Digital Puppetry
Howdy folks! Rant time ;) First I will apologize to anyone who might not like my opinion, but hey, it's only an opinion.
I'm writing this in response to the little banner add of the newest Dreamworks film shown right here on Live Journal (something like "Taming a Dragon"--sorry, I don't watch television, so most of my popular culture exposure is ( Read more... )
Believe it or not, I agree with almost everything you have to say. 3D character animation has never appealed to me very much, and the list of CG films I've actually liked is very short, indeed. The characters are usually too generically designed and don't move naturally, so it's not literally animation in that it doesn't seem to be alive - the characters sometimes look dead (especially in the earlier CG movies).
It is amazing how much money the studios spend on these movies, today. The Shrek series, Ratatouille, Up, and all the recent CG films all had budgets of about $150 million. Home on the Range (never saw it; looked bad :P ) was over $100 million, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (absolutely beautiful film, but weak in almost all other respects, IMO) was over $80 million.
Yet The Lion King had a budget of $45 million and Aladdin a budget of a mere $28 million. Inflation can't account for that level of difference, nor can it explain why so many of the new movies are expensive, yet really not great.
I cannot fathom why new animated films have such astonishing budgets, yet almost always under-deliver. Computers were supposed to save money on production, but I think what's ended up happening in a lot of cases (not all) is that over-reliance on technology has encouraged sloppiness; it's easy enough to do some things over that it doesn't necessarily need to be done right the first time, so a lot of work ends up being chucked when they go back to start over.
I think the problem plaguing movies is the same as what is now plaguing video games - it costs such staggering amounts of money to produce anything at all that no one is able to take any risks and everything is done with a cookie cutter.
I keep hoping that different styles will start showing up in animation again and that 2D will make a comeback. I am optimistic about the latter, but as for CG really gaining the vibrance of traditional animation? I'm not so sure. I think the technology is holding everyone back rather than helping them spring forward, and there needs to be a lot more innovation in the tools themselves before artists can really go someplace new and different.
Incidentally, you're not alone in wanting 2D movies. The last surveys I saw amongst the general public showed that 90% of people wanted 3D and 2D to coexist, and there were a few percent on top of that who wanted only 2D. There is hope!
And incidentally, I did like Up (had a few small weak spots) and really enjoyed Ratatouille and The Incredibles (both directed by Brad Bird), even though I didn't expect to. No argument from me that the animation still isn't what it should be, however! Most of those films have been quite forgettable.
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Couple of things; I really agree with you about Up. Just was it on Blu-ray and while it was stronger than most 3D in terms of emotionally interesting character animation and situation, the story was still pretty bad and a bit slap-dash.
Brad Bird is tops! I totally agree about Ratatouille. If I needed to make a choice for favorite CG animated film, it would be Rat. Really, it's the only good one IMHO (didn't say "great" though *wink*). I LOVED "The Iron Giant", a wonderful mixture of 2D and 3D. Plus the story, writing, animation, characters are all excellent. I have to add the nod to Frank and Ollie always makes me misty-eyed.
Most of all, you've reminded me that this is all art. Industry, yes, but it comes down to art! And the hope is that it will change like all art does. Thanks for that...it really does give hope.
I have a theory about why digital animation is so hard to believe; it's inorganic. It moves unlike reality (and getting worse,too), whereas we all see movement happening in real life constantly. It's very easy for our brains to understand that if something looks incorrect, we won't comprehend it as something natural.
An example is if something looks too perfect i.e. a totally symmetrical human face, it registers as unnatural. Pair this with hyperactive movements, and the result is totally unbelievable. PIXAR studios made a clever way around this; use toys and robots as the subjects! Those are already out of the norm as everyday movable objects, so our minds will bypass the logic. Remember in the first "Toys" film when the dog was chasing Woody and Buzz? It looked terrible! I don't think it was entirely the fault of the animator(s), rather they didn't consider realistic movement and behavior, but just wanted something to move.
Richard Williams, the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, made an interesting observation when asked to teach a seminar to some digital animators; none of them had any experience with figure or life drawing. Not one! Could this be part of the problem with modern 3D animation? When Walt Disney was gearing up to make Snow White, he and his lead animators knew that the characters would look rediculous without recreating natural movements in animation. The little animals and the Dwarfs, as well as the human characters needed to have convincing weight, gravity, and volume. Even the backgrounds were improved to give a realistic quality to the whole film. So non-animators were brought in to teach life drawing as well as watercolor/design. And look at the result! This is still one of the finest examples of expressive animation on film, and it's no coincidence that people still react the same today as they did 75 years ago.
This kind of innovative thinking is totally overlooked in modern animation. Why? It seems like such a logical approach. Storytelling is about getting the audience to understand. Great storytelling is about getting the audience to totally become absorbed, to really believe the situation. Books, movies, painting; it's all a way to express a story, mood or situation, at least on an emotional level. The best of these will blosom in our imagination and will live on through the audience.
I think maybe there's too much money involved in the industry of animation anymore to regard interesting or pure expression, so the art is being pushed aside for profit. Profit is important, otherwise where else are you going to get financing? There needs to be a balance.
Art comes from within, right? If films are a product of the people making them, then that's where the successes or failures are born. It seems like CG animation is motivated by money and technology, therefore making mere products like lattes and cars. Assembly line results. The producers of CG films need to take a very big step back and realize that if they ever want to make something really important, they need to make art again. I'm not saying that there aren't artists in the field of digital animation, but the result of so many boring, forgettable movies and shorts comes from something other than art.
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