The European Archive of Short Animation

Head researcher: Sherra Murphy

This project will produce a detailed state of the art report identifying and recording relevant sources of information on the production and exhibition of short animated films, in small European countries.

The aim is to understand the future funding and resources needed for the creation of a relational database and digital archive of European short animated film, as a resource for theoretical and artistic research. Focusing on three FilmEU member countries, it will conduct a scoping exercise establishing and understanding where primary and secondary material may be found, including extant film archives, funding bodies, festivals, animation studios, libraries, film credits and/or any other source that may yield information on studios, artists, producers, funders, and individual films. This information will allow us to conduct a survey of the places where information may be gathered, and to establish a set of common categories under which it may be recorded. This pilot project will focus on the research, identification, collection, and organisation needed to gather the disparate information and resources that will allow us to plan an openly accessible online information archive, and to seek support and resources for its eventual creation. In so doing, we will begin to develop an understanding of the commonalities and differences in short form animated production in the member countries, and identify potential strands for further research and collaboration as trends emerge through the gathering and organisation of information. It is our aim that such an exercise will reveal the historical and current landscape of practice in animated short film production, thereby suggesting the types of research activity that become possible, and pointing to directions in research and practice that are not now possible to conceive as such an archive - comprehensive, searchable and consistent - does not exist.