Christopher Holliday is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London (UK). Alexander Sergeant is a Lecturer in Digital Media Production at the University of Westminster (UK), specialising in the history and theory of fantasy cinema. Each episode, they look in detail at a film or television show, taking listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.
Episodes
Monday Apr 21, 2025
Monday Apr 21, 2025
To mark the Easter break, Fantasy/Animation crack open Rise of the Guardians (Peter Ramsey, 2012), the 2012 computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation studio and a Hollywood blockbuster adapted from the children’s book series by William Joyce. Something of a box-office failure and a film that prompted an $87 million loss for DreamWorks, Rise of the Guardians is, as Chris and Alex suggest, certainly a complex and uneven effort that nonetheless incorporates some intriguing animated elements as part of its tale of belief and wonder. Listen as they map the film’s place as entry number 19 within the expanding DreamWorks canon and how it emerged at a crucial moment in their own corporate expansion; the characters of Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, and Pitch Black as renditions of different types of animation; drawing, artistry, and the Frozen-esque spectacle of cryokinesis; and how Peter Ramsey’s film narrativises the value of what it means for children to believe in fantasy.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
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