ANIMATION

Could animated film be — documentary?

This text considers boundaries between animation and documentarism on the example of the BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs. At first glance, the series seems to be a typical BBC popular-science documentary because it showcases one aspect of the natural world appropriately commented and accompanied by pictures and environmental sounds. Yet, it features a long gone, prehistorical world, in three-dimensional computer animation, i.e. computer simulation. The theoretical problem considered by the author is could computer simulation — animated film — be documentaristic, or is this definition contradictio in adjecto because documentary film is a direct optical-acoustic recording of what has happened in front of the camera, which is precisely what this series is lacking, that is to say, it is neither verifiable, nor documentary, if we accept that documentary should strictly stick to the original recording. However, there is also reconstructive documentary, which although it features authentic appearances, first prearranges and reconstructs them, and then records them as they occur in front of the camera. Still, the author believes that it would be unreasonable to consider BBC’s animated series as reconstructive documentary, if we accept that documentarism assumes recording of a historically singular reality that leaves its trace on a film, which is a demand that animation simply cannot meet. Therefore, Walking with Dinosaurs is an educational, popular-science series: it pays attention to truthfulness, it does not only feature the true state of affairs — as a documentary — it also explains and describes, and the scenes serve as illustrations in the process of argumentation of a certain claim, notion or theory, mixing documentary shots, animations and diagrams, animated reconstructions, acted reconstructed scenes, verbal interpretations, etc.

Hrvoje Turković