Animation: Genre and Authorship explores the distinctive language of animation, its production processes, and the particular questions about who makes it, under what conditions and with what purpose. In this first study to look specifically at the ways in which animation displays unique models of "auteurism" and how it revises generic categories, Paul Wells challenges the prominence of live-action movie-making as the first form of contemporary cinema and visual culture. The book also includes interviews with Ray Harryhausen and Caroline Leaf, and a full "timeline" of the history of animation.