Animation Sketch Exhibit PSU Hazleton

Readers who travel through the Hazleton, PA, area on Interstate 80 or 81 and have a little extra time might want to stop by the Penn State campus, where once again I've put together a little public exhibition of gengas and dougas from my collection.

Titled [b]Japanese Anime: Images in Motion,[/b] it focuses on some of the innovative ways in which animators built tension or dynamics into their work, even in cuts that involve a single, unmoving image. Stars this time include four of the new "Fire Arrow" Hikaru rough gengas, a full set of layout, genzu, genga, and full shuusei genga showing Sakura from a memorable CCS moment, and a bunch of my recently acquired Inuyasha sketches.

While not extensive (the Library only has two available cases, plus a display case in the entranceway), it's worth visiting, particularly if you haven't actually seen examples of the various levels of sketches in the production process.

The display will be up until at least the end of the month, as I'll be giving a talk on the animation process during Community Day (Sunday, Sept. 25). If you give me a heads up a little in advance, I could probably meet you at the Library and give you a little personal tour.

The exhibit can be seen any time the Library is open, which is generally until 10 pm most nights except Friday (closes 5 pm) and Saturday (closed all day :( ) Directions to the campus can be found at this site:

[url]http://www.hn.psu.edu/Information/directions.htm?cn7[/url]

Good for you Sensei, that's a superb idea! Sounds like a fun project and it'll open up the animation concept to a lot of people that haven't seen it in this form before.

I'm intrigued to know, how do you go about displaying cels/dougas/gengas in a public place? You can't frame every piece so is each sheet placed in a clear folder then mounted to a big vertical board?
Do you have text displays alongside the art to explain things?

I'd like to organise my own exhibition with funding from the local arts council but I don't really know how to go about it. It would be awesome to do because [almost] no-one knows about anime art in the area where I live.

Wishing you all the best with your exhibition.

[quote]I'm intrigued to know, how do you go about displaying cels/dougas/gengas in a public place? You can't frame every piece so is each sheet placed in a clear folder then mounted to a big vertical board? Do you have text displays alongside the art to explain things?[/quote]

There's one big vertical board in the entranceway, and I used acid-free double-sided tape to attach the sketches to it. I chose a black foam board, so the sketches stand out from a distance without a frame. Then I added smaller text displays so people could see what they were looking at.

This year I chose four Inuyasha sketches, as I knew many people would recognize the character. I put the layout in the top left corner, and three dougas diagonally from the bottom left corner upward. (It shows IY making a big leap out of the frame.)

The other two cases are flat, with a neutral background, so I could simply lay the sketches out without tape and the descriptive labels alongside or, in one case, right at the four-corners part of a set of related sketches. In some cases I printed off a small scan of a cel or DVD screen capture to set alongside the sketch so people could see how it led to the final broadcast image. And there's an easel that has a brief overview with a glossary of terms (genga, douga, shuusei, etc.) Also a one-sheet (front and back) booklet that people can carry away with them.

Since all the sketches are under glass, I didn't see the need to keep them under plastic, which would make them hard to view. Last year I stopped by and looked carefully to see if there was any sign of fading or light damage, and didn't see any, though obviously if I were displaying them for months rather than weeks I'd take more precautions.

It was a very popular feature last year, and so it wasn't difficult to get the library to host it again this year. My guess is that if you offered to do a talk before a community group at the local library or lyceum, you'd get enough cooperation. At another college, we know of an art gallery that regularly hosts exhibitions that run from Old Masters (prints rather than paintings) to American landscapes to avant garde, with the occasional month devoted to "popular" art. Animation would make an easy sell on this front, I think, especially if you had a couple of really dramatic pieces to build it around.

Good luck! and let me know if I can help in any way.

In response to several requests, here's a link to a Photo gallery illustrating my current library exhibit:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v737/sense1/Library%20Exhibit%202005/?

To view the entire set, just click the button at the top "Slideshow" and you'll be taken automatically through the set.

The exhibit will be the focus of a talk I'm giving Sunday at 4 PM, based on my Otakon presentation. I'll also be hanging out at the site of my exhibit from 2:30 on, with a bunch of cel-and-sketch books close to hand.