This short discussion provides some introductory
remarks on writing for the documentary form
in animation. Taking into account theories of the
place of animation in utilitarian films, avant-garde
works and the essay film, the analysis, based
on auto-ethnographic insights, provides some
methods and approaches to developing animated
documentary work. These include ‘Making
Animation Choices’, ‘Staging in Space’, ‘Using
Attachment and Detachment’, developing ‘Episodic
lists and Micro-Narratives’, and deploying
‘Transition and Associative Relations’. The analysis
seeks to show that these approaches to the
animated documentary reveal and evidence a
theory of practice, and a practice of theory.
