The Evolution of Animation

“Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.” (Norman McLaren, 1968)

When we think about animation the first things that come up to our minds are usually Disney and Pixar. More or less everyone in the past three generations grew up watching Disney’s old classics. The company’s features are the most famous animated films ever. And beside that there is an emotional attachment that every child has developed through his/her childhood years to these movies. Since Pixar and Disney merged together the two very different approaches they once had, became one iconic style that is now recognised everywhere.

Born in 1923, Disney Company was the first animation studios in the Hollywood scene. With its first, and world’s first, feature length animation film in 1937, SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney took an incredible risk that could have destroyed his company. The market was not sure that the audience would have paid to watch a 90-minute animation movie.

“It was prophesied that nobody would sit through such thing, but there was only one way we could do it successfully and that was to plunge ahead and go for broke — shoot the works. There could be no compromising on money, talent or time […] and this was at a time when the whole country was in the midst of a crippling depression.” — Walt Disney (Krause, T. and Witkowski, L., 1994, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in Its Making)

After three years of hard work the film finally premiered and the responses were incredible. SnowWhite is in fact the most profitable film of all time. It was then when Disney decided to purse the market of feature animated movies.

The story of Pixar is a little bit more particular. It is in 1974 when New York Institute of Technology’s founder Alexander Schure established the Computer Graphics Lab recruiting computer scientists who shared his ambition about creating the world’s first computer animated movie. The technologies then were not advanced enough so they ended up working for some movie studio where they could have built new machines able to create those animations for George Lucas. The famous Star Wars director and producer approached and offered them a job and in 1979 they created The Graphics Group at Lucasfilm.

In 1982 the group began working on special effects and in 1986 the team was numbered to 40 individuals and with the investments of Steve Jobs, Catmull and Smith created Pixar.

Initially it was a high-end computer hardware company who sold its products to government agencies and the medical community and Disney, but it never sold well, then John Lasseter got employed and, in 1989, his department was turned into a unique division with the only goal to produce computer-animated commercials for outside companies. Unfortunately the small success wasn’t enough and, even after Jobs kept invest in his company, the number of employees was now reduced to just 42. It is in 1991 when Pixar made a historic 26 million dollars deal with Disney “to make and distribute at least one computer-generated animated movie” (Our Story, pixar.com) that ended up being Toy Story, the first CG feature film.

The partnership between the two companies for the making of Toy Story worked out mostly because a year earlier, in 1990, Disney acquired the rights for distribution of Tim Burton’s stop-motion The Night before Christmas (1993), that has unlocked the door for Pixar, opening the studios’ minds for collaboration.

Still very concerned about CG animated films, Disney tried to change many things about Toy Story but Pixar made clear some rules, as John Lasseter, animator, film director, screen writer, producer and chief creative officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, said, “The first thing they did when they began thinking about Toy Story was to a make a list of things they didn’t want to be in it. Foremost among these was anything that resembled the ingredients of Disney movies of the period. There would no be soaring musical numbers, no larger-than-life caricature villains, no cute comic relief animals. We didn’t want it to be a fairytale.” — John Lasseter (Christopher Finch, 2013, The CG Story)

With three Oscars won and becoming the highest grossing film in 1995, Toy Story opened the world of CG animated feature films.

Two years later Disney and Pixar announced a new agreement to jointly produce five movies over ten years (Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles).

After many disagreements between the two companies, most of them caused by the decisions about the production of Toy Story 2, Disney finally acquired Pixar, in 2006, for $7.4 billion. Since then nine more movies were made by the new unified company (Cars, Ratatouille, Wall•e, Up, Toy Story 3, Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University and Inside Out).

The transition from 2D to 3D that Disney made, thanks to the success that Pixar had, contributed to evoke interest in CG in many other companies. However, because the technologies were not advanced yet, different techniques were invented in order to accomplish the aimed result. Motion-capture was one of the most explored. One of the first film to use it is ‘Sinbad Beyond the Veil of Mists’, an early 2000s 3D feature that was trying to innovate the world of computer-generated movies.

The intent of using this technique for this kind of films was to reach a look as close as possible to reality thanks to the movements and facial expressions elaborated directly from the actors. Unfortunately it did not accomplish the result wanted.

A more successful example of this experimental use of motion-capture is ‘Polar Express’ (2004). As before the fundamental problem is the way the technique is been used, to make the animation look as real as possible, but as demonstrated by the robotics professor Masahiro Mori in 1970 in a hypothesis in the field of aesthetics, when the features and movements of a character look almost human there is an automatic repulsion in the viewers.

The hypothesis, later in 1978 called Uncanny Valley, because of the dip in the graph used to explain it, states that there is a point where the human-like appearance becomes repulsive. However, if the features become less distinguishable, the emotional response positively increases becoming more empathic.

Over the years motion-capture became a technique used more for visual effects rather than animation. Although it is relevant to mention that in making most of the video games it is extremely important and very often used.

Anyway, as Brad bird, film director, producer, animator, screen writer and actor, said in an interview for the Extras of ‘Ratatouille’ “I think that mo-cap is a wonderful tool. […] The dirty little secret is that the little things that you really like have been massaged by animators.” Referring to how animation helped in particular in the making of Gollum, the character from ‘The Lord of The Rings’. And again, “There’s nothing wrong with animation. Animators are not technicians. They are artists. […] The best mo-cap I have seen has all been mucked with by animators. […] I’m not against mo-cap, but I think it has limitations if you don’t mess with it.” (Brad Bird, 2007, Ratatouille Extras)

Since 2001, when the first episode of ‘The lord of The Rings’ trilogy came out, motion capture technology improved incredibly. “Ten years later, when we had to bring Gollum back for ‘The Hobbit’, we had in the meantime experience working with lots of other characters. So we were able to develop now proper muscle system, proper skeleton system and proper facial expressions. A lot of researches into the look of how light is transported in the eyes, in the skin and in the hair.” (Joe Letteri, 2013, Computer Animation: Digital Heroes and Computer-Generated Worlds)

Albeit all the improvements, motion-capture still requires animators to fix whatever is not perfect.

In the two remakes of the merchandise ‘The Planet of The Apes’ (2011, 2014), all the apes are created using motion-capture and even though the actors have been made to take courses on how the apes move, animators had to work in post and adjust movements and features because it still did not look right. “Characters animated with straight motion capture might be accurate but more often appear stiff and mechanical. They also lack of personality.” (Peter Ratner, 2003, 3-D Human Modeling and Animation) Continuing on this, he considers the destiny of a movie that “despite having beautiful computer-generated characters, and costing millions of dollars to produce” it was a big flop at the box office. “It is my belief that a large part of the problem was that the animators did not exaggerate the movements and facial expressions of their characters.” (Peter Ratner, 2003, 3-D Human Modeling and Animation) We can see, one more time, how the animators’ job in post producing is extremely important.

Although the flow is quickly moving to 3D perfect shapes and gradients films only, many artists sill don not want to loose the old magic behind hand-drawn lines. As John Kahrs, animator and film director, said “Why do we have to leave those drawings behind, isn’t there a way that we can get these drawings to move on top of the CG.” (John Kahrs, 2012, Paperman and the Future of 2D Animation)

So during the process of directing ‘Paperman’ (2012), when he saw a possibility to create a hybrid of the old and new schools of animation he took a shot and made what ended to be an Oscar-winning animated short and, more importantly, a possible first step into a new future for animation. “You hear people talking a lot about innovation — innovation comes out of necessity.” (John Kahrs, 2013, Why This Oscar-Winning Disney Short Looks Like Nothing Made Before)

‘Paperman’ is not just a homage to the old classics, it is a proof of how latter-day technology can bring new life into analog form.

A interesting comparison of how animations are made could be seen between the two tv shows ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘South Park’.

When it first started it was a low budget student movie but after its incredible success, the two creators of ‘South Park’ decided to make it into a tv show.

While at first an episode was created using the classic cutouts technique that would have taken over three months, with the rising of new advanced technologies the entire process of a 20-minute episode is now made in only six days. The artists almost never sleep during their time and it is kind of ironic how much money and work is put into it to make something that looks incredibly cheap. “We have the equipment to do really incredible stuff, if we wanted, but we are really proud about how ‘South Park’ looks and that people can recognise the show from it”. (Trey Parker, 2011, 6 Days to Air)

The show is animated using Maya, a very powerful and high-tech program, usually related to 3D features and CG visual effects. Thanks to this software it is possible to use the scanned texture that have been made for the original cutouts episode. Even though while animating it looks 3D shaped, when rendered out it has the final classic look and the original quality of the cutouts that made the show famous. To make all this possible the animators have figured out a way to use Maya without having to leave behind the old style. Using different layers for each drawing making possible to move, hide or show them individually as needed.

The geniality about it is clearly shown when compared to other shows. The time saved is incredible and the simplicity acquired outstanding, all without loosing any of the style’s characteristic.

A complete different approach is taken by the studios behind the most famous family of America. When Matt Groening first created ‘The Simpsons’ in 1989 none of the advanced computer techniques existed and the most popular, easy and affordable, way to make cartoons was by hand drawing it. “My drawing style definitely comes from school. It is based on being able to draw while not looking at what you are doing, so the teacher thinks you are paying attention”. (Matt Groening, 1992, The Simpsons: Making of)

When new methods of making animation were invented the creators of ‘The Simpsons’ did not want to loose the classic look of the show so they decided to keep working by hand, even if it was longer and more difficult. Even now a 20-minute episode takes nine months and 480 artists to be made. “I think it makes the show seem more real. The various emotions take much more meaning and much more depth”. (Alf Clausen, 1992, The Simpsons: Making of)

The process starts in America where writers brain storm ideas for jokes and gags. When the full script is wrote down then it is the turn of the actors that record the voices. The audio tracks are sent to the animators. Storyboard are drawn followed by some, more specific and detailed, black and white frames. The drawings are then sent to Korea where they are drawn accurately and coloured with special inks. The last part of it is the music, composed and played by an orchestra. Everything is then combined together and, after a final look by producers and writers, ready to air.

So, where is the future going? Of course both the old and the new techniques have benefits and downfalls. With hand drawn animation the feeling is much more human and the work is more personal but it is longer, harder and more expensive. On the other hand CG gives the possibility to anyone to create something special. Even if you are not good at drawing you can create animation that looks incredibly good. Thanks to advanced softwares like Maya the process of creating animation is now available to anyone and with online tutorials you can learn most of what you need directly from your room. Any how there are also disadvantages such as the cold feeling and the lack of personality of the CG animation. It is in fact not only my opinion that digital characters look all similar and without any personality compared to the old hand drawn ones.

It is not easy to make a statement about what the future will be both because we cannot see into it, obviously, and because our choice will be based on our personal preferences. I just want to leave you with one question, consider your favourite animation technique and now, what would your solution to improve its disadvantages be?

Sources:

• Pierre Hébert: Corps, Langage, Technologie (2006)
• Krause, T. and Witkowski, L.: Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in Its Making (1994)
• pixar.com
• Christopher Finch: The CG Story (2013)
• IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine
• Ratatouille extras (2007)
• Joe Letteri: Computer Animation: Digital Heroes and Computer-Generated Worlds (2013)
• Matt Hurwitz: Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of Planet of the Apes: The Art of the Films (2014)
• denofgeek.com
• artofvfx.com
• The Art of Film magazine
• Paperman and the Future of 2D Animation (2012)
• fastcodesign.com
• 6 Days to Air (2011)
• The Simpsons: Making of (1992)
• Peter Ratner: 3-D Human Modeling and Animation (2003)
• Ron Suppa: Thinking Animation: Bridging the Gap Between 2D and CG (2006)
• the-artifice.com
• Angela Tinwell: The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation (2014)
• Laikwan Pang: Creativity and Its Discontents: China’s Creative Industries and Intellectual Property Rights Offences (2012)