In this week’s lecture, we have discovered how animation can be political and influence or persuade the audience, and we also analysed if animated documentary can be considered and actual documentary or not.
It is possible to persuade or influence the audience through social media, broadcast news and events, film and animation, and television. There are media platforms that can be used for this such as broadcast, print media, mainstream film & animation, independent film & animation, games, podcast, etc. These influential messages in moving image don’t necessarily have to be political, they can also be subliminal or masked content, propaganda, persuasive commercials, documentaries, personal struggle (observation, experience).
The animated documentaries are used to explain, illustrate, or emphasise a story. It can be recorded or created frame by frame and it is presented as a documentary by producers and/or received as a documentary by the audience, festivals, or critics. This type of animation offers new alternative ways to see the world as it shifts and broadens the limits of what and how we can show reality. Its authenticity depends on how specific are the images that compounds it, and it is linked to notions of realism (how story was told and not an imaginary story). There is some controversy regarding these animated documentaries as some people disagrees that these can be classed as ‘documentaries’ as they have a lack of objectivity.
I found an animated documentary as a good example of this, called Nowhere line: voices from Manus Island by Lukas Schrank.
This documentary is based in a phone called made to two asylum-seeking men detained in Manus Island, Australia, at the Offshore Processing Centre.
Since no images has been able to be recorded in this case, an animation can illustrate this story and search for an emotional connection with the audience. It doesn’t need to be considered fake information as the images are an interpretation of the facts narrated by these two men in Australia. However, it can be very informative and helpful to put things together in a story and keep the attention of the audience. I think animated documentaries are a very useful tool to draw the audience’s attention to important matters like this one in Manus Island and make them engage and empathise with the story.
References
TheCGBros (2016). **Award Winning** CGI 2D/3D Documentary: “Nowhere Line: Voices from Manus Island” – by Lukas Schrank (online). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D8B0o1aRcs [Accessed 8 November 2022]