grey, directed by Ruairi Robinson - have been nominated for an Academy Award.
Animation is now all-pervasive, existing in places we don't even acknowledge, and after a lifetime of training, we all understand its language, suggests Wells. "Animation virtually underpins all visual cultures. It's not just about film. It's about getting animation on your PC, animation on your mobile phone, animation in live art, animation in installations. It's in adverts, it's everywhere. And there's a recognition that, as a language, it is distinctive."
Animation at The Ark, the Children's Cultural Centre, in Temple Bar, Dublin, runs until March 28th. For information and booking: 01-6707788