Review of Animated Documentary

I have reviewed Annabelle Honess Roe's book Animated Documentary for the current issue of Animation an interdisciplinary journal 11(3).  

The book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in animated documentary, offering an excellent overview of the both the history of the form and scholarship in the area, as well as suggesting a new way to categorise animated documentary, by the way in which animation is used in the documentary film. Honess Roe argues that animation can be used either as: mimetic substitution, standing in for missing footage in an imitative fashion; non-mimetic substitution, standing in for missing footage but creating new meaning through the substituted image; or evocation, in which animation expresses something which cannot be captured on film such as a feeling or psychological state. It's a fresh and useful way to look at animated documentary and these and other ideas in the book will have value for both scholars and practitioners who want to explore the form of the animated doc.   

Black Rain documentary teaser

I've made a short video teaser as part of the development of Black Rain, an animated documentary about chronic pain. The project has been developed as part of ANIDOX:LAB, a development lab run by The Animation Workshop in Denmark. 

This project in development is an animated documentary about the poorly-understood condition of chronic pain, and about those who experience it. These ordinary men and women overcome huge obstacles every day, in order to find ways to manage their pain and continue with their lives. 

It is a story of the mysteries of the brain and the resilience of the heart, told through a poetic visual synthesis of science and subjective experience.

Pain is humanity’s most effective survival system; it alerts us to mortal threats through a complex communication system between the external world, the body and the brain. This film looks at what happens when this system breaks – the threat disappears, the body heals, but the pain signals in the brain persist - so also does the sensation of pain.   

Across the world, 14 million individuals are experiencing life through a lens of chronic pain. The medical profession has no effective cure for this condition, which affects every element of many sufferers’ lives – mobility, emotion, confidence, concentration, compassion, social and professional skills. The best treatments are bespoke constellations of management techniques including medication and physical therapy as well as mindfulness and other psychological techniques. Some sufferers of severe chronic pain are destroyed by it, others find ways to accept their condition and continue living.

Sound Design by New Adult
Additional animation by Tim Divall and Morten Andersen
Sound mix by Mike Wyeld

This project in development is an animated documentary about the poorly-understood condition of chronic pain, and about those who experience it. These ordinary men and women overcome huge obstacles every day, in order to find ways to manage their pain and continue with their lives. It is a story of the mysteries of the brain and the resilience of the heart, told through a poetic visual synthesis of science and subjective experience.

Pain is humanity’s most effective survival system; it alerts us to mortal threats through a complex communication system between the external world, the body and the brain. This film looks at what happens when this system breaks – the threat disappears, the body heals, but the pain signals in the brain persist - so also does the sensation of pain. Across the world, 14 million individuals are experiencing life through a lens of chronic pain. The medical profession has no effective cure for this condition, which affects every element of many sufferers’ lives – mobility, emotion, confidence, concentration, compassion, social and professional skills. The best treatments are bespoke constellations of management techniques including medication and physical therapy as well as mindfulness and other psychological techniques. Some sufferers of severe chronic pain are destroyed by it, others find ways to accept their condition and continue living.

Sound Design by New Adult
Additional animation by Tim Divall and Morten Andersen
Sound mix by Mike Wyeld

Upcoming paper: Using Art to Raise Awareness of the Science of Sleep Paralysis

On Tuesday November 22nd, Prof Christopher French (Goldsmiths University of London Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit) will be presenting a paper co-authored by myself and Daniel Denis entitled The Sleep Paralysis Project: Using Art to Raise Awareness of the Science of Sleep Paralysis. The paper will use the Sleep Paralysis Project, a creative collaboration between myself and scientists, as a case study of an artistic project raising awareness of a scientific subject. Prof French has researched, written and spoken extensively on the phenomenon of sleep paralysis and this project is one of several collaborations with artists that he has participated in. 

The presentation will take place at the 2016 Sleep Summit and will include an overview of sleep paralysis and the artistic works that it has inspired, a description of the Sleep Paralysis Project and a screening of Devil in the Room.

Still from Devil In The Room