RCA Animation archive

Over the last two years I have been working on an ongoing initiative to bring together 40+ years of animation made by students of the Royal College of Art’s Animation MA. As part of the project I also organized and presented at a two-day ‘Archives & Alumni’ symposium at the RCA in November 2024, with other speakers including Philip Hunt, Susan Young, Jez Stewart and Mary Martins.

I presented some of the findings from the process of creating the Animation Collection in a paper titled ‘The Royal College of Art’s Animation Collection: Challenges and Opportunities of Archiving 40 Years of Student Animation’ at last year’s Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference, and published a blog post in which I reflect on the use of materiality in some of the work in the archive, and how this relates to the RCA’s pedagogical approach. I have also organized screenings of curated work from the archive at festivals including London International Animation Festival 2025 and Ann Arbor Film Festival 2026. The collection is available to view for researchers and practitioners, on request; please email me if you would like access.

Images from the RCA Animation Archive

AP3 article

My article Analysis of short animated documentary films programmed in key UK festivals: 2016–20 has been published in the latest edition of AP3: Animation Process & Production journal.

Abstract:

This study of 144 short UK animated documentaries, exhibited between 2016 and 2020, identifies frequently occurring characteristics in the films’ content and production contexts. Analysis of the films shows that the majority of these films are made by directors from an animation background, rather than from a documentary background, and also shows a high occurrence of films made by female and disabled filmmakers. It also shows that self-funding is frequently adopted in the production of these films, and that the films in the study favour 2D digital and traditional animation techniques over 3D animation. Funding and finance contexts are shown to be broad, and to correlate with trends in theme, for example social issues, health and mental health were more common in films supported by trusts, charities and foundations than those made in other finance contexts. In general, the findings support many of the suggestions and observations that have been made about animated documentary by scholars such as Annabelle Honess Roe, Paul Wells and others. However, they also raise questions, for example the high rate of self-funding, often alongside other sources of funding, suggests potential barriers to entry for those from diverse social-economic backgrounds. This study suggests areas for future research that can be taken up in the field of animated documentary, and contributes to an increased focus on quantitative research alongside qualitative analysis in the study of animated documentary, of short-form film and of films made outside of commercial contexts.

Upcoming events

On November 10th I’ll be at Picturehouse Central to deliver a pre-screening introduction to the stop-motion feature Mother Land (Park Jae-beom, 2023), as part of the London Korean Film Festival.

On November 25th I’ll be presenting my 2013 short Devil In The Room and speaking on the Figures in Focus panel at London International Animation Festival.