Joe Evans Lecturer, Animation

Joe Evans

I am a Lecturer in Animation with a focus on 2D animation techniques and visual storytelling, teaching across all levels of the Animation course at the School of Digital Arts (SODA).

As an animator and illustrator, I have experience fostering strong creative collaborative relationships with artists, writers, filmmakers, and musicians, working on diverse projects including music videos, short films, documentaries, and animation for live performance – providing immersive moving image experiences, combining digital and mechanical projection techniques.

I am interested in experimental approaches to animation, utilising Photoshop, After Effects and Toon Boom Harmony to combine drawings, photos, videos, and textures with digital rigged cut-out characters, rotoscoping and motion graphics.

Beginning with my MA project, titled The Animators of Pre-cinema and Their Demons, my current research has continued through my membership with the Magic Lantern Society. This research explores the imagery and methods of pre-cinema animation and makes connections between articulated magic lantern slide shows and new spaces for expanded animation. I presented papers to the Society of Animation Studies titled The Rat Eating Man as a Victorian Meme and The Pre-Cinema Animated Horror Space, and I continue to delve into moving image history, investigating how this might inform innovative practice and repurposing of 19th Century imagery through digital animation, and exploring the narrative possibilities of animated loops.

I also enjoy drawing pigeons.