(no subject)
"[mood
relaxed]"
Well, I know I did pretty darn bad on my Pre-Calc and Physics midterm but you know what-IT'S OVER!!! I finally have no homework, nothing to study for, no worries!
Well, I thought that you guys might be interested in my paper I wrote for Rhetoric. It is about traditional hand-drawn animation versus the new CGI stuff. Here it is if you want to read it. I would love to hear what you guys think about it :)
“If you can do all this cool stuff that you’re talking about-that you want to see in animation- but you have to give up the pencil to do that, are you in?” That was the question posed to Glen Keane, one of Walt Disney Company’s top animators in 2003. Keane was a traditionalist with over thirty years experience in making hand drawn movies, so it was no surprise that he was quite hesitant with his answer. This answer came three weeks later when he announced that the 2D animation studio would be closed to make way for computer-animation. What were the reasons behind his final decision, and were they even sound? It has been debated that moving from hand-drawn movies to computer-generated movies is just as natural a move as moving from silent movies to talkies, or black and white to color. The change is actually more closely related to when photography was first invented and there was no longer the need to have painstakingly accurate paintings done when snapping a little picture was so much easier. As a result, painters moved to the more abstract and so raged a similar debate. Computer generated imagery (CGI) lacks a number of things that can only be achieved by hand-drawn animation.
The new trend in the animation companies to move towards computer generated animation has occurred for many different reasons. One reason animators have turned towards CGI has been the realism it is able to capture. While it is true that CGI has been successfully utilized for backgrounds, crowd scenes, camera moves, and inanimate objects, it left something to be desired when it expanded to include organic figures like humans and animals. For instance, in Toy Story, the CGI characters did not have the same quality of depth and warmth that the geometrical toys had. Even Polar Express, which has some of the newest innovations in CGI, was unable to capture the detailed movement of hair and mouths like hand-drawn animation are able to achieve. Hair and fur, that are so common in the fantasy worlds of many animated movies, are hard to obtain realistically with CGI. Hair must reflect light and should flow as the characters move. Water is also something that, to look real, must reflect light, have the correct degree of translucence, and flow. However, the most difficult challenge for computer animators is the human face. Everyone is so aware of even the most subtle gestures and facial expressions that when computer animation is unable to capture something that may seem insignificant, a feeling is left that something is not quite right and it seems fake or strange. So while CGI animators may claim that a “3D world” looks more realistic, they still have a long way to go with making characters and scenery look as authentic as hand-drawn animation.
Competitiveness is also a factor in the boom of computer animated movies. The success of Dreamworks’ computer generated Shrek, and Disney’s Toy Story and Finding Nemo along with recent hand-drawn disappointments like The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, brought both companies to believe that CGI was what the audiences wanted. Perhaps, what the companies did not think of was that maybe the audiences simply were looking for a good plot. Of course children are going to be more interested a movie about what toys do when you leave the room more than one with a horse for a main character.
Perhaps the most important reason animation companies are leaving behind the beloved world of hand-drawn animation is because of time and money. Granted, it is difficult to create a world in the computer, but once it is created, it can be changed time and time again to fit different scenes throughout the movie. CGI backgrounds have the ability to be re-lit and re-shot from different angles, thus saving time and money. But Americans have forgotten that a piece of art isn’t about time, or money, or mere efficiency, it is about creativity. Art is something a human has worked on to get his audience to see or understand what he is trying to tell us. Art is something that comes from the soul and is beautiful. Art is not something that can be mass produced by a computer to lower costs and increase revenue. On the contrary, that is exploiting the true purpose of art. Traditional hand-drawn art may take more time to do, but the result is a beautiful world that a human created was created by a human hand and every single second of film was touched by the artist and purposefully positioned.
So the rumor in the animation world that Bambi is dead in America and gone for good may be true but it does not mean that people are done grieving or the world is a better place because of it. Yet, one has to wonder, why the animé world is thriving more than ever in Japan. In fact, the animé movie, Spirited Away was the Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature in 2003 and the CGI movie Ice Age was only a nominee. As Laura Holson writes in a New York Times article, “The [Disney] studio reached the height of its most recent popularity with the 1994 release of "The Lion King," which brought in $764.8 million at the worldwide box office. By contrast, the last nine animated movies Disney either made or acquired took in only $758.3 million combined. "The Incredibles," the 2004 film created by Pixar, brought in $630 million - nearly as much as Disney's last eight animated movies. The simple fact remains that computer generated animation distances the artist from the artwork. It is certain that every traditional animator feels proud and accomplished after completing an hour and a half movie, seeing the final results, knowing that every frame was made by his own two hands.
relaxed]"
Well, I know I did pretty darn bad on my Pre-Calc and Physics midterm but you know what-IT'S OVER!!! I finally have no homework, nothing to study for, no worries!
Well, I thought that you guys might be interested in my paper I wrote for Rhetoric. It is about traditional hand-drawn animation versus the new CGI stuff. Here it is if you want to read it. I would love to hear what you guys think about it :)
“If you can do all this cool stuff that you’re talking about-that you want to see in animation- but you have to give up the pencil to do that, are you in?” That was the question posed to Glen Keane, one of Walt Disney Company’s top animators in 2003. Keane was a traditionalist with over thirty years experience in making hand drawn movies, so it was no surprise that he was quite hesitant with his answer. This answer came three weeks later when he announced that the 2D animation studio would be closed to make way for computer-animation. What were the reasons behind his final decision, and were they even sound? It has been debated that moving from hand-drawn movies to computer-generated movies is just as natural a move as moving from silent movies to talkies, or black and white to color. The change is actually more closely related to when photography was first invented and there was no longer the need to have painstakingly accurate paintings done when snapping a little picture was so much easier. As a result, painters moved to the more abstract and so raged a similar debate. Computer generated imagery (CGI) lacks a number of things that can only be achieved by hand-drawn animation.
The new trend in the animation companies to move towards computer generated animation has occurred for many different reasons. One reason animators have turned towards CGI has been the realism it is able to capture. While it is true that CGI has been successfully utilized for backgrounds, crowd scenes, camera moves, and inanimate objects, it left something to be desired when it expanded to include organic figures like humans and animals. For instance, in Toy Story, the CGI characters did not have the same quality of depth and warmth that the geometrical toys had. Even Polar Express, which has some of the newest innovations in CGI, was unable to capture the detailed movement of hair and mouths like hand-drawn animation are able to achieve. Hair and fur, that are so common in the fantasy worlds of many animated movies, are hard to obtain realistically with CGI. Hair must reflect light and should flow as the characters move. Water is also something that, to look real, must reflect light, have the correct degree of translucence, and flow. However, the most difficult challenge for computer animators is the human face. Everyone is so aware of even the most subtle gestures and facial expressions that when computer animation is unable to capture something that may seem insignificant, a feeling is left that something is not quite right and it seems fake or strange. So while CGI animators may claim that a “3D world” looks more realistic, they still have a long way to go with making characters and scenery look as authentic as hand-drawn animation.
Competitiveness is also a factor in the boom of computer animated movies. The success of Dreamworks’ computer generated Shrek, and Disney’s Toy Story and Finding Nemo along with recent hand-drawn disappointments like The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, brought both companies to believe that CGI was what the audiences wanted. Perhaps, what the companies did not think of was that maybe the audiences simply were looking for a good plot. Of course children are going to be more interested a movie about what toys do when you leave the room more than one with a horse for a main character.
Perhaps the most important reason animation companies are leaving behind the beloved world of hand-drawn animation is because of time and money. Granted, it is difficult to create a world in the computer, but once it is created, it can be changed time and time again to fit different scenes throughout the movie. CGI backgrounds have the ability to be re-lit and re-shot from different angles, thus saving time and money. But Americans have forgotten that a piece of art isn’t about time, or money, or mere efficiency, it is about creativity. Art is something a human has worked on to get his audience to see or understand what he is trying to tell us. Art is something that comes from the soul and is beautiful. Art is not something that can be mass produced by a computer to lower costs and increase revenue. On the contrary, that is exploiting the true purpose of art. Traditional hand-drawn art may take more time to do, but the result is a beautiful world that a human created was created by a human hand and every single second of film was touched by the artist and purposefully positioned.
So the rumor in the animation world that Bambi is dead in America and gone for good may be true but it does not mean that people are done grieving or the world is a better place because of it. Yet, one has to wonder, why the animé world is thriving more than ever in Japan. In fact, the animé movie, Spirited Away was the Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature in 2003 and the CGI movie Ice Age was only a nominee. As Laura Holson writes in a New York Times article, “The [Disney] studio reached the height of its most recent popularity with the 1994 release of "The Lion King," which brought in $764.8 million at the worldwide box office. By contrast, the last nine animated movies Disney either made or acquired took in only $758.3 million combined. "The Incredibles," the 2004 film created by Pixar, brought in $630 million - nearly as much as Disney's last eight animated movies. The simple fact remains that computer generated animation distances the artist from the artwork. It is certain that every traditional animator feels proud and accomplished after completing an hour and a half movie, seeing the final results, knowing that every frame was made by his own two hands.