A Quick note before this post, The embed link in text aren't working so I have put all the links here in order they appear in the post. The text they would be attached to are in blue. Sorry for the confusion and enjoy the post! https://video.disney.com/watch/dream-big-princess-be-a-champion-52a6d635af023bf94e218c53 https://youtu.be/B6uuIHpFkuo In the previous post I talked about the animation industry pushing for more women in its ranks, and I mentioned that the studios are beginning to make changes. All of this is helping the industry move away from its historical and current lack of gender diversity. One of the biggest groups working to make this change is a group known as Women in Animation (WIA). Women in Animation was founded in 1995 and was, and still is, the only organization “dedicated to advancing women in the field of animation.” (womeninanimation.org). With this focus in mind, the group is working on many things to help women in the field. One example of this is the 50/50 BY 2025 Pledge; the goal of this pledge is to have the animation industry be made up of equal percentages of women and men by 2025. Another example is an Animation Studio Anti-Harassment Pledge. This pledge was created in 2017 when the WIA brought several heads of independent studios together to discuss and brainstorm ways to create safe working environments. The hope is to provide safe work environments for all. WIA is also dedicated to making animation education accessible to females and has scholarships for students studying animation and hoping to get into the industry. The organization also provides job boards, sexual harassment resources, and resources for students.
The studios also support increasing people’s knowledge about the undercredited women of the past in animation. Recently, Disney released a book by Mindy Johnson called, Ink and Paint. The book discusses women who worked and contributed to animation in the earlier years of Disney. The book shares the contributions of women in the field, that until this book went mostly undocumented. Ink and Paint also points out that despite the lack of public recognition in the past, women were not only important but sought out for certain jobs. Disney even plans to release a documentary series (on their new streaming service) next year based on the book, under the same name - Ink and Paint. The documentary will be an eight-episode series. One of my favorite industry initiatives supporting the push for new female animators, is the Pixar Spark Short Program. The goal of the program is to start diversifying the animation industry in both gender and race. The program got started for the sole purpose of creating opportunities for new filmmakers quickly. A typical animated film takes 3 to 4 years to produce, therefore it takes a long time to bring new filmmakers into the folds. The Spark Shorts take roughly 6 months to produce, giving people the opportunity to create projects faster and begin showcasing new talent sooner. This program provides opportunities for women and other minorities to showcase their work. One of the Spark Shorts that is something of a double entendre for women in animation is a short called Purl. The short is about a female yarn ball named Purl who feels out of place with her corporate male coworkers. So, Purl changes herself to try to be like the guys, but is left feeling unlike herself. She does eventually break into the boys club and learns to fit in while still keeping her true self intact. Other animated works also try to showcase similar themes to Purl, but in more subtle ways. For example, the Oscar Award inning film, Frozen, focuses on two female characters becoming comfortable in their own skin. These types of films truly require the female perspective, and Jennifer Lee helped bring that to Frozen. Lee worked as one of the co-directors on Frozen, bringing that much needed feminine touch to a story about two young women. Frozen was the highest-earning animated movie in the world in 2013, earning $1,276.5 billion. This success likely helped Lee maintain her position for the sequel to Frozen which was recently released. As a female director of one of the most successful animated films in history, Lee is an inspiration to young female animators and filmmakers. But just as inspirational is the fact that she is a female director telling a story about strong, powerful women. Frozen is a film that teaches audiences that girls don't need a man to take care of them. Frozen is about women empowering other women. Even Lee is aware of the impact she has and once shared, “Using the journeys of characters like Anna, Elsa and Moana to inspire kids to dream big is at the very heart of what all of us at Disney do.”. Animated films like Frozen and Purl, created by and showcasing empowered women, coupled with programs like Spark Shorts, and Disney’s Dream Big campaign are contributing to change in the animation industry. The industry is becoming more diverse and the increase in women in the industry is slow but steady as these programs continue to push toward gender equity in animation. If you want to learn more about Lee and Frozen check out blog post 5.Bibliography:
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As mentioned in a prior post, women's contributions to film have significant importance but often go unnoticed. So, why, if women have been industry from the beginning, are all the “big names” in animation that are familiar, predominantly men? Is it something similar to Shakespearean times when acting was considered a more manly career but as time passed it became less masculine driven? No, it’s not like that - in fact it’s far from the case, according to Women in Animation, (a group who works to help and support women with in the field of animation) “60 percent of animation students in the US and Europe are women.” (Caine). Strangely though, a recent study shows that despite the large number of female students studying animation, only 7% of head of story positions, 8% of animation head positions, and 14% of art director positions are held by women. That data was sampled from 52 top animated films from the past 5 years (USC, Animation Accelerates). Why aren’t we seeing women in the field when here are so many women studying it? Sadly, of the women trying to break into the industry the drop off rate is very high. Why do women have a hard time breaking in? This is a bit of a messy answer because the reasons are attributed to gender discrimination, and preconceived gender roles, something common in many industries. The preconceived gender roles are traced back to the early ink and paint girls. They were just seen as pretty girls painting pretty pictures. They weren't seen as artists, brilliantly and skillfully animating color and movement, who were, in every way, equal to their male counterparts. In fact, The Disney Studio advertised this idea of pretty girls painting pretty pictures. This can be seen in the 1936 Walt Disney Animation studio walkthrough video. where they emphasize the “woman” making “charming “works. Modern women still face this gender discrimination today. The article, Where are the Women in Animation?, shares a comment from a woman working in a London production company who says, “The common belief is that men are the creative leads and … women are there to facilitate and enable the creative voice and vision of men”. Even when women are able to break into the industry, the statistics shown earlier demonstrate that it’s difficult for them to promote to leadership roles like head of story, animation head, or art director. For women, even a degree from CalArts, the number one animation program in the country, doesn’t guarantee anything. The school has direct ties to Disney and has produced many distinguished alumni including John Lasseter, Tim Burton and Brad Bird, just to name a few, all of whom happen to be men. CalArts has seen its Character Animation Program grow from two women enrolled in its beginnings, to around 70% female (in a highly selective program with an acceptance rate of about 10%), yet interestingly enough not many of these women animators advance to department heads. These issues may seem opinion based, but a USC study called Inclusion in Animation, shows that sexism is still a major factor in the male dominated animation industry. This fact is often attributed to the “belief that women don’t or won’t excel in leadership roles in entertainment.” (Caine). Though the USC study shows disturbingly low numbers, the study isn't all bad news. It shows something that has been obvious for years, and sometimes pointing out the obvious can be very helpful. “Now that we have a greater understanding of how the numbers fall into place and what solutions may help rectify this deficiency, we can take bigger strides towards our goal of 50-50 by 2025.”, Women in Animation President Marge Dean stated. Although the numbers are low, they do indicate growth - an increase in women in animation from years past. This is promising and shows that the industry is making an effort to improve in the area of gender equity. In recent years, programs have been created to provide opportunities for women to not only break into the animation industry, but also move up through its ranks. But more change still needs to be made. The needed change is best explained by Ashley Long, SD for Netflix, one of the very few female supervising directors in the industry. Long said, “We need to extend our reach to create awareness on a larger scale, and be adamant across production leadership, that studios evaluate female candidates equally when hiring, and provide equal pay to that received by their male colleagues.” The industry is changing for the better but there is still work to do. Bibliography :
Women have been influential in film and animation from the very beginning, but their contributions are often left unnoticed in history - generally due to the gender norms of the past. The lack of recognition women have received in animation history can be summed up best by Mindy Johnson’s (author of Ink and Paint, a book about the role of women in Disney animation) visit to the Disney archives for the first time to begin her book research. Upon her arrival, she was given a single folder with only five pieces of paper inside. There are clearly more than 5 pieces of paper worth of women and their contributions to the industry. And, this contribution is something that needs to be better and more widely known. I hope to share a bit of that history here. One of the most influential women in animation history is Charlotte Reiniger. Charlotte was doing animation in her own way long before Disney or other companies started doing animation as we know it today. She was born in 1899, in Berlin. Reiniger worked as a filmmaker for over 60 years and did most of her films with her husband. Her most famous film is The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which she completed in 1926. The film was the first, full-length, animated feature ever made. This film, like most of her films, was done in an animation style that involves taking individual frames of cut out silhouettes (they are like shadow puppets). This process is known as stop motion. Stop Motion isn't filmed in real time, an animator
more often given credit for her work; this is attributed to the fact that she created in the early years of film, when it was new, experimental, and there were not yet defined roles. Her influence on animation is best summed up by Times Film Critic, A.O. Scott, in 2018 when he wrote that Reiniger’s “Dreamy images that seem to tap right into the collective unconscious suggest both an antidote to Disney and a precursor to Tim Burton.” Just as being involved in the early years of film was beneficial to Reiniger, another woman who also made her mark was Alice Guy-Blache. Alice made the first film ever to tell a story and was also one of the first female directors. During her lifetime she directed many films, even some for the studio she opened in 1910 with her husband (Solax Studio). Another woman who took advantage of the time was Frances Marion. Marion became America's highest paid screenwriter and the first person to win two Academy Awards for screenwriting. She did all of this in the early 1900s.
placing an emphasis on the pretty and not the detailed work required for the job they performed. Fortunately for Friedman though, her bosses took notice of her skills. She was promoted to an assistant and inbetweener (a person who draws the frames in between the keyframes done by lead animator). Then, she was "secretly" promoted to animator, where she could generate animation content of her own, instead of filling in others' gaps. After that promotion she animated – uncredited – a Popeye cartoon, Can You Take It (1934). Lillian is just one of the many women in animation history to often go unnoticed due to gender constraints and non-credit of her work. Her influence, while not outright influential to the industry as a whole, is reflective of what is needed to be successful in the industry, and she is a role model for other female animators. She worked for her passion not for the credit, and her hard work paid off.
attractions in the Walt Disney theme parks, such as the dolls in It's a Small World, on along with a mosaic inside Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida. Her work can also be seen in other places within the company's theme parks, through attractions based on films that she did work for like, Peter Pan's Flight, and Splash Mountain (inspired by Song of the South). Her art style and work are said to be “deceptively simple” because her work is “enormous visual sophistication”(Canemaker),as well as extraordinary craftsmanship in composition and in color. Blair was a highly regarded contributor to the Disney Company, she was even inducted into Disney Legends (a hall of fame that recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to the company) in 1991. Her work contributed to some of the most classical and well-known films for children, and she was a successful animator who created a distinct and unique style for herself.
for the mother, and the hunting dogs. Her imagery was so intense, she self-described it as “vicious, snarling beasts”, that she was moved up and made an animator on the film. As the first woman at Disney to receive screen credit as an animator, she took a significant step for women in the field. Following Bambi, she started work on Dumbo, and also worked a bit on The Reluctant Dragon. However, her time at Disney was short lived, because a year later the studio ran into trouble and she, along with many other artists, was laid off. Retta Scott returned to the studio in 1942 to help work on military training films that the company was producing during World War II. She resigned shortly after returning, due to her husband's work. Though not as an animator, she did continue to contribute to the company as a freelance artist, illustrating the Big Golden Book of Cinderella among others. Retta was one of many female artists/animators but most importantly, she is the one who truly broke up the boy’s club, and she did it creating art that people often thought a woman couldn’t. These women are just the tip of the iceberg as far as influential women in animation. All of these women have positively impacted the industry in a way that has helped inspire generations of young female filmmakers, while also impacting the industry as a whole. Knowing the stories of these women is key to understanding why women are essential to animation, and why there is a push in modern society for more women like them. Bibliography :
Storytelling has been integral to human culture since the beginning of time. Humans told stories around the fire and drew pictures of those stories on cave walls. Stories tell us where we were, where we are, and where we are going. Stories can be an escape from reality or a reflection of our life. Stories encapsulate us and are one of the most inherently human things that exist. Humans tell stories in many different forms - from our early cave paintings, to Shakespeare's plays, to books, or sitting around the dinner table retelling the events of our day, stories are stories. One of the favorite mediums for storytelling in modern society is film. Film is an important and influential part of the modern storytelling culture and women have been important to the film industry from the get-go.
Women have played an integral role in the film and more specifically the animation industry since its very beginning. Whether it's Lillian Friedman Astor, the first American female studio animator, or Elizabeth Zwicker, an early and influential animator and artist, or the ink and paint girls in the early years of Disney, women have been there from the start. However, their contributions have gone mostly unrecognized due to the lack of gender diversity in the field, until recently. Over the last few years, there has been a push from both sides to have more gender diversity within the studios and industry as a whole. In part, this push comes from recent attention drawn to the female predecessors in the field who helped inspire and paved the way for today’s female animators. This push can also be attributed to the current work being done by groups like Women in Animation, an organization dedicated to advancing women and their role within the field of animation. The organization works to bring change to the industry in many ways, such as encouraging gender diversity, and helping the young women entering the field via scholarships for college students. The push is supported by many of the large studios including Disney, who are creating campaigns that are meant to inspire the next generation of young females. The Process of "Sincerely Me"This is my first post! I'm hoping to do blog post more often. In this first one I'll show you the process photos to one of my more recent works, "Sincerely Me" inspired by the song form the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen.
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Claire Wilcox is a storyteller and an aspiring animator.
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