The Live-Action Animated Film
by Kyle Meikle
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Book Presentation:
Since cinema’s beginning, live actors and cartoon characters have traded places and invaded each other’s spaces, with real people getting animated and animated character getting real. The Live-Action Animated Film looks at the long history of movies that combine live action with 2D, stop-motion, and 3D animation to hallucinogenic effect. This survey suggests that the experimental and idiosyncratic mixed pics of the twentieth century set the template for the mainstream blockbusters of the twenty-first. Covering everything from Technicolor musicals and creature features to contemporary remakes and reboots, The Live-Action Animated Film brings this significant, boundary-blurring genre into sharper focus. In retrospect, the introduction of cartoons into live action looks as central to film history as the coming of sound or color.
About the Author:
KYLE MEIKLE is an associate professor of English and Communication at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of Adaptations in the Franchise Era: 2001-16.
Press Reviews:
"Moviegoers today don't bat an eye at actors sharing the screen with computer-generated dinosaurs or aliens, but for much of cinema's history films that mixed live action and animation were considered a curiosity. In this compact volume, Kyle Meikle shows us how 'animaction' took over Hollywood, tracing its evolution from Ko-Ko the Clown to Roger Rabbit and beyond. It's a delightful, incisive read." -- Ian Olney ― author of Zombie Cinema
"Spanning the moving-image world in its many shapes and forms, this book is as lively and engaging as its subject. It merits a warm welcome from cinema scholars and movie buffs alike."
-- David Sterritt ― author of Rock 'n' Roll Movies
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Rediscovered Classics of Japanese Animation (2025)
The Adaptation of Children's Novels into the World Masterpiece Theater Series
The Animation Atlas (2025)
The Ghibliotheque Guide to the World of Animated Film
by Jake Cunningham and Michael Leader
The Anime Archives (2025)
A retrospective of anime films and TV shows from indie journal publisher Lost in Cult
Collective
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