1. Anticipate and understand that there's more than just what you see in front of you. There's always good films which you haven't seen, even if nobody you know is aware of them. Avoid exaggerative use of the word 'everything'.
2. If you want to discover more films, features especially, start with a timeline of the history of animation and a world political map and work your way down. Break out from what's presented in front of you and heavily advertised. Just start by going over to Wikipedia, and looking at their list of feature length films which you can reach by following this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_feature-length_films
3. Don't just wait for a copy of the film to be given a legitimate release, because odds are it won't happen. Fans come before distributors if the distributors come at all.
4. Do not under any circumstances declare one medium to be the only legitimate form of animation nor any philosophy to be the whole of all worthwhile animation. Do not use the term 'traditional animation' except to apply to animated work which was mostly or entirely produced outside of a computer. Understand that even if animation is traditional, that a computer or computer animation may likely have contributed to its existence in some other way.
5. Be the person with the answers even when they aren't pleasant, and give your best advice to where the answers may be found if you do not have them.
6. When you're introducing the person to the films on Wikipedia, expect indifference and plan accordingly. Mention the article, and then give them a second source, a place where they can watch a large number of films that they never heard of for free.
Phrase it cleverly like this, with the important parts first, :
Did you know that all you have to do is think in terms of the timeline of animation's history and the countries that have been around since? You can look up nearly any film on Wikipedia and find something good to watch elsewhere on the internet. Here's a website with some free movies from ___ to get you started.
If somebody says just something simple like "Thanks!" as so often happens, they reaffirm the first two statements while they're almost certainly, truly interested in the third. Then they've got the first two statements sealed with the third in their head, and somebody might confuse their decision and look for their self, and they can always come back to it later if they remember.
7. Please stop assuming that mentioning a few token names like Sylvain Chomet and Yuri Norstein makes you literate about worldwide animation. It does not.
And finally, here's the basic info, the maps with the timeline and websites to find all the films.
Sources:
Most convenient, films that are mostly available http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_feature-length_films
Most Adequate, but too dry for newbies http://www.animated-divots.net/chrnearl.html
European Animation http://www.animationeurope.com/
Look a bit further on the Animated Divots site, and you'll find even further information, like sites where you can buy more films and all sorts of things. The European animation site will take you to further information on new releases.
The rest you can find on video sites, web stores, and such, which you'll likely arrive at through a simple web search. Here's search engines for nearly every country. This should help get you started if you're not familiar, and I hope you benefit from having all these things in one place. At some point in the future I hope to have a post card or something to pass around, just to disseminate the information quicker.
Actual Post Date April 13, 2010
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