The video explores the compelling medium of animation through the personal narrative of artist Daphne Ksurafi. She elucidates why adults should appreciate animated films beyond the boundaries of childhood nostalgia. By recounting her own journey from a social, imaginative child to an animated film director, Daphne illustrates how animation offers a unique storytelling art form able to evoke emotions and inspire imaginative play, urging adults to reconnect with their inner child through vibrant, intricate worlds crafted in animated cinema.

For Daphne, animation transcends simple entertainment; it is a medium that reshapes reality through its fluidity in motion and design. She recalls how classics like Hayao Miyazaki's films captivated her as a child, imprinting upon her a profound emotional response, which later inspired her animation career. By sharing this art form, she emphasizes the liberating potential for creativity animation provides, positing it as a significant channel for artistic expression and personal growth.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. daydreamer [ˈdeɪˌdriːmər] - (noun) - A person who indulges in daydreams or fantasies. - Synonyms: (dreamer, fantasist, visionary)

As a ten year old, I was very social, but also a raging daydreamer.

2. mimic [ˈmɪmɪk] - (verb) - To imitate someone's actions, speech, or mannerisms. - Synonyms: (imitate, emulate, replicate)

It consists a radical form of shaping your first experiences as a human being, being able to mimic adults by using imaginative play.

3. visceral [ˈvɪsərəl] - (adjective) - Relating to deep inward feelings rather than intellect. - Synonyms: (intuitive, instinctive, emotional)

A deep and visceral experience, which I feel made me a better person before a better artist.

4. fluidity [fluˈɪdɪti] - (noun) - The ability to flow smoothly without interruption or abrupt change. - Synonyms: (smoothness, flexibility, gracefulness)

Animation as a medium is praised for its fluidity in motion and design.

5. surreal [səˈriːəl] - (adjective) - Having the quality of being dreamlike or strange and irrational. - Synonyms: (dreamlike, unreal, bizarre)

How nature and buildings were surreal and defied the laws of physics.

6. whimsical [ˈwɪmzɪkəl] - (adjective) - Playfully quaint or fanciful, especially in an appealing and amusing way. - Synonyms: (quirky, fanciful, capricious)

Vivid colors, whimsical creatures, universes that could only exist in drawings.

7. evoke [ɪˈvoʊk] - (verb) - To bring or recall to the conscious mind. - Synonyms: (elicit, conjure, invoke)

There wasn't a kid show on tv that could evoke all that emotion.

8. distort [dɪˈstɔːrt] - (verb) - To pull or twist out of shape, creating a misleading or false impression. - Synonyms: (deform, warp, twist)

Someone distorted reality and twisted form and bent the rules in order to bring a radical idea to life.

9. delve [dɛlv] - (verb) - To reach inside a receptacle to search for something or to investigate deeper. - Synonyms: (investigate, explore, probe)

The video delves into the intriguing equation that has not only led to the creation of multiple trillion-dollar industries.

10. haunting [ˈhɔːntɪŋ] - (adjective) - Having a poignant or evocative quality, often moving or touching. - Synonyms: (poignant, evocative, memorable)

Why you should choose it from now on, the same way you choose to love and to be haunted in the best way possible by your favorite films.

What do you mean I can create life? - Daphne Xourafi - TEDxLarissa

Hello. My name is Daphne Ksurafi and I'm an artist, director and animator. I'm here to tell you a little bit about a medium that happened to deeply care and love, which is the art of animation, and why you should watch animated cinema as an adult. I'm guessing that most of you have seen animated films when you were children and might have caught a glimpse of some that were made for adults over the years. Award deserving films with powerful stories and mesmerizing visuals that seem to sometimes not get the same recognition as non animated ones.

I'm here to tell you that animation is one of the most compelling ways to tell stories to people of all ages, and why you should choose it from now on, the same way you choose to love and to be haunted in the best way possible by your favorite films. As a ten year old, I was very social, but also a raging daydreamer. I used to love sitting still and playing in my head for hours. No toys needed for other kids. This is something that all kids actually do up until a certain age. It consists a radical form of shaping your first experiences as a human being, being able to mimic adults by using imaginative play. But it seems like somewhere along our teenage years, this ability is lost. It is replaced by routines, productivity, finding a purpose, or simply looking for one.

My only purpose as a kid was to hurry up and finish homework so I could get back into these worlds in my head again. And somehow, even though everybody else around me slowly let them go, I could not. I kept playing as an adult, and I ended up turning this play into my job and my life today. To be fair, my engagement with this special form of play started, of course, as a kid, but as a viewer, I used to watch animated shows. Like everybody, I had a special kind of love for specific characters and styles in which some kid shows were drawn. My dad actually brought me to see Hayao Miyazaki's legendary animated films in the cinema right when they were being released.

As a ten year old, I was already living and playing a lot in my head. These films were a spiritual experience for me. I was too young to understand why I would tear up at some beautifully animated shots, at the way the colors complemented each other, how nature and buildings were surreal and defied the laws of physics, and especially at the way tears were drawn with a specific roundness, shiny and bouncy like jelly, which gave them a rich, vivid and emotional look. I had never seen anything like this before. There wasn't a kid show on tv that could evoke all that emotion, through tears, the way these movies could. I was forever changed back then.

Drawing as a kid, which is something that all kids actually do, regardless of artistic tendencies or nothing, became an escape for me. I slowly started translating the worlds in my head on paper, and it looked really, really bad for so long, until, after many years of pain and struggle and all nighters, it slowly started resembling the art that had inspired me many, many years ago. And I can never quite put into words the feeling of finally being able to show other people the ideas you have in your head.

In a weird sense, the word animation came from a wide set of words in Latin used to describe breathing, movement and life. The latin word anima means wind and soul, and animation as a medium is praised for its fluidity in motion and design. Water is almost another character, as well as animals, and that is intentional in the way it's drawn. Its details, like these, are what distinguishes animation from other forms of storytelling. You can create a world with unique rules and use its surreal elements as a backdrop for a good story. You can astonish ten year old Daphne by drawing the character's tears in a unique way.

As artists, we tend to keep the child inside us alive, not because of immaturity, but as a necessity. It's a long form of creating life out of thin air. You would actually be surprised as to how this ability is still essential in many other forms of work and everyday life. Some of the ideas that changed the world were once wild concepts or drawings or sketches. Someone distorted reality and twisted form and bent the rules in order to bring a radical idea to life.

In this way, animation is open to everybody, inviting you to use your brain as a child and to reimagine the world in a thousand different ways and colors. In a way, I had to leave my job in journalism for a while because I was just another person who liked to draw for many years. So I decided to pursue animation, which for the time, seemed like a level of creativity reserved for the gods. What do you mean? I can make my drawings move and talk. What do you mean? I can create life.

Pursuing animation opened my eyes as an artist, because I started as a viewer the same way that giving a chance to a different art form can feel liberating. I felt like I was sharing a deep, secret connection with other ex and current daydreamers. And after many years of struggle and practice, and having to prove myself over and over again in order to both be able to make a living out of it and also evolve in my personal work, I was finally able to create my own animated film in 2022.

A deep and visceral experience, which I feel made me a better person before a better artist. Vivid colors, whimsical creatures, universes that could only exist in drawings and never in real life. These sound like elements that we have associated with a bygone era in our lives. A short time filled with creating invisible worlds with unique rules and an endless sense of discovering and reinventing the world whichever way pleased us.

A patch of grass could be a forest for tiny heroes at their adventures. The floor could either be an ocean or lava, and a furniture secure islands to set sail from. We all seem to have forgotten this language we once spoke so fluently. In a world where profit is all that matters, it seems like we sometimes only tend to honor skills that will make our great lives even greater.

In a weird sense, being an artist or experiencing art has a similar feeling to those colorful adventures. Animation is a medium which calls for the viewer to accept a different, enhanced or distorted reality, to bend the limits of form and color in physics in order to bring our senses to their very edge. Some of the most intense scenes in cinema history have been animated shots, yet its place among cinema masterpieces is sometimes in the shadows.

We fortunately live in the era of the digital, allowing a lot of us artists to share our worlds with you on the Internet, giving animation and exposure it never had before. For the first time in history, we have a groundbreaking number of animated tv shows for adults and movies, giving the medium an exposure it never had before. More and more people every single day are giving animation a chance, increasing the visibility of the medium and allowing us to tell our stories the way we always wanted.

As artists, we tend to keep the child inside us alive. We seek and find each other. We form communities around our art. We attend festivals where we get to enjoy each other's creations, while always aiming to keep people that don't necessarily make art themselves interested in entering these worlds. None of my friends had anything to do with animation. They wouldn't choose it as a medium, or get it, or necessarily enjoy it.

Only after I pushed them to do so over and over again would they choose to watch an animated film with me. Yet when they saw my animated film in 2022, they actually had more to say about it. Compared to professionals, animation working as a foreign language for them evoked feelings, interpretations, and thoughts they never had before. Their commentary was fresh and valuable for me as an artist, and made me realize that my goal as a director will always be to create stories that can be watched and appreciated by everyone.

Me being changed at the sight of the tears in these old animated films. That was not me as an artist. That was me as an average person, discovering just how many forms love and magic can take. So today, I invite all of you, whether it is kids movies or for adults, to give animation a chance. Watch yourself under a form of storytelling that will for sure leave you inspired, if not to create, then to live life creatively. Thank you.

Animation, Art, Cinema, Inspiration, Education, Technology, Tedx Talks