The interaction of animation and live-action. The function of animation in partly-animated hybrid documentaries

The function of animation in partly-animated hybrid documentaries

Name: Rowan Olierook

Student number: 6051235

E-mail: rowan.olierook@student.uva.nl University: University of Amsterdam

Course: Master Media studies: Job orientated specialization, Television and Cross Media Culture

Supervisor: Mrs. drs. A. (Andrea) Meuzelaar Second reader: Mr. dr. J.W. (Jaap) Kooijman Date: April 24th 2014

This thesis focuses on three partly-animated hybrid documentaries: One Big Hapa Family (Jeff Chiba Stearns 2010), 2012: Time for Change (João G. Amorim 2010), and Camp 14: Total Control Zone (Marc Wiese 2012). In the academic field, not much has yet been written about this kind of hybrid documentary, notable for its frequent use of animation, considering it is a new, upcoming genre. This thesis explores this grey area in documentary scholarship by uncovering the function of these animated scenes and investigating how they interact with the live-action scenes. Firstly, this research defines documentary, animation, and their various characteristics. Furthermore, an overview of the functions, which the theorists ascribe to animation within completely animated documentaries or non-fiction films, will be given. These functions are: (self-)reflexivity, non-mimetic substitution, mimetic substitution,

evocation, educational tool, reduce of harshness, irony, and protection mask. A close analysis will be applied to answer the research question, as its findings expose how animated scenes function and interact with the live-action scenes. I conclude that animation in partly-animated hybrid documentaries function in the same way as outlined by the theorists. However, these functions are enlarged due to the interplay with live-action. Additionally, two ‘new’ functions emerge, and furthermore a context and a particular meaning are provided by the live-action scenes. Lastly, I will argue that animation also influences the meaning of the live-action.

Keywords: animation, documentary, hybridity, function, One Big Hapa Family, 2012: Time for Change, Camp 14: Total Control Zone, partly-animated documentary.

I would like to thank my supervisor drs. Andrea Meuzelaar for guiding me through the process of writing this thesis. She gave me thorough feedback and new insights. I would also like to thank my second reader and partly supervisor dr. Jaap Kooijman for his advice at the beginning of this research, and for reading and grading this thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude towards my English editors Ton van Dijk and his wife, because without their perfect English eye for grammar, this thesis would not have been the same. Furthermore, I am grateful to the student advisor, drs. Marianne Harbers, for her advice and kind words. Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellow students, lovely family and friends, in particular my partner Daan Farjon, who all helped me through this process with their advices and feedback in good and bad times.

Rowan Olierook Amsterdam, April 2014

Introduction – a new phenomenon? 5

Documentary versus Animation 8

- Documentary characteristics and the rise of new ingredients 8 - Animation: an overview of her characteristics and possible functions 10

Research method: A close textual reading of animated scenes 17

Analysis: One Big Hapa Family 18

- Introduction quest 19

- Japanese-Canadian history 21

- A word to express the Japanese-Canadian identity 25

- Identity perception by the youngest generation 26

- Conclusion 29

Analysis: 2012: Time for Change 31

- Crises the world is facing 32

- Wake up! 35

- Possible solutions 37

- An alternative world 41

- Conclusion 42

Analysis: Camp 14: Total Control Zone 44

- Daily life 45

- Imprisonment 48

- Escape 53

- Conclusion 54

Conclusion: a mixed marriage 56

Bibliography 60

Appendix A: Analysis One Big Hapa Family 64

Appendix B: Analysis 2012: Time for Change 74

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While watching One Big Hapa Family (Jeff Chiba Stearns 2010), I see something that I have never seen before. I have seen various documentaries which use animation in a couple of scenes, such as Menstrual Man (Amit Virmani 2012), and Searching for Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul 2012). However, the striking thing about One Big Hapa Family is that it consists of the frequent use of animation in different styles. The genre documentary is constantly changing, as outlined by Professor Paul Ward,

the only unchanging thing about documentary is that it is a form that makes assertions or truth claims about the real world or real people in that world (…); how it does this is something that is subject to change (2005: 8).

When I see the documentary of Jeff Chiba Stearns, I suspect that this is something new. There is something special about the combination of animation and documentary. One Big Hapa Family makes assertions of the real world, the only unchanging thing of documentary that Ward outlines above. In his documentary, Chiba Stearns goes on a quest of self-discovery in order to find a way to accept his identity, and to find answers to the question why everyone in his Japanese-Canadian family married interracially since his parents’ generation. However, this documentary uses a new way of storytelling, since its live-action scenes are alternated with animated scenes. In this thesis, I will also go on a journey, an academic one, to learn about the identities of such hybrid documentaries that frequently use animation to tell a story.

There is a theoretical debate on the combination of documentary and animation. This debate is characterised by the discussion whether or not these two elements can be joined together in a single cohesive film. Documentaries represent real events and real people within the present world. The filmed scenes act ‘as an indexical “trace” of what occurred before the camera’ and thus do have an origin in the actual world (Ward 2005: 7). This genre is linked to terms as objectivity, truth, actuality and authenticity (Ward 2005: 7; 2011: 2). Animation, on the other hand, seems to be the opposite of documentary and the documentary ontology, because it is seen as the artistic creation of an illusion of motion (Honess Roe 2011: 26). Terms related to animation are subjectivity, imagination, simplification, humour and children amusement (Furniss 1998; Honess Roe 2011; Ward 2008; Wells 1998).

Though, what most people forget, and what documentary maker John Grierson stated (already) in 1929, is that documentary is also a creation, namely ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ (Hilderbrand 2009: 2). The world shown in a documentary is an interpretation of the filmmaker, while on the other hand, animation can also visualise the actual world (Nichols 2001: 1-2; Ward 2005: 7-8; Honess Roe 2011: 216). Furthermore, according to Lecturer Film

Studies Annabelle Honess Roe and Lecturer Animation Paul Ward, documentary and animation have ‘co-enriched’ each other since the beginning of the creation of the moving image (Honess Roe 2011: 218, 229; Ward 2005: 7). Currently, new genres have emerged, and the industry and the academic field acknowledged (and created) genres such as online

interactive documentaries, documentary musical, animated documentaries (well-known as completely animated documentaries), and hybrid documentaries.

Theoretically, these genres can all be considered as hybrids. As authors Maria

Pramaggiore and Tom Wallis formulate, a hybrid is ‘a film that fuses the conventions of two or more genres’ (2008: 435). Journalist Tom Roston outlines that a hybrid documentary is ‘a film that weaves together traditional nonfiction filmmaking with traditional filmmaking’ (2013: n.pag.). In line with Roston, I will state that a hybrid documentary comprises a documentary that incorporates and merges different techniques such as animation, fiction, or computer graphics. In other words, One Big Hapa Family is a hybrid documentary that frequently uses animation.

Within documentaries, the frequent use of animation is an upcoming phenomenon. However, the academic field is still particularly characterised by literature of animated

documentaries, hybrid documentaries (in general) as an innovation, and the related discussion whether animation can represent ‘reality’. Additionally to this notion of representation of reality, theorists such as Annabelle Honess Roe, Nea Ehrlich, and Paul Ward write about different functions of animation in animated documentaries in order to reveal how animation has ‘broadened and deepened documentary’s epistemological project by opening it up to subject matters that previously eluded live-action film’ (Honess Roe 2011: 215; Ehrlich 2011: n. pag.; Ward 2005: 83). However, partly-animated hybrid documentaries, as well as the functionalities and roles of their animated scenes, have not yet been outlined by theorists within this academic field. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore this grey area around these hybrid documentaries. Although animation and documentary are connected since the earliest days of cinema, the function of animation within hybrid documentaries has not yet been sufficiently studied. Therefore, the research question of this thesis will be: What is the function of animation within a partly-animated hybrid documentary?

In order to answer this question, the following three hybrid documentaries will be close analysed: One Big Hapa Family (Jeff Chiba Stearns 2010), 2012: Time for Change (João G. Amorim 2010), and Camp 14: Total Control Zone (Marc Wiese 2012). These three documentaries are recent and diverse; all have their own style of animation, and are made by filmmakers of different countries (respectively Canada, Brazil and Germany). As described

before, One Big Hapa Family shows the director’s quest of self-discovery. He explores which aspects have influenced interracial marriages of his Japanese-Canadian family, as well as how his nieces and cousins perceive their mixed-race identity. He illustrates his journey with animated scenes of memories and stories of relatives, friends, experts, and of himself.

The second documentary, 2012: Time for Change, presents an alternative theory of the apocalyptic doom predicted by the Maya’s. This film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck on his quest for a new paradigm that integrates scientific methods with the archaic methods of tribal cultures. The journey along different experts of archaic and scientific methods is alternated with animated sequences. Animation within this documentary seems to function as a visualisation of higher spheres, such as meditation and psychedelic experiences.

Lastly, Camp 14: Total Control Zone is a portrait of the young man Shin Dong-Huyk, who was born in a North Korean prison camp. He grew up with inhumane torture, but at a certain point, he found a way to escape from this death camp. Animated scenes, an interview of a former officer of the secret police, and an interview of an ex-commander of the guards accompany his story. The animation seems to function as a replacement of live-action images, because the animated events are memories of Shin’s imprisonment. In these situations, there were probably no cameras present (as they were most likely forbidden). In short, in all three hybrid documentaries, animation seems to function in different ways.

This thesis aims to map a bigger phenomenon of how animation functions within partly-animated hybrid documentaries. The three objects will be individually analysed and these results will be compared. Hereupon, a system can be exposed which can be translated to the bigger phenomenon. This research is an addition to and elaboration on other studies in the field of documentary and animation, through combining and utilizing several existing

scientific studies and concepts in relation to hybrid documentaries. In order to answer the research question, I will discuss characteristics of documentary, animation, and hybrid documentaries in the next chapter. These characteristics can namely become a particular function, as will become clear in the following section. Aside from this, an overview of the (new) style elements a filmmaker has at his disposal will be provided. Furthermore, I will examine and outline the various functions of animation which are discussed within the

literature concerning (animated) documentaries. These functions of animation will be outlined in order to show how animation may work in a documentary context. This framework will help to perform a close analysis of the three documentaries. The exposure of the interaction and the close reading of the animated scenes can show how animation can function in partly-animated hybrid documentaries.

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This chapter discusses the main documentary and animation characteristics. It furthermore focuses on the functions of animation according to theorists within the academic fields of documentary and animation. Alongside the documentary characteristics, the first section will also focus on new style elements that filmmakers can use to tell a story about the actual world.

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The term documentary is defined by film critic Bill Nichols and Professor Paul Ward as an open concept with fuzzy boundaries (Nichols 2001: 21; Ward 2005: 12). This can be explained by the fact that documentaries do not adopt a ‘fixed inventory of techniques’, nor do they address a single set of issues, or display a single set of forms or styles (Nichols 2001: 21) and additionally, that the documentary filmmaking is located in a changing arena (Nichols 2001: 21; Ward 2005: 8, 23). However, as they argue, common ground is that a documentary is a representation of a particular view of the actual world we live in (Nichols 2001: xi, 1-2, 20;Ward 2005: 7). According to Ward, every documentary is therefore nonfictional, but not all nonfictional movies are a documentary. Nonfictional movies are also, for example, newsreels and reportage programs (2005: 7). The organisation and context provide the cue that a specific work can ‘be considered as a documentary’ (Nichols 2001: 22). In other words, as philosopher Noël Carroll argues, it is ‘a distinction between the commitments of the text, not between the surface structures of the text.’ (1996: 287).

An important characteristic of the documentary genre is, according to Ward, that a documentary’s places, events, and characters have a ‘real-world existence’ (2005: 7). Nichols adds to this, that the characters are social actors, because ‘they remain cultural players rather than theatrical performers’ (2001: 5). Their significance for the director consists in what the lives, of the social actors themselves, symbolise. He adds to this that the documentary

filmmakers create the world represented in the film, and that they interpret the occurrences for the viewer. By making certain choices, they can create a case or an argument (2001: 2-5).

In other words, documentaries are a creative work. Filmmakers choose a specific object for their film and they create a story around their subject(s) or social actor(s). For example, they can dramatize real events by using particular music, editing, and

cinematography. Directors interpret the events, which occur in front of the camera, and they can intervene if they want to by, for instance, asking questions to the social actors, or by

participating in the event in the ‘real-world’ itself. Related to this, Nichols launches the term voice, which signifies the specific way in which a perspective or argument is expressed and conveyed in a film. This voice expresses what the social point of view of the filmmaker is and how this argument becomes manifested in the act of filmmaking, through for example a certain style and form (2001: 43-45).

These theories connect to the famous phrase of documentary maker John Grierson: documentary is ‘the creative treatment of actuality’. Professor Lucas Hilderbrand outlines that Grierson ‘subsequently insisted that documentary filmmaking is “creative work with

“different aesthetic issues”’ (2009: 2). Moreover, Grierson adds to this notion that the documentary filmmaking also needs to have an underlying dramatic organisation, which distinguishes the documentary forms from other non-fiction films (Ward 2005: 9). Ward also states that documentaries are about balancing between ‘the capturing of natural material’ on the one hand, and ‘the creative shaping or interpretation’ of this material on the other hand (2005: 10). This creative shaping acquires a new dimension in the emerging field of new forms of documentary filmmaking, such as drama-documentary, mock-documentary, hybrid documentary, or animated documentary.

As mentioned in the introduction, hybrid documentaries, in line with journalist Tom Roston, are considered as documentaries that merge and incorporate different techniques, and combine fictional with non-fictional filmmaking (2013: n.pag.). Additionally, animated documentaries can also be labelled as hybrid documentaries, as they actually merge animation with documentary aesthetics. However, I would rather suggest that animated documentaries are completely animated documentaries, whereas movies such as 2012: Time for Change and Camp 14: Total Control Zone are hybrid documentaries which make frequent use of

animation. Either way, this convergence of multiple media forms within one field, which Professor Lev Manovich defines as ‘hybrid’, allows the documentary filmmakers to

experiment with the traditional documentary genre, and to tell their stories in various ways. As Manovich highlights, it is important to keep in mind that within media hybridity, various media can become compatible and can coexist peacefully within the same space. Yet on the contrary, they become individually identifiable at the same time, because they maintain their specific and unique characteristics (2007: 14-15). In other words, the different techniques (or genres) merge and are placed on top of each other, hence they will most of the time maintain their characteristics or so to say their differences (2007: 15).

Furthermore, each documentary filmmaker can use different style and form elements, or ‘ingredients’ as editor and author Michael Rabiger calls them, in order to show and

strengthen their perspectiveon the world. These documentary style characteristics could be, for instance: interviews with the (chosen) subjects (in which the filmmaker is present or off-screen), observational footage (like landscapes, people talking, animals), archive footage, graphics (such as photographs and titles), music and sound effects, point of view (perspective from the subject or from the filmmaker), cinematography (such as camera angle and tempo), and voice-overs (of the subjects, the filmmaker or an omniscient narrator) (2009: 100-101, 322-323). These documentary characteristics are organised in a certain way, as theorist Bill Nichols states, ‘to persuade or convince [the viewer]: by the strength of [the filmmakers’] argument or point of view and the appeal, or power, of their [documentary] voice’ (2001: 43). Professor Michael Renov adds three other aesthetic functions to this power of persuasion (or promotion): the function of documentary is also to record, reveal or preserve; to analyse or to interrogate; and to express (1993: 21).

With the broadening of the documentary genre, other ingredients can be added to the list of possibilities in order to convince the viewer of the documentary filmmakers’

argument(s). Rabiger also adds ‘reenactments’, which are ‘factually accurate’, ‘situations that are past and were not, or could not be, filmed’, and that are ‘suppositional or hypothetical’ (2009: 100-101). In my opinion, this ingredient can be seen as a form of animation as well as a fictional reconstruction. In other words, with the raising of ‘new’ genres, characteristics and the changing boundaries, animation and fictional reconstruction develop into acknowledged and more common stylistic techniques within the documentary genre. The filmmakers can use these elements in order to strengthen their point of view of the actual world. But, what is animation exactly? And how does animation work within a genre labelled as (animated or hybrid) documentary?

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Similar to documentary, animation is an open and fuzzy concept, as on the one hand, given definitions are related to the form and technical details of animation. In contrast, other

definitions are focused on how animation differs from live-action. Animation is, according to animation critic and historian Charles Solomon, the recording of images frame-by-frame on film, in which ‘the illusion of motion is created, rather than recorded’ (1989: vii). Norman McLaren, a pioneer in animation, defines the essence of animation and speaks about an inherent aesthetic element, namely movement:

Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movement that are drawn; What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame; Animation is therefore the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between the frames. (McLaren cited by Furniss 1998: 5).

The term ‘drawings’ is, according to animation critic and theorist Maureen Furniss, used by McLaren for a rhetorical effect, because there is also animation without drawings, like puppet animation, or computer graphic images (CGI) (1998: 5). Professor Paul Wells emphasises in addition that, because animation is related to creation, it is the most dynamic form of

expression. Animation enables filmmakers to create the art of the impossible with its

distinctive language. There is nothing within the imagination that cannot be achieved, because the ‘movement’ within animated frames is ‘artificially created and not recorded from the real world’, and is therefore also manipulative (2006: 6-7). Some animation styles can be seen as an exception, such as rotoscope animation1 or puppet animation, because they do have a real world existence and are recorded from the real world. In my thesis, I focus on the definition: animation as (digital) drawn images that, seem to move, due to the rapidly displacing of images that are created frame-by-frame.

Each film differs in how animated characteristics, such as simplification and

reflexivity, operate. For instance, a characteristic can become a function, although not every function has to be explicitly emphasised as such. As theorist Paul Ward notes, animation is often a simplistic representation and every animated scene can be seen as reflexive ‘in the sense that even the most ‘realistic’ of animation (…) will be watched as animation, rather than as a ‘recording’ of an actual pro-filmic world’ (2005: 89). However, reflexivity and simplification can also become a function of the animated scene, which will be clarified in the following overview.

In literature of animated documentaries, animation in general, and innovative documentary forms, various authors have ascribed different functions to animation. Most often, animation is analysed based on completely animated documentaries in order to show how animation works when it represents documentary subjects (DelGaudio 1997; Ward 2005; Lindvall & Melton 1997; Lorenzo Hernández 2007; Wells and Hardstaff 2008; Honess Roe 2009, 2011; Sofian 2005; Ehrlich 2011; Takahashi 2011). Besides these functions, which are ascribed to animation within animated documentaries, there are also theorists who have analysed the functions of animation within non-fictional film. The functions of such animations, for example in reports or news programs, also apply to documentaries (Ward

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An animation form whereby the live-action images are traced over frame by frame ‘in order to create a lifelike movement of animated characters’ (Honess Roe 2009: 132).

2005; Honess Roe 2009). As these different theorists outline, animation in documentaries can operate in different ways. The upcoming section includes an overview of animation’s possible roles within a(n) (animated) documentary. I have abstracted the most significant roles and functions from theories on animation within non-fictional films (and documentary in

specific), allowing myself to utilize the overview as a yardstick for my analysis. The functions are: (self-)reflexivity, mimetic substitution, non-mimetic substitution, evocation, educational tool, reduce of harshness, ironical tool, and a protection mask. These functions labelled by these different theorists do have some similarities and can have more than one role within a story, which will become clear during the following section.

First of all, many authors (DelGaudio 1997; Ward 2005; Lindvall and Melton 1997; Lorenzo Hernández 2007; Wells and Hardstaff 2008) link various functions towards the animation characteristic reflexivity. Animation is an artificial creation and therefore, as filmmaker and Animation teacher María Lorenzo Hernández states, it has the status of an invented environment and because of this, animation does have a ‘high degree of

self-reflexivity’ (2007: 36). According to Lorenzo Hernández, and to theorists Paul Wells and

Johnny Hardstaff, animated images are a conceptual movement that draws the attention to the outskirts of the representation, and it therefore questions its own conventions and codes (Lorenzo Hernández 2007: 36; Wells and Hardstaff 2008: 80). One of the purposes of animation, when it fulfils a reflexive role, is to attract the attention to specific signifying practices of filmmaking, like the form, methods, or meaning (Ward 2005: 89; Lindvall and Melton 1997: 204). Viewers are made aware of the fact that they are watching a constructed reality, due to the fact that it is a creation and a character in the animation can, for instance, address the audience directly. Furthermore, as professor Sybil DelGaudio states, animation in (animated) documentaries conducts itself as a form of ‘metacommentary’ and can therefore ‘serve as a means by which a filmmaker can question the adequacy of representation in relationship to what it represents’ (1997: 197). Professor Annabelle Honess Roe states that this means that ‘by adopting animation as a medium of representation, animated

documentaries are necessarily passing comment on live action’s ability, or lack thereof, to represent reality’ (2011: 223). In other words, when animation functions as reflexivity it can explicitly work as a metacommentary towards another medium or towards the making of animation itself.

Another function ascribed to animation within animated documentaries, and related to reflexivity, is the function: non-mimetic substitution. Honess Roe has adopted this term in relation to animation within completely animated documentaries. When animation functions

as non-mimetic substitution ‘there is no sense of trying to create an illusion of a filmed image’ (2011: 226). In these kind of documentaries, filmmakers work towards the acknowledgment of animation as a medium itself, whereupon they can express meaning through its ‘aesthetic realization’ (226). Honess Roe shows that the animation in the animated documentary It’s Like That (Southern Ladies Animation Group 2003) works as a non-mimetic substitution, because the animation makes an argument about the imprisonment of three children ‘through its style and tone’. The young refugees are visualised as coloured knitted puppets of baby birds, which can be seen as a metaphor for the innocence of children. This way, the filmmakers express a certain meaning by working towards embracement and

acknowledgment of animation ‘in its own right’ (2013: 24). Related to this assumption, as theorist Nea Ehrlich shows, animation is able to create entire, alternative worlds, and possible futures that can ‘reflect and engage with present political and social circumstances’ (2011: n.pag.; title ‘Animated Documentaries as Exposure’). So when animation works as a non-mimetic substitution, the goal of animation is to make a statement by using a certain style or tone. This can be compared to ‘reflexivity’, if it is used as a metacommentary. When a scene functions as non-mimetic substitution, animation as a medium itself is embraced in order to make a statement about the (documentary) subject or, just like reflexivity, to pass commentary on other media techniques.

Alongside non-mimetic substitution, Honess Roe argues that animation in animated documentaries can also substitute for live-action footage in another way; animation as a

mimetic substitution of reality, through achieving verisimilitude by a certain technique, such

as CGI. In these cases, animation replaces live-action footage, which is (almost) impossible to show with the ‘conventional live-action alternative’ (2011: 226). Here, animation functions as a reconstruction tool, as a kind of re-enactment of events. When animation works as a

mimetic substitution, the most common event it visualises would be a historical event, as there are obviously no filmed records of dinosaurs or the Ice Age for instance. According to Honess Roe, a realistic likeness is created in mimetic substitution, which sometimes seems almost as real as live-action (226). Filmmakers try to hide in this case the idea that the images are created, as a feeling is conveyed that the imagery would be the same as if there is a

camera recoding at that moment (DelGuidio 1997: 194). Related to this, Professor Paul Ward highlights that these kinds of animations borrow in some way the characteristic documentary conventions, such as pans, tilts, zooms and dissolves (2005: 85).

Moving on, Honess Roe also argues that animation can function in an evocative way. Here, animation serves ‘as a tool to evoke the experiential in the form of ideas, feelings and

sensibilities’ (2011: 227). This would allow the viewer to imagine the world from someone else’s view, in this case the view of the subject(s) in the documentary. The most common style visualising these invisible inner facets of life, is a symbolic, abstract style (2011: 227). Professor Paul Wells uses, in relation to this animated visualisation of thoughts and feelings of the documentary subjects, the term ‘penetrative animation’. Penetration refers to the ‘ability [of animation] to evoke the internal space and portray the invisible’ (1998: 122) Animation has thus the ability to visualise abstract concepts and unimaginable events that are impossible or difficult to achieve or to be plausible in the form of live-action (122).

Furthermore, according to Honess Roe, animation is here ‘used as an aide-imagination that can facilitate awareness, understanding and compassion from the audience for a subject-position potentially far removed from their own’ (2011: 228). In conclusion, animation can function as a visualisation of inner lives, and through this it allows viewers to experience the subject’s feelings. When animation functions as evocation, it works to evoke, rather than represent, the experiences of the subject(s) (2011: 228).

As highlighted above, animation is often a simplistic representation and theorists Paul Ward and Sofia Sofian each ascribe different functions to this characteristic, respectively educating and reducing harshness. According to Ward, animation can simplify, for example, complex processes within educational films and it can give an addition or an explanation of complex terms or topics (2005: 89), like explanations of DNA or the universe. Here,

animation functions as an educational tool, because elements are simplified and clarified in an understandable way.

Professor Sofian further argues, since animation consists of (mostly) simple drawn images, it might look more friendly and personal, whereupon it can reduce harshness (2005: 7). Theorists Wells and Hardstaff add, that because of this simplicity, animation has a

‘deceptive innocence’ (2008: 77). Theorist Ehrlich adds that the shock factor can be reduced by the use of animation. This can provide a relief of anxiety, because the audience can ‘escape’ in the images associated with ‘a childhood-alluded animated world that can be regarded as fantasy’ (2011: n. pag.; title ‘Animated Documentaries as Disguise’). The animated documentary Centrefold (Ellie Land 2012) is an example in which animation functions as an educational tool, as well as an abatement of the subject. This documentary is an animated visualisation of the personal experiences of three women who had undergone a labiaplasty, a plastic surgery procedure for altering the appearance of their genitals

(www.thecentrefoldproject.org; ‘About’). This subject can be quite shocking when visualised with live-action images, but through utilizing simplistic animated images, the shock factor (of

nudity or a plastic surgery of a vagina) is reduced. Also complicated terms, such as outer and inner labia, are explained and ‘educated’, by a simplistic drawing of the vagina (Centrefold: 03:43).

Another function, related to this reducing of harshness through simplicity, is a factor of humour. Animation also functions as an ironic tool, relieving some of the harshness and functioning as an opposition to the seriousness of the topic (Honess Roe, Diss. 2009: 88). In ‘Animating Documentary’, Honess Roe shortly highlights the movie Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore 2002), a movie which applies a few animated scenes. She suggests that the animation in this film works in an ‘interjective’ way, because the function of animation in ‘this type of film’ is ‘to interject into the live action in such a way to markedly contrast the animated and the live action parts of the film’ (22). This interjecting is aimed for creating an ironic and humorous effect, as in this way a lightened mood is created (88). In line with Honess Roe, I would suggest that the animation itself can also function as an ironic tool (and to reduce the harshness of the subject) and not exclusively in contrast with the live-action scenes. In short, animation can function as irony when it is used in an interjective way, in contrast with the live-action parts, as well as animation itself can function as an ironic tool.

Lastly, animation can also function as a stand-in for characters, as a protection mask. According to theorists Nea Ehrlich, Paul Ward, and Tess Takahashi, animation can function as an ‘alternative face’ (Ehrlich 2011: n. pag.; title ‘Animated Documentaries as Disguise’; Ward 2005: 89-90; Takahashi 2011: 240). As Ehrlich outlines, animation works as a

concealment in cases wherein the anonymity of characters has to be maintained. In this way, animation can be seen as a masquerade, as a creation of a ‘new’ face, because it provides concealment ‘for physical aspects of life that can potentially have a direct indexical reference’ (2011: n. pag.; title ‘Animated Documentaries as Disguise’). So to say, the purpose of this function of animation is to protect the identity of the subject.

Ward makes a significant observation as he notes that animation in animated

documentaries that function as a cloak, are mostly supported by the recordings of real voice(s) of the subject(s). These audible monologues, dialogues or interviews are called voice tracks or voice-overs. These voice-overs, a stylistic element of documentaries, are most often

‘creatively interpreted’ by the animator (2005: 89-90, 98). The audio assigns the notion of the documentary’s seriousness and objectivity to the animated image. An example of animated images supported by voice tracks is the series Seeking Refuge (BBC 2012). This series contains five animated documentaries about the lives of children who have sought refuge in the United Kingdom. The animated images work as an alternative face and are supported by

the voices of the real children. As film director and Professor Jacqueline Gross shows in her article ‘Drawing Voices’, voice and text can play off each other in different ways in animation (2011: 46). Furthermore, these voice tracks provide a certain meaning and context for the animated images. Often, the purpose of these voice tracks is to provide a certain feeling of ‘realness’, and can be linked to ‘mimetic substitution’. The animation in this case mimics ‘the look of reality’ by the use of real voices (Honess Roe 2011: 226). In line with the functions described above, I will argue that animation can also function as a visualisation (and interpretation) of the spoken word. The purpose of these kinds of animated scenes is to strengthen the message of the voice-tracks.

In conclusion, animation is believed to function in various ways; as author Honess Roe defines, it is capable to represent the inner world of personal experience as well as the outer world of observable events (2011: 229). I would add that animation functions in a way to represent the world of imagination (fantasy), as it is also capable to visualise non-observable events. All functions described above can be seen as reflexivity in a way that they can give commentary about other media techniques. For instance, when animation functions as a protection mask it can comment on live-action’s lack of ability to protect the anonymity of the social actor(s). However, this does not need to be explicitly emphasised as such. A

characteristic may take on various functions, and each film will differ in the way

characteristic(s) and the function(s) operate. Hence, animation, just as a documentary in general, are creative expressions and particular views of the filmmaker, about a specific subject that is interwoven in the film. Since, animation now functions in various ways, how does it work in relation to a live-action scene? Does animation function the same way in completely animated documentaries as it does in partly-animated hybrid documentaries? By means of a close analysis of the three hybrid documentaries, I will provide an answer to these questions.

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The variety of roles animation might have in completely animated documentaries and non-fiction films has been outlined in the previous section. I will compare these to the animated scenes of my research objects, One Big Hapa Family (Jeff Chiba Stearns 2010), 2012: Time for Change (João G. Amorim 2010) and Camp 14: Total Control Zone (Marc Wiese 2012), and by the use of a close textual reading the functions of these scenes will be exposed. In each designated scene, I will focus on both visual and auditory elements. Visual elements include: animation style, point of view (from the filmmaker(s) or social actor(s)), cinematography (like ‘camera angle’ and tempo), characters, and graphics (like titles and signs); whereas auditory elements will cover: voice-over, music, and sound effects. These descriptions will contribute by exposing how the animation works, in other words, what the functions of these scenes are.

Having the previous chapter as starting point, I am now able to uncover the function(s) of each scene. The analysis of each documentary starts with a synopsis, a short introduction of its animation style, and its documentary voice. The story of the documentaries will be the backbone of the analysis. While outlining this story, a couple of representative animated scenes will be highlighted and combined with the live-action scenes before and after the scene. The interaction of the animation with the other documentary scenes will thus be exposed. I believe functions are namely also related to the fact how the animated scenes work in relation to the entire documentary text and context, and when I expose the consistence of the scenes, perhaps other functions will emerge.

In short, to answer my thesis question, what is the function of animation within a partly-animated hybrid documentary?, I will need to expose the underlying meaning of the animation and their interactions with the live-action scenes. I will close analyse each animated scene (see appendix A, B, and C for an overview of the animated scenes of each

documentary), while in the analysis I will describe and highlight a couple of representative scenes. These scenes will represent the basis of how animation functions in the particular documentary. While close reading the animated scenes I will keep in mind that every scene can have multiple functions, which can differ from the functions outlined by the theorists. By analysing the three hybrid documentaries by means of this research method, I can use this analysis as a basis for a larger system of what kind of functions animation can have in partly-animated hybrid documentaries (Seiter 1992: 51).

A

O

B

H

F

In One Big Hapa Family, Japanese-Canadian filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns goes on a journey of self-discovery to find out and understand why almost everyone in his family married interracially since his parents’ generation. In this participatory documentary2

, Chiba Stearns explores his roots, the history of Japanese-Canadians, and his multiracial family. Besides finding a way to accept his identity, he also wants to know how the children of these

interracial marriages perceive their mixed-race identities. On his quest to find answers, he first interviews family and experts of his grandparents’ generation in order to learn about the history of Japanese-Canadians. Furthermore, he travels to his parents, his aunts and uncles, and lastly he interviews his nieces, nephews, and sisters.

One Big Hapa Family consists of 32 animated scenes, which are edited throughout the story (see appendix A), so I would say that animation has a central place in this documentary. Interestingly, the film includes different styles of animation. One specific style is used as a common thread, running throughout the entire documentary. This animation style is created by the director and can be recognized as a cartoon animation or hand drawn animation.3 Other animation styles such as stop motion and black-white sketching, can also be considered as hand or computer drawn animation. These styles are merely used once in the story and are connected to the memories and stories of the interviewees, whereas experiences of the filmmaker himself and the summaries he makes during his quest are supported by his hand drawn animation.

Alongside these different animations, the documentary also features interviews, observational footage, photographs, and archive footage. Generally, the film follows an animation style, because some of the nonfictional elements are edited in an animated form. For instance, Chiba Stearns often uses ‘photo-animation’: the rapidly replacing of

photographs. This rapid replacing of photos constructs a moving image and uses almost the

2

The term participatory documentary is a term differentiated by theorist Bill Nichols. Within this method the director interacts with subjects of the documentary and provokes events. In this type of documentaries, the filmmaker self becomes also a social actor (Nichols 2001: 34, 116). In One Big Hapa Family is it the case that the ‘filmmaker’s participatory engagement with unfolding events’ forms the central line of the film and it moves almost towards a diary and personal testimonial film (119-120).

3 _{Chiba Stearns created an own style, which he also used in previous films, such as Yellow Sticky Notes (2007)}

and What Are You Anyways? (2005). The short animated documentary What Are You Anyways? can be seen as an introduction of the feature length documentary One Big Hapa Family, because in this short documentary Chiba Stearns also explores his cultural background of being a mix of Japanese and Caucasian. One Big Hapa Family contains also parts of animation sequences used in this short film. Although, these animation parts are now coloured (What Are You Anyways? is an almost complete black-white documentary) and placed in a different context.Another interesting research will be if the animated scenes of What Are You Anyways?, which are also used in One Big Hapa Family, function the same way as in One Big Hapa Family, even though they are placed in a different context and movie.

same techniques as animation, therefore creating the look of animation. Also, other

photographs get a diorama effect, because for instance the camera seems to move through the picture. Likewise, some of the archival footage, such as the traditional dance of the Japanese and Hawaiian culture (00:48:13-00:48:20), also gets close to (rotoscoped) animation, because a chalk layer is added to these images. Moreover, the animation also follows the line of the documentary, in a way that, among other things, the scenes serve as a visualisation of Chiba Stearns’ memories, moving the documentary towards a personal, testimonial film. I will elaborate on this in the following analysis by outlining the different functions of the animated scenes4, and how they interact with the live-action scenes.

I

Chiba Stearns starts his documentary with a rapid, sequential replacement of many

photographs, leaving the last picture to take form as an animation. Four (apparently) Asian children (with an animated character of the filmmaker on the right) are laughing. Chiba Stearns tells about his family being a mixture of Japanese-Canadians, which he links to “a bunch of banana milkshakes”. This voice-over is supported by an animation of a peeled banana which is put in a blender with white cream (“vanilla ice”) mixed by a tinted boy (which represents the filmmaker when he was a child). In the next image, the boy smiles and twirls a world globe. Another sequence starts of a white man and an Asian woman (who represent Chiba Stearns’ parents) who blend into a man who wears a rice straw hat decorated with an eagle, a red uniform, a scarf, and who carries a gun, and bagpipes. This animation is supported by Chiba Stearns narrating that as a child growing up in Canada, he struggled to make sense about his multicultural background. In other words, these images represent the mixture of the identity of the filmmaker and his family. The animation ends with a laughing family, with the filmmaker (as a younger animated character) in the centre, while Chiba Stearns says he realised that after 20 years, they are just ‘One Big Hapa Family’. In the meantime the title ‘One Big Hapa Family’ appears (scene 1: 00:00:38-00:01:36).

This animation functions as a visualisation of the spoken words of the filmmaker and introduces the topic of the documentary: they are a multiracial family, and this documentary will be the journey of the filmmaker to understand his identity and family. Furthermore, this scene also functions as a non-mimetic substitution, because a statement about mixed-identity

4 _{Every animated scene is labelled with a number that corresponds with the particular scene outlined in appendix}

A. This appendix may also be consulted to have a look at the other scenes and for a more detailed description of the particular animated scene.

is made through the use of simplistic stereotypical animation. Next to this animation, the filmmaker’s hometown is shown by the use of photo-animation, while live-action footage is used for a family reunion. During this reunion, Chiba Stearns realises that every child within his family has been a mixture, and that all the marriages after his grandparents have been interracial. He wants to find out why this is, why did everyone marry someone with a different race?In other words, the first animation ‘sets the tone’ for the rest of the story, and the introduction of the documentary illustrates the style of the film; a mixture of pictures, animation and live-action.

Chiba Stearns starts his journey with a research about interracial marriages and he discovers that intermarriages amongst South Asian Canadians only accounts for 13%, whereas 75% of Japanese-Canadians have interracial marriages. This educative fact about mixed marriages is supported by a childish animation on post-its (scene 2: 00:04:41-00:05:17), allowing this research to be explained in a simple, understandable way, as it functions as an educational tool. Before Chiba Stearns goes on his quest to find out why almost everyone in his Japanese-Canadian family married interracially, he wants to know why the South Asian Canadian percentage of intermarriages are that low. He interviews his friends Jeff (Canadian) and Sophia (Pakistani) and they talk about the disapproval of Sophia’s parents for their love. The incidents that the couple has faced, are animated in an ironic and

humoristic style. This humoristic style can be related to the fact that Jeff calls Sophia’s mother a ‘jokester’.

An animated scene shows, for instance, the couple visiting Sophia’s parents (figure 1). Jeff narrates that Sophia’s mother always asks: “Has he left you yet?”, while Jeff’s animated character changes into a sort of stinky caveman (figure 2), who jumps out of the window and runs to a ‘sexy’ blond woman (scene 3: 00:06:33-00:06:38). The interpretation of this event is based on the interview; in the prior live-action scene, Sophia mentioned that her family thinks that every ‘white’ guys will always leave a woman. However, the animator gives his own twist to the story and raises the suggestion that Sophia’s parents consider ‘white’ guys as stinky men who leave their wife for another woman. So to say, this scene interacts with the live-action scenes, but the commentary in combination with the funny animation adds an extra dimension in a way that it enlarges and ironizes the event.

To summarize, in this scene there is an overlap between the functions mimetic

substitution and non-mimetic substitution. This animation is in an indirect way a re-enactment of the events and an animated copy is made of the original characters. However, the style and tone of the animation enlarges the distance between the reality and the event. The viewer is confronted with a statement about prejudices through the stereotypic, ironic animation. The interview is used as a basis, whereupon the animation becomes a visual metaphor which gives a suggestion of how to interpret the experiences of Jeff and Sophia. Lastly, the animation does also function as an ironic tool to excite and dramatize the experiences. These funny animated scenes function in general as a contrast for the seriousness of the documentary subject and gives the events a more playful, light-hearted touch. The animation alternated with the interview also shows a possible explanation why the South Asian Canadians do not marry interracially very often: because they do have a lot of prejudices about the ‘Western’ people. After this sidestep, Chiba Stearns travels further to learn about his family history.

J

-C

While the filmmaker explores the history of Japanese-Canadians, animated scenes wherein an explanation is given are alternated with animated scenes wherein a memory is visualised. While Chiba Stearns visits an internment camp in New Denver (Canada), where Japanese-Canadian people were sent to after the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, the viewer learns about the position of the Japanese-Canadians during and after World War II. During that time, a lot of Japanese-Canadians were sent to a special area in Canada where they had to live in camps. The live-action footage, interwoven with archive footage of the camp, shows Chiba Stearns and Sakaye Hashimoto (the president of the Kyowakai Society) while walking around the ‘museum’ with different kinds of stuff of the camp. The viewer gets an impression of what the camp would have looked like and how the people used to live. When Chiba

Stearns and Sakaye talk about which area was cut off, an animated world globe appears and the animation zooms in on West Canada. When Chiba Stearns asks: “Where was the cut off then? Right here?”, a line is drawn and a part of the map is coloured red, which shows an area of the cut off where no Japanese were allowed (scene 8: 00:18:36-00:18:47). After this

animated visualisation, Chiba Stearns moves his hand towards Eastern Canada on the map placed in the museum. He says that the Japanese had to move to the right (in other words: to the East), because they were not allowed in the restricted areas. In this way, the animated and the live-action images are edited smoothly into each other. The animation supports the commentary by a way of illustration, as for instance the words “right here?” are illustrated with a line.

This animation functions as an educational tool, because in a simplistic way the internment of Japanese Canadians is explained to the viewer. Furthermore, while clarifying the spoken words and the interaction with the live-action scenes, the viewer can experience what life would have been like in the camp, and how people felt during that time. The viewer becomes aware of the fact that the Japanese were not allowed in a particular marked area and were captured in an area chosen for them. This feeling of imprisonment is enlarged, due to the interaction with the archive images, the commentary and the visualisation of the restricted area. The animation in combination with the live-action makes the history of the Japanese-Canadians more tangible.

Uncly Suey Koga is one of the social actors of the older generation who tells his memories about the harassments he faced when he was a child. His interview is alternated by sepia coloured animations. He tells for example how his name changed from Suemori, to Sue, and finally to Suey. The shot of Suey sitting in the apple orchard turns to sepia colour and the animation starts. A little boy, who represents Suey when he was a child, is standing next to his teacher’s desk. She crosses out the last letters of his name Suemori, because she could not pronounce it. In the following shot, the smiling boy stands in front of the mirror, and a text box ‘Sue’ (written in capital letters) is pictured next to him. This image represents the fact that Suey liked his name. However, the boy becomes taller and the font of the sign ‘Sue’ changes to handwritten letters. He looks sad and the reflection in the mirror turns into a sad looking girl. The text box falls down and the image dissolves into an image wherein the boy is driven into a corner and fingers are pointing at him and signs as ‘HA! SUE!’ appear (scene 10: 00:24:59-00:25:24). These last images represent the fact that Suey did not like his name, because children laughed at him. In this way, animation functions as a mimetic substitution, in

other words as a re-enactment of the event Suey experienced. During this event, there were no camera’s present, so these animation represents the live-action footage.

Although, this animated scene seems to be a precise reconstruction of Suey’s memory, the animation is ‘coloured’ by the thoughts of the animator. This emerges when the boy is standing in front of the mirror and his reflection transforms into a girl. Suey does not speak about the reasons why the children made fun of his name, but this animation suggests that Suey was bullied, because his name is a maiden name. A connection is hereby created by the animation and because of this, the emotions of the viewer are agitated and the emotions of Suey become more tangible. Furthermore, the live-action shots enlarge the function of the animation, because they change in sepia colour and dissolve in a sepia coloured animation. Sepia colour represents the past, the older days. So when the live-action image changes to sepia the suggestion is raised that the next scene will represent the past, so to say a

reconstruction of a memory.

Also Chiba Stearns’ youth memories about his sufferings from racism are animated in an animation (scene 14). This animation in combination with the reconstructions of Suey’s harassments let the viewer experience how it was like to be a Japanese in Canada, whereupon these animations function as a kind of evocation. The purpose of the animated scene of Chiba Stearns’ memory is, in combination with the commentary and the reconstructions of Suey’s harassments, to let the viewer evoke the feelings of Suey and the filmmaker. They can experience in an indirect way how the harassments felt, due to the fact that for example the contrast between a stereotypic animated bully and the filmmaker is enlarged, because the bully looks down towards the animated character of Chiba Stearns. In other words, the scene functions as a kind of evocation in a way that it is next to evoking the feelings of the social actor, also about representing the event.

Furthermore, Chiba Stearns explains, while his voice-over is supported by close-ups of newspaper articles, that during the war and right after it, a lot of Japanese people were seen as the enemy and therefore they were not allowed in many places (as also explained in scene 8). These people were also known as coast Japs. Uncle Suey tells a story about an incident he heard of when he was younger. His story is supported by an animation, which begins with a man and a woman who ploughing a field. A guy with a ‘knapsack’ walks towards the couple, they shake each other’s hands which represents that they hire the man. The ‘camera’ zooms in towards a hut and the man appears at the window. In the next shot, silhouettes of people are shown pointing pitchforks in the air and the crowd transforms into a monster with tentacles (figure 3). The monster opens his mouth and the image turns to black. The monster slides

towards the house, grabs the man and throws him on a street. The street is visualised as a Wild Western town, only with Chinese signs on the buildings. Silhouettes of people with pitchforks appear behind the man, and the image is followed by a close-up of angry blue talking faces. The scene is closed by an image of the man on the ground, while pitchforks point towards him (scene 15: 00:27:49-00:28:29).

This animation functions as a tool which can express meaning through its artistic realization and it uses the monster as visual metaphor for the angry crowd. Besides this, the animation makes a statement about these harassments: the people who committed these harassments are nothing more than a monster. Apart from the fact that animation functions in this scene as a non-mimetic substitution, the animation also functions as a form of irony. The story is namely dramatized and in the same time, in contrast, made light-hearted by the animation. The story Suey tells can be quite shocking, a man is kidnapped and threatened because of his race. However, due to the childish, fanciful animated images the story gets an ironic touch and it relieves some of the harshness of the story. In contrast, the topic gets his serious documentary voice back as soon as archive footage (of World War II), Suey’s expression, and the conversation between Suey and Chiba Stearns about the fact that there was a tension between the Coast Japs and the British colonizers, is shown. Furthermore, due to these interactions with the live-action images afterwards, the viewer is confronted with the fact that this kind of harassments really took place.

Uncle Suey tells that the high interracial marriage rate is probably because of the war. The fact that they were bullied, had as consequence that Japanese people wanted to blend with the Canadians in order to show the government that they were not the enemies. So they

abandoned a lot of their Japanese habits by for instance speaking as fluently English as possible and by eating Canadian food. This explanation is supported by the mixture of contrasted archive footage, of on the one hand black and white footage wherein Japanese people still have their Japanese habits, like eating with chopsticks. And on the other hand of

Fig. 3: The angry crowd transforms into a monster (00:28:06)

coloured archive footage of children with a cowboy hat and a birthday cake, which represents the Western habits. After exploring and understanding the history, Chiba Stearns visits his parents, and his uncles and aunts, who tell about their marriages and how the outer world looked at them. These interviews are alternated with photo-animation of the couples and photographs of their marriages and families.

A

J

-C

Chiba Stearns now had found out why there are so many interracial marriages in his family, his next step is to accept his identity, which starts for him with finding a word for his mixed race identity. He has a conversation with his Japanese friend Eiko about meanings and definitions of Japanese words in order to describe half Japanese children (scene 18 to scene 21: 00:49:23-00:51:15). Eiko clarifies words as ‘ainoko’ and ‘konketsu’. Both words are first written down with the English translation, respectively ‘love child’ and ‘mixed blood’ (figure 4). After visualising this in an animation, these words merge into an image. Ainoko’ and ‘love child’, for example, merge into an image of a Japanese woman and a (‘white’) soldier in a heart. However, in the voice-over of Eiko, the viewer learns that ‘ainoko’ is actually not a love child, but that it is a slangy word with an unpleasant meaning, whereupon the heart breaks (00:50:32-00:50:41).

The animation of the heart refers to the history of mixed-race children which is explained in the live-action scene beforehand. The viewer learns in this scene that there were many mixed children born in Japan after World War II, because Western soldiers made love with Japanese women. When the war ended and Japan lost the war, these soldiers left the women behind. Their mixed-race children, and all the other multiracial children, were, and still are, therefore seen by the Japanese as something unlikeable and unwanted. These animations function here as a clarification of the Japanese words, so to say as an education

tool. Besides, by writing down these words literally, these animated scenes thus also explain and refer to, by a simplistic visualisation, a certain history and meaning of a word.

Due to the meaning of the words, educated by these animated scenes, these words are not the right words to describe Chiba Stearns’ ethnicity. His quest continues, as it is visualised by a stop-motion chalkboard animation. This scene functions as a literal visualisation of the spoken words, and functions in this way as a simplistic clarification. Within this scene Chiba Stearns talks about the fact that most ethnic groups do have a special term to express

themselves. He was thinking about using words as Eurasian, and Hafu (visualised by the animation of the written words) and then he discovers the word Hapa. This word is supported by a childish image of a unicorn, a bear sliding down a rainbow, and stars, which can be linked to the fact that Chiba Stearns is ‘as happy as a child’ when he found this perfect word.

The animation continues with a visualisation of the history and evolution of the term ‘Hapa’ supported by the commentary of Chiba Stearns and a simplistic animation. This part of the animation functions as education, because the history of the word is clarified in a very simplistic understandable way. Chiba Stearns finally found a group and a word related to his ethnicity. However, some “Native Hawaiians” were angry and they were asserting that the word Hapa is only suitable for Hawaiian people. So, Chiba Stearns was back where he started. This commentary is supported by a younger animated character of himself, who erases the word Hapa on the blackboard (scene 25: 00:58:06-00:59:42).

The interaction of this scene with the live-action shots before and afterwards gives the chalkboard animation already a certain direction, because the live-action provides a context: a classroom. Before the animation begins, the idea is namely suggested that Chiba Stearns is sitting in a classroom behind a desk with a schoolbook in front of him. After showing this book, the camera is drawn into a blackboard and the animation begins. After the animation the camera is ‘spit out’ of the blackboard and returns to the desk with the schoolbook. Therefore, this animation feels as a side step of the live-action world, as it functions as an educative clarification of the history of the word Hapa and of Chiba Stearns’ research. This function is intensified by the live-action scenes and the interaction with these scenes.

I

The word Hapa does not seem to be the right word to describe the mixed identity of Japanese-Canadians, however as Chiba Stearns’ friend Eiko shows, hapa has also a Japanese meaning. It means ‘exploding and creating new’. Chiba Stearns describes this meaning as follows: for

people with a mixed ethnicity, it feels like an explosion of cultures to become something new, a new self (01:00:00-01:01:49). In other words, Chiba Stearns found the perfect word to describe his mixed-race identity and at this point of his journey he also understood why almost everybody in his family married interracially. But how did his generation perceive their identity and did they have to deal with the same identity issues he faced? At the family reunion he asks all his cousins and nieces the question he was also asked a thousand times: “What are you?” (00:55:14). And it turns out that they also see themselves as a half and that they also experience that they are somewhat different as everybody else.

Before this, Chiba Stearns tells namely about harassments he faced when he was a child. He tells for instance about a multicultural day at school. This memory is visualised by an animation which starts with a table with all kinds of food. A tinted boy (younger animated version of the filmmaker) walks with a plate of sushi and looks a bit scared (figure 5). The next image is a close-up of the plates with cakes, pizza, nuts, pancakes, apples and finally the sushi. The image dissolves in an image with (half) empty plates with in contrast the only one which is full is the one with the sushi. In the next shot, a taller boy is standing on one feet with his arms forward and the tinted boy looks sad. The taller boy is visualised as a big, bold headed boy, who looks like a (stereotypical) bully. The animation ends with two koi carp who swim in front of a live-action picture of the filmmaker when he was a child and he rubs with his hand in his eye (scene 24: 00:57:31-00:57:48).

The contrast between the tinted boy (Chiba Stearns) and the other children is enlarged in this animation. The big white boy walks like a zombie, which can represent the fact that everybody saw Chiba Stearns as someone different, whereupon they bullied him. An uncomfortable mood is created in this animated scene, due to the blond girl who sticks her tongue out and points towards the plate of sushi (figure 6). The sticking out of the tongue and pulling a face represents that she thinks that it is disgusting. People dislike unknown things, and as comes forward in the voice-over of Chiba Stearns, the teacher did not even try the

Fig. 5: Chiba Stearns as child on multicultural day (00:57:34).

sushi. The empathy of the viewer for Chiba Stearns as a little boy increases, due to the commentary and the animation wherein the difference between him and the other children is enlarged. The live-action pictures of Chiba Stearns when he was a child with his family, after the animation, emphasises the fact that they are a mixed family and (probably) a different kind of family then a ‘regular’ Canadian family. Furthermore, the commentary of Chiba Stearns about the harassments and the fact that everybody (outside his family), including himself, questioned his identity, makes the scene dramatic. The scene functions thus as a provocation of the emotions of the viewer.

Also Chiba Stearns’ sister shares her moment wherein she felt that she was different than the other children. She tells about her school project memory, which is supported by an animated map of the world. When she talks about pinning thumbtack on the country where the children’s heritages come from, the thumbtacks appear on the animated map. Europe is full with coloured pins, when the globe turns to Japan, there is only one pin placed (scene 27: 01:03:13-01:03:23). This animation increases the effect of the memory of the sister as well as the message for the viewer. This animated scene functions as a kind of evocation. The viewer experiences, by the enlargement of the message through the animation, how the sister would have felt during that moment. The effect of the experience is enlarged, because the animation visualises the difference and increases the contrast between the sister and the other children. Furthermore, the combination of this animation with the various live-action stories of the nieces and cousin about racism and the fact that they wanted to look more like the Caucasian children, enlarges the function of the animation.

The documentary ends with the youngest generation, and the fact that the family becomes indeed more fractured and less Japanese. In order to accept who they are, the

youngest generation starts to bring their roots back, by for instance learning Japanese dancing and the language. This message is also enlarged in the last animated scene, wherein four children (a boy, a girl with blond hair, a girl with orange braids and a tinted girl with black hair) are sitting cross-legged on grass and they are reading a book with a red dot (which represents the Japanese flag) and the word Japan on it (scene 32: 01:13:01-01:13:07). The animation is supported by ‘traditional’ Japanese music (a ticking sound played on the Koto) and with the commentary of a niece who tells that she wants to teach her children Japanese. Before and after this animation, the nieces tell that they do not want the traditional Japanese culture to fade away. In other words, this animation functions as a non-mimetic substitution, in a way that it makes a statement about how to preserve ‘your’ roots and to maintain a culture. It also poses a possible future, wherein the following generation shape their identity

by understanding their heritage. Chiba Stearns closes the documentary with photo-animation footage of the Koga reunion and the rapidly replacing of portraits of the whole family starting with the oldest person and ending with the youngest. Those pictures represent the mixing of the family and refers to the structure of his journey. With Chiba Stearns’ commentary “you are what you choose to be” (01:19:43), combined with a short summary of the history of the Japanese-Canadians, his (documentary) journey comes to an end.

C

The functions of the animation in One Big Hapa Family are broadened and strengthened, because they interact with the live-action. These live-action scenes and the voice-overs provide a context and already give, at some moments, a certain indication about how the animation will function. This can be seen as a new function, as the animated scenes do function as an interpretation of the spoken words. This function is almost always present, due to the combination of the live-action material and the animations. The animation provides a visualisation, but it gives the spoken words also a particular meaning. Furthermore, through the ‘colouring’ of the live-action scene afterwards, the live-action gets also a particular meaning, whereupon it is an interplay between created images and recorded material.

Animation explains elements from the live-action scenes, whereupon the scenes function as an education tool to clarify in a simplistic way difficult terms, history, or a certain meaning of words and events. Next to this, they also function as non-mimetic substitution, as a visual metaphor is made to make a statement about an event or subject. The impact of these statements is enlarged, due to the interactions with the live-action scenes. While, in the meantime, the viewer gets compassion towards the social actors and they realise that the events really took place.

Related to non-mimetic substitution is the function ironic tool, whereupon the experiences are even more excited and dramatized, which also forms a contrast for the seriousness of the documentary topic. However, the serious documentary voice returns when the live-action footage starts. The animated scenes also function as a form of irony to relieve some of the harshness. The function mimetic substitution comes forward in animated

memories which function as a re-enactment of the events. Besides this, the function reflexivity can be exposed in a way that the animation gives commentary on live-action’s ability to represent reality. The live-action material is also partly animated, which can be seen as a statement, that animation is more suitable to tell a message. However, I suggest that One Big