Drawn from Life

The first anthology to explore the field of animated documentaries from a diverse range of scholarly and practice-based perspectives

• Runner-Up for the BAFTSS - Best Edited Collection Award 2020!

Documentary cinema has always drawn from real life, but an increasing number of contemporary filmmakers are going further still, drawing onscreen images of reality through a range of animated filmmaking techniques. Drawn from Life is the first book to explore the field of animated documentaries from a diverse range of scholarly and practice-based perspectives, exploring and proposing answers to a range of questions that preoccupy twenty-first-century film artists and audiences alike:

• Why use animation to document?
• How do such images reflect and influence our understanding and experience of reality, whether public or private, psychological or political?

From early cinema to present-day scientific research, military uses, digital art and gaming, this book casts new light on the capacity of the moving image to act as a record of the world around us, challenging the orthodox definitions of documentary cinema.

Key Features

• Defines the central characteristics of the animated documentary film
• Challenges and extends orthodox definitions of documentary cinema as well as animation
• Surveys a diverse range of film works, genres, production techniques, historical eras and cultural contexts

Contributors

• Nea Ehrlich, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
• Leon Gurevitch, University of Wellington.
• Jonathan Hodgson, Middlesex University
• Nanette Kraaikamp, Drawing Centre Diepenheim
• Pascal Lefèvre, LUCA School of Arts
• Lawrence Thomas Martinelli, University of Pisa
• Mihaela Mihailova, University of Michigan.
• Samantha Moore, University of Wolverhampton
• Jonathan Murray, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
• Sheila M. Sofian, University of Southern California.
• Paul Ward, University Bournemouth
• Andrew Warstat, Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Paul Wells, Loughborough University