If in the last two decades animation has increasingly been employed to recount factual occurrences, at the same time we have also witnessed the proliferation of fictional animated works bearing the semblance of documentaries. In order to pretend that these audio-visual products (known as mockumentaries) are documentaries, they are constructed as factual films by recreating those aesthetics that the viewing public is accustomed to recognize as veridictive marks of the medium to which such products are destined. However, due to these films’ clearly imaginary narratives and to the presence of animation itself, the spectator cannot but be aware of their fictionality. Therefore, these animated works constitute the clearest example of mockumentary not being a genre, but rather a narrative style capable of transcending the boundaries of genres, media and individual poetics. Through the analysis of Ash Brannon and Chris Buck’s feature film Surf’s Up (2007) and of The Simpsons’ episodes “Behind the Laughter” (2000) and “Springfield Up” (2007), the paper will also argue that the mockumentary style doesn’t consist solely in the adoption of documentary aesthetics and structures, but also in the deployment of a number of elements (such as booms left “accidentally” in view, glances in the direction of the camera and so on), that I will call fictionality clues. It will be demonstrated that, whereas in hoaxes or credible live-action mockumentaries the deployment of these aesthetics can be justified by the fact that they fulfill the function of alerting the viewer to the film’s effective ontological status, in the case of animated mockumentaries such elements would be redundant, if used just for this purpose.

The Animated Mockumentary, or When Imaginary Cartoon Worlds Get the "Documentary Look" / C. Formenti. ((Intervento presentato al convegno Animation at the Cutting Edge tenutosi a Cork nel 2014.

The Animated Mockumentary, or When Imaginary Cartoon Worlds Get the "Documentary Look"

C. Formenti
Primo
2014

Abstract

If in the last two decades animation has increasingly been employed to recount factual occurrences, at the same time we have also witnessed the proliferation of fictional animated works bearing the semblance of documentaries. In order to pretend that these audio-visual products (known as mockumentaries) are documentaries, they are constructed as factual films by recreating those aesthetics that the viewing public is accustomed to recognize as veridictive marks of the medium to which such products are destined. However, due to these films’ clearly imaginary narratives and to the presence of animation itself, the spectator cannot but be aware of their fictionality. Therefore, these animated works constitute the clearest example of mockumentary not being a genre, but rather a narrative style capable of transcending the boundaries of genres, media and individual poetics. Through the analysis of Ash Brannon and Chris Buck’s feature film Surf’s Up (2007) and of The Simpsons’ episodes “Behind the Laughter” (2000) and “Springfield Up” (2007), the paper will also argue that the mockumentary style doesn’t consist solely in the adoption of documentary aesthetics and structures, but also in the deployment of a number of elements (such as booms left “accidentally” in view, glances in the direction of the camera and so on), that I will call fictionality clues. It will be demonstrated that, whereas in hoaxes or credible live-action mockumentaries the deployment of these aesthetics can be justified by the fact that they fulfill the function of alerting the viewer to the film’s effective ontological status, in the case of animated mockumentaries such elements would be redundant, if used just for this purpose.
15-feb-2014
mockumentary ; animation ; documentary
Settore L-ART/06 - Cinema, Fotografia e Televisione
University College Cork
http://animationcuttingedge.wordpress.com/abstracts/
The Animated Mockumentary, or When Imaginary Cartoon Worlds Get the "Documentary Look" / C. Formenti. ((Intervento presentato al convegno Animation at the Cutting Edge tenutosi a Cork nel 2014.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/235382
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