Disseminate Presentations

This week we presented our disseminate presentations. Mine was about theatre, and how it is closely linked to animation.

I started by explaining how even though actors and animators are separate practitioners, both work in the field of animation - bringing to life scenes and characters through movement, speech, emotion, and body.

I then went on to analyse the Circle of Life movie version versus the Broadway version. The two are interesting to compare as they both depict the same scene, but one is more intimate and controlled in terms of where the audience is looking, whereas the Broadway version is a lot larger, almost larger-than-life, with the audience not getting that same intimacy with the family that sets up the themes of family and the connection between Simba and his father that goes on through the whole story.

I also looked at the set of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which incorporates elements of animation and light into the set to bring to life the character's interactions with the world around him, a world he sometimes finds confusing and often chaotic.

Finally, I touched on how the work of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman - two inspirations of mine - changed the genre of the musical both onstage and onscreen, and how they revolutionised the current Disney musical that my generation grew up loving.

I really enjoyed giving a presentation about something I am genuinely so passionate about. I would have liked to spend a little longer going into more depth, but due to the time I had I felt that I couldn't do that. However, after seeing that quite a few people's presentations went on for ten minutes or so, I am a bit annoyed that I cut quite a few things from my presentation in order to get it down to five minutes.