x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Fantasy/Animation

Fantasy/Animation

Christopher Holliday is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London (UK). Alexander Sergeant is a Lecturer in Digital Media Production at the University of Westminster (UK), specialising in the history and theory of fantasy cinema. Each episode, they look in detail at a film or television show, taking listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.

tv & film

All Episodes

01:39

Fantasy/Animation - Announcement

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/07/31

A quick message about Fantasy/Animation's Summer Break, as well as ways that you can get in touch to support all things fantastical and animated. From listening back through our podcast archive and leaving us a quick review and star rating, to dropping us an email or sending in a blog post idea or submission ready for when we return, we would love to hear from you! In the meantime, have happy summers wherever you are and see you in October!

en

11:32

Footnote #34 - Science Fiction (with Mark Bould)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/07/24

Chris and Alex are joined once more by Mark Bould, Professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, for this Footnote episode that explores the origins and definitions of science-fiction storytelling. Expect turns to genre theory and the evolution of generic cycles, including the shifting ways that science fiction gets defined (and by whom); how science fiction moved from print magazines and paperback publishing to movie serials and the international and U.S. blockbuster; and the

en

01:06:28

Free Guy (2021) (with Mark Bould)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/07/17

The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) meets They Live (John Carpenter, 1988) in Shawn Levy’s science-fiction comedy Free Guy (2021), which marks the director’s first collaboration with charming Canadian Ryan Reynolds and is a film that confronts head-on contemporary anxieties around technology, choice, security, and artificial intelligence. Joining Chris and Alex to separate out their NPCs from their AI engines is Mark Bould, Professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, and

en

13:10

Footnote #33 - Can Colour Blind People Work in VFX?...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/07/10

Special guest Chris McKenna, current Head of Creative Operations at the VFX studio Moving Picture Company, joins Chris and Alex for this latest Footnote episode on the VFX industry, with a particular focus on artists with colour blindness and advice on the best avenues for getting into animation lighting and design. From understanding the specific challenges of colour blindness for VFX artistry to the question of industry accessibility, the trio discuss the process of animation visualisation and

en

01:12:38

Dumbo (2019) (with Chris McKenna)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/07/03

The emergence of Disney’s so-called ‘live-action’ remakes provides the focus of Episode 123, with the recent adaptation of Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019) offering Chris and Alex plenty to get their teeth into thanks to the film’s particular brand of digital realism as well as director Tim Burton’s reflections on the very nature of spectacle itself. Special guest for this discussion is Chris McKenna, current Head of Creative Operations at the VFX studio Moving Picture Company, and Lead Technical Animator

en

11:44

Footnote #32 - 3D (with Nick Jones)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/06/26

Fresh from their discussion of Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021), Chris, Alex and special guest Dr Nick Jones (Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Digital Culture, University of York) return for this short Footnote episode on the marvel and magic of 3D technology. Topics include cinema’s own history of size, space, and spectacle from the Lumière brothers to James Cameron; the kinds of depth cues offered by 3D cinema that extends perception beyond the real-world; technological innovation

en

01:02:08

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) (with Nick Jones)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/06/19

The MCU comes calling once again for Episode 122 of the podcast, as Chris and Alex navigate the complex web of storylines and superheroes that build the world of Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021). Joining them to reflect on the genre’s enduring appeal alongside the contemporary pleasures of Hollywood’s increasing multiversal madness is Dr Nick Jones, who is Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Digital Culture at the University of York. Nick is the author of the monographs Hollywood Action

en

12:07

Footnote #31 - Claymation

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/06/12

From the invention of Plasticine by William Harbutt in Britain in 1897 to the use of malleable materials in the earliest stop-motion ‘trick films’ of Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, and the Fleischer Brothers, the application of clay in animation has a history as long as the medium itself. In Footnote #31 of the podcast, Chris and Alex deliberate the evolution of clay animation, including the patenting of ‘Claymation’ in the early-1980s and its emergent synonymy with the Bristol-based Aardman

en

01:01:50

Monster House (2006) (with Jane Batkin)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/06/05

Chris and Alex delve into motion-capture, murder mystery, and monster houses for this discussion of Gil Kenan’s 2006 computer-animated film Monster House, a digital feature produced by the ImageMovers company founded by renowned filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and a specialist in animation utilising mo-cap technologies. Joining them for Episode 121 of the podcast is Dr Jane Batkin, an animation film theorist and Associate Professor in the School of Film, Media and Journalism at the University of Lincoln

en

13:14

Footnote #30 - Franchises

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/05/29

The economy of the Hollywood franchise is the focus of Footnote #30, where Chris and Alex examine the multimedia conglomeration of the U.S. cinema industry in the blockbuster era of the 1970s, and the subsequent impact on the post-2000 phase of Hollywood film production and its intensified franchise mentality. To unpack the so-called ‘genius of the system,’ they take a journey through the history of sequels, serials, and series as far back as early Hollywood, and discuss the value of ‘pre-sold’

en

01:15:06

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) (with...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/05/22

No sooner have Chris and Alex finished their examination of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002) than they make a swift return to Hogwarts for the third (and best?) in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuarón, 2004). Joining them in this instalment to separate their Leaky Cauldrons from their Time-Turners is very special guest Rhianna Dhillon, Film/TV critic and Presenter who has featured on BBC Radio One, Front Row, Sky News, and Channel 5,

en

13:22

Footnote #29 - Transmedia

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/05/15

Drawing on the seminal work of scholar Henry Jenkins, this latest Footnote episode engages the question of transmedia storytelling, industrial organisation, cultures of appreciation, and the consumption of media in an era of convergence. Alex takes the lead in discussing how contemporary entertainment experiences involve the dispersal of content across interacting, co-ordinated, and co-dependent media platforms. From medium specificity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the idea of ‘transmedia’ is

en

01:11:16

Arab Animation (1937-2015) (with Omar Sayfo)

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/05/08

Special guest Dr. Omar Sayfo joins Chris and Alex for Episode 119 of the podcast, which features a rundown of Arab Animation covering a range of cartoons from Egypt, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a discussion of Omar’s recent book Arab Animation: Images of Identity (2021). Omar is an Affiliated Researcher in the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University, and a researcher at the Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, who has published articles in animation: an

en

12:21

Footnote #28 - Adult Animation

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/05/01

Animation’s rude and crude history is the topic of Footnote #28 of the podcast as Chris and Alex take up the complex issue of adult animation. Topics include adult animation as the medium’s cultural ‘other’ and how it is a term involved in exclusionary tactics of classification; associations between the ‘adult’ of adult animation and taboo themes, strong language, and graphic sexual content; alternate definitions of adultness rooted in everything from the medium’s potential for satire, parody, and

en

01:00:28

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) (with David...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/04/24

Prepare for more multiverse madness as Chris and Alex dive into the world of Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022), the Oscar-winning absurdist sci-fi action adventure that engages head-on with the question of what it means to be human set against the backdrop of forking path storylines, a sumptuous mise-en-scène of colliding visual styles, and a maelstrom of digital VFX. The special guest for Episode 118 is Dr David Sorfa, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the

en

12:48

Footnote #27 - Surrealism

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/04/17

Following up episodes on hyper-realism and photorealism, this latest instalment completes the unofficial Fantasy/Animation ‘realism’ trilogy (!) by focusing on the history, politics, and aesthetic concerns of surrealism. Chris and Alex take a surrealist turn through the crisis of realism in the arts and the advent of photography; dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, and unconscious desires; postwar intellectualism, Salvador Dalí, and Dadaism; and how both fantasy and animation work in relation to

en

01:04:04

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) (with...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/04/10

Whomping willows, Ford Anglias, and so much more are covered in episode 117 of the podcast, which (better late than never!) returns to Hogwarts for the second instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise and an adaptation of the 1998 novel originally released back in November 2002. Joining Chris and Alex for a closer look at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002) is Jyotsna Kapur, who is a Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Southern Illinois University. Jyotsna’s

en

13:45

Footnote #26 - The Cinema of Attractions

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/04/03

The tension between spectacle and narrative is investigated through the seminal work of Tom Gunning and his formulation of the “cinema of attractions” in this latest Footnote episode, in which Chris and Alex hold cinema’s propensity for exhibitionist visual display and its later development of story in delicate balance. Listen as they reflect on the emergence of actuality shorts, travelogues, and the ‘trick’ films of Georges Méliès; the acquisition and integration of narrative by cinema that

en

01:06:10

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) (with...

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/03/27

Finally following up their podcast on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001), Episode 116 has Chris and Alex picking up the story of Middle-earth with this instalment on the second film in the franchise, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002). Joining them is special guest Dr Daniel White, who is Senior Lecturer in Musicology in the Department of Music & Design Arts at the University of Huddersfield, and author of a number of publications looking

en

11:54

Footnote #25 - Photorealism

Fantasy/Animation ·

2023/03/13

Fresh from their discussion of hyper-realism in the previous Footnote episode, Chris and Alex discuss ‘photorealism’ in this latest instalment - a term that denotes the aesthetic mimicking of lens-based media to create the appearance of a world as viewed through a camera. Listen as they discuss photorealism’s relationship to the animated illusion of pro-filmic activity; links with hyper-realism as a broader aesthetic category of representation; the role of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in

en

243 results

Similar Podcasts

BEHIND THE VELVET ROPE

David Yontef

Nerd Culture - A Gamekings Podcast

Blammo Media

UPodcast

UPodcast

The Writers Hangout

Sandy Adomaitis

The Sarah Fraser Show

Sarah Fraser