INTRODUCTION

A question raised by the use of animation in documentary filmmaking is: Does the use of animation reveal the filmmaking process in a more overt fashion than live-action methods? Customarily in the production of traditional live-action documentaries, the filmmaker does not reveal the crew behind the camera. Often, the interviewer asking the questions is not shown or heard, and the viewer is not privy to whatever footage is left unused on the cutting room floor. The filmmaking process is somewhat undetectable and self-effacing in these instances. However, in the production of an animated documentary it is obvious that the animator is entirely responsible for creating the image that is displayed on the screen. There is no illusion of ‘reality’. However, this lack of apparent realism is sometimes confused with a lack of truth.

It has been widely argued that all documentaries are required to introduce evidence on screen in order to make their viewpoints rationalised and known. Some animated documentaries, including my own, provide evidentiary documentation in the form of a documentary audio track. The use of animation in documentary assumes that the viewer does not require photographic evidence, and the animation does not attempt to use the image to represent reality. Animation therefore challenges the audience's percep-tion of ‘documentary’. Live action may often be perceived as being a more impartial documentary mode, a ‘pure’ unadulterated recording of reality as it unfolded, when in fact the very nature of the filmmaking process ultimately allows the filmmaker to manipulate what audiences perceive as reality and shape it according to the filmmaker's agenda. One could argue, therefore, that the use of animation is in some ways more transparent, more ‘honest’ than the use of live action in that it does not conceal the filmmaker's control over the media. Since the filmmaker's hand is plainly visible, the viewer is presented with an obvious construct: there is no disguising the filmmaker's manipulation of the imagery. Animator Orly Yadin makes this same point when she states: ‘The honesty of animation lies in the fact that the filmmaker is completely upfront about [their] intervention with the subject and if we believe the film to be true it is because we believe the intention was true’ (Yadin 2003).