Professional Practise 1: Non-Fiction Animation

Professional Practise 1

Study Task 6: Non-Fiction Animation

A short animated documentary, about the story of the ship 'Ungvar', during the Second World War. The animation is beautiful and smooth, using colour palettes too to creating atmosphere and mood.

I found this short animated documentary interesting because of the use of mixed media. Made by Olivia Humphrey from the UK, it combines both photography and hand-drawn animation.

'That Dragon, Cancer' is an interesting medium for Animated Documentary, as it takes place as a game documenting Ryan Green's infant son, Joel, dying of cancer. The game was Kickstarted and launched January 2016.

'Food' is an animated documentary uses mixed media and characters made up of Food talking about themselves and their habits. I thought that the medium used was clever and interesting for the subject of 'food.

I could only find the trailer for this animated documentary, Still Born, made by Swedish animator Asa Sandzen. The trailer shows mixed media content and cut-out animation, to respectfully talk about a sensitive subject.

A German Animated Documentary about an elderly womans' account of an orphanage where she stayed, during World War II in Germany. Dennis Stein-Schomburgs' style used within the documentary are captivating and illustrate memory, through the use of splatter inks and textures.

Thembi's Diary is a short animated documentary making use of textures and colour, to re-tell a diary by a 17 year old South African, who lived with AIDs.

'Mike's Story' is a part of series of films about post-natal depression, about peoples' stories regarding it. I feel they handled a sensitive topic respectfully and the cut-out style of animation used creates a serious and dark atmosphere, along with the colour and light.


'Stems' by Ainslie Henderson is a short documentary about the process of puppet making and stopmotion, within a stop motion short. I chose this because of the cleverness of the storytelling and the puppet animation at the end of the movie was brought to life.


'BABA' is a short documentary by New Zealand filmmaker by Joel Kefali, in which his grandfather describes his experience as an immigrant moving to Turkey. I chose this to add to the list, because of the bright and colourful animation used to comedically describe his experience.

Animated Documentaries allow for real-life stories and past events to be told in a more sensitive and creative way. Using animation not only means that events and issues can be re-told, but also can bring knowledge to certain situations and tailor for specific audiences.