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Classical film theory topics, such as the divide between live action and animation, the definition of cinematic performance, and the configuration and impact of the star system continue to shape – while also being reshaped by – discourse on animation labor in the digital age. Focusing on motion capture in contemporary Hollywood, the first part of this article historicizes and examines the diminishment of the animators’ contribution to this filmmaking process in promotional materials and public discussions, and the accompanying overemphasis on the star persona’s performance. In doing so, it aims to contextualize and shed light on the practices and imperatives that determine current labor policies and power dynamics in the industry. The second part introduces questions of gender relations and gender-based hierarchies of representation into the discussion of motion and performance capture’s labor climate. In order to highlight and reflect on the ambivalence of the motion capture industry’s labor politics, it offers a feminist reading of a distinct, yet related form of disenfranchisement in motion-capture filmmaking, namely digital voyeurism and the objectification of the female performer in films such as Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, 2007) and Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), and video games such as Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream, 2013). Finally, by highlighting such interrelated policies of marginalization and erasure of labor, the author aims to emphasize the inadequacy of describing motion capture as a collaborative process and to call for a reconceptualization of the critical approaches towards its study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, the notion of the creator’s absolute control over the drawn image has remained a staple of animation discourse, and the advent of computer animation has recently reinvigorated this discussion. The animated science fiction features Metropia (Tarik Saleh, 2009), Metropolis (Rintaro, 2001), and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Motonori Sakakibara, 2001) engage utopian daydreams and articulate anxieties about the high degree of artistic mastery facilitated by advanced technology. Using these three films as case studies, this text examines computer-animated futuristic urban spaces as architectures of control. It discusses digital bodies as products of animators’ increased mastery over mimetic representations of the human form and explores the ways in which computer animation foregrounds its technological and artistic control over the image as a feat to marvel at. In doing so, this analysis highlights the evolution of the dream of the omnipotent creator into a fantasy of omnipotent machinery, while also foregrounding concerns about the possible danger of technology undermining animators’ labor and making it obsolete in the context of contemporary production practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]