Brewery

On Cartoon Brew today Jerry Beck posted this:

The saddest part about the slow demise of hand drawn (2-D) animation over the past 30 years, is the loss of the animator's individualistic personality in studio produced feature films, shorts and TV animation. Part of the fun of watching classic cartoons is the recognition of certain artists' unique—sometimes eccentric—drawing style which stand out in bits and sequences: Irv Spence, Jim Tyer, Rod Scribner, Bobe Cannon, and Fred Moore's loose limbed look pop to mind. Where are all the Bill Tytla's and Ken Harris's in today's CG animation? Heck, where are they in anime or TV cartoons in general? Animated films and television shows today are so slick that this individual element has been eradicated in the final product. One of the reasons the "Making of/Art of" books (especially Pixar's) are so fun is we get to see the individual styles of the artists behind the scenes. Rarely does this fun make it to the finished film. Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, Eric Goldberg and John Kricfalusi are among the few today whose animation style makes it through the process, and they carry on this tradition in projects they are involved with. It's a significant element of what make their films so good, and what made the old cartoons so great.

I thought you might be interested in reading my email reply.

Sent: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:34:40 +0000
Subject: Animator Analysis

Hi Jerry,

Just wanted to comment on your recent cartoon brew post. To a certain extent the loss of individual animator characteristics is true in modern feature animation, simply because most of them are not hand drawn anymore. However, I would argue that a seamless integration of work from disparate artists was actually a goal of the pioneers in the field, (ie, if it were feasible for the work of one animator to make "Bambi", for example, then I'm sure Disney would have jumped at the chance!).

I pride myself on creating work that is able to integrate with that of others, for nothing is more important than continuity of character to creating the suspension of disbelief needed to motivate these personalities in a believable way.

That said, if you give me a shot animated by one of my peers, I could make a very good stab at who created it, just by how the shot was approached. We all have unique characteristics that mark a shot as our own, even without putting pencil to paper.

With the arrival of digital content, there have never been more ways to create aesthetically unique animated films, particularly short form pieces. This may not be at the shot level, but the rich variety of our medium goes from strength to strength with each new generation.

Just my take on the idea.
All the best,

Kevan

Have we ever been more spoiled with cool things to look at? It's ace!