Complex Inferiority
"In theory, if you rotoscope a really good performance by a really good actor, it ought to be much more effective than an animated performance that's been drawn or computer generated to match a voice."
Amid posted this little movie critic gem on Cartoon Brew this morning. It's amazing that even after America has driven modern animation for the last 100+ years, it is still not a mainstream-accepted medium with the gravitas needed for informed review. Sure, Mum and Dad will take the kids to the cinema for 90 minutes to keep them happy, but they certainly don't see animation as art in the same way that painting or film-making is art, and this allows critics to write sloppy, uninformed pearls of wisdom such as that seen above.
If someone had written something similarly dismissive about live-action techniques they would be jumped upon and ridiculed, but unfortunately that is not the case here. I think most people are blase about the process of creating an animated performance. They just don't understand that getting into character is just as important for an animator as it is for an actor - the intent is the same after all! The mainstream press talks at length about the technical aspects of feature animation, (particularly CG) but rarely is the process of creating the actual motion discussed. That may dehumanise the medium, and leave it wide open for ignorance to creep in. No people, we don't have a "Final Animation" button!
Animation can be immediate, energetic, subtle - whatever. All those things happen in the planning stage, in 'rehearsal'. It may take us longer to deliver the final performance but that is the nature of the medium. While film may have the ad-libbing thing, we just do it before we start acting!
I hope this begins to change at some point. Maybe we need some superstar animators disrupting parties, destroying hotel rooms and dating Paris Hilton?
Amid posted this little movie critic gem on Cartoon Brew this morning. It's amazing that even after America has driven modern animation for the last 100+ years, it is still not a mainstream-accepted medium with the gravitas needed for informed review. Sure, Mum and Dad will take the kids to the cinema for 90 minutes to keep them happy, but they certainly don't see animation as art in the same way that painting or film-making is art, and this allows critics to write sloppy, uninformed pearls of wisdom such as that seen above.
If someone had written something similarly dismissive about live-action techniques they would be jumped upon and ridiculed, but unfortunately that is not the case here. I think most people are blase about the process of creating an animated performance. They just don't understand that getting into character is just as important for an animator as it is for an actor - the intent is the same after all! The mainstream press talks at length about the technical aspects of feature animation, (particularly CG) but rarely is the process of creating the actual motion discussed. That may dehumanise the medium, and leave it wide open for ignorance to creep in. No people, we don't have a "Final Animation" button!
Animation can be immediate, energetic, subtle - whatever. All those things happen in the planning stage, in 'rehearsal'. It may take us longer to deliver the final performance but that is the nature of the medium. While film may have the ad-libbing thing, we just do it before we start acting!
I hope this begins to change at some point. Maybe we need some superstar animators disrupting parties, destroying hotel rooms and dating Paris Hilton?
posted by Kevan at
7/27/2006 10:39:00 AM
8 Comments:
Those sorts of comments really wind me up! One a side note, I had a long and colourful argument with a fella a few years back who was telling me that all the facial animation in Cg was done with some software where you put the audio in one end and BANG!! Out comes a perfect facial performance.
He was having none of my apparently ridiculous comments that it was all done by the skilled hand of an animator.
I shouldnt have punched him though ;)
Mat.
By
Mathew Rees, at 2:36 PM
Aargh! See? It's the 'Animate' button thing, all over again!
By
Kevan, at 2:54 PM
Lipton's statement is proof positive that he is a vacuous idiot, unqualified to discuss matters pertaining to cinema in general, and animation in particular.
I offer as evidence any Bugs Bunny film of the early- to mid-1940's that involved Bob Clampett or Robert McKimson.
Of course, that's my opinion. I could be wrong. Heh.
By
Elisson, at 8:57 AM
I don't think you're wrong at all!
: )
By
Kevan, at 9:37 AM
maybe the problem is that they do think of animation as an art, and therefore something distant and foreign to them.
then there are the guys the pigeon-hole it as a kids genre.
the problem is that people think of it as artsy or for kids and not for them, despite all the examples to the contrary.
It doesn't help that most animation acting is just plain bland and generic either.
Few people recognize actors for their ACTING ability and more for their personality. There's very little real personality in animation, today and in the golden age. All the personality comes from the design and voice acting.
By
Anonymous, at 2:51 PM
"There's very little real personality in animation, today and in the golden age. All the personality comes from the design and voice acting."
I couldn't disagree with you more, me ol' chum. I can direct you to plenty of complex, appealing characters, created both now and over the last 100 years - from Baloo and the Tramp, to Lilo and Donkey. All of these characters seem like living, breathing entities to me. Voice acting and design are important, of course, but the performance can pull the character arc in a completely direction.
You think Johnny Depp is great as Capt. Jack Sparrow because of his personality?! Of course not! We don't see the real Johnny Depp in that movie because he is acting! If that were the real him those funny traits would peek through in his other films. What he did was make great acting decisions before getting in front of camera, just as an animator would!
By
Kevan, at 3:22 PM
Reminds me of the critic who argued that animation was incapable of tackling dramatic subjects because the characters' faces had insufficient detail and nuance to convey emotional subtlety. By that standard, presumably the great plays of ancient Greece and Japanese noh theatre -- in both cases, the actors' faces are all covered by masks -- don't count as dramas either!
By
Oliver_Coombes, at 5:15 PM
Right on Kev.
That San Francisco Chronicles review of Monster House really boiled my blood today.
Gc
By
Gareth Cavanagh, at 12:38 AM
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