Hi Alex, another great post! Here are some slightly disconnected thoughts spurred on from your post
- When it comes to visual effects and the definition of animation, here's a thought: I think it's significant that, say unlike a Pixar cartoon, a CG animal in a live action movie is intended to be integrated in with the footage, and not draw attention to itself. It's made using computer animation techniques, but it is not caricatured or significantly exaggerated.
So is it possible to see the definition of animation as not just about the technique and process, but also about the aesthetic end result, how the art ultimate 'reads'? Despite the fact that many high profile blockbusters have many animated elements to them, no one thinks about Marvel movies as being live-action animation hybrids, the way would say, think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as one. They both use a mixture of live action and animated elements, but Roger Rabbit is a movie where principle characters are literally cartoons.
In that sense, could The Lion King remake be a live-action movie from an aesthetic reading, but an animated film from a production/technique point of view? (the same way a tomato is a botanical fruit but a culinary vegetable) I understand that this could be contentious, and my point is absolutely not to undermine the under-appreciated art of animation artists working in effects.
- It is insane to me that the Oscars rejected Apollo 10 1/2 because it was rotoscoped. Especially when you remember that Loving Vincent was a nominee at the 90th Academy Awards.
- That book by Takahata sounds fascinating, even though I'm a little bit unconvinced about the premise. This makes me think about the connections people draw about comparing scrolls to manga. However that's another conversation entirely, and warrants multiple books worth of discourse.
This might be a stupid and naive question, but I'll ask it anyway: Is translating the written works of Takahata something you've considered pursuing? I have no idea what that journey would look like, (and also which books to translate, how long it would take, actually convincing a publisher that people would want to read non-fiction from the less famous Ghibli co-founder) Still, if you ever do, I'd buy that translation day one.
Hi Zach—thanks for reading and for taking the time to write such a considered response. Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew made a similar point responding to this article elsewhere: there's a growing divergence between how animation is made and how it's perceived. Though he was mostly talking about the reverse, when something (like a real-time avatar) is generally perceived as animation despite not being made through a typical animation process. Again, there's no one to arbitrate here: the debate is what matters. (But I'd argue that Disney don't seem interested in debate so much as cynical obfuscation.)
I'd love to translate Takahata's writings. They're a goldmine. Same with Toshio Suzuki's books, only one of which has come out in English. But you've put your finger on the issue, which is finding a publisher who'll take them (and pay enough to make the work viable). It's encouraging to know you'd be interested in reading, though!
Just a stray comment on this fascinating conversation -- Thoughts While Making Movies and its sequel (the original Starting Point and Turning Point!) are at the top of our list for books we want to see in English. If you ever need backup in selling a publisher on that idea, we'd be happy to help however we can.
Thank you for the article, I enjoyed the thoughtful exploration of animation.
I have a friend who is a conductor, and he has talked about how music only really exists when it is being performed or played, that the sheet music is not the music, it's just symbols to describe the music.
Do you think this applies to animation too? A peice of animation is not the frames or pages in a flip book, or paint on a wall, but the experience of them being shown one after another in quick succession.
This leads me to another hazey edge of the definition. If you play a film back at a slower and slower frame rate, does it at some point stop being animation?
Thanks again, just thought I'd throw my thoughts on the pile.
Thanks in turn for your thoughtful comment! Funny you mention "playing": in an early draft of this post, I'd written that projection is like an instrument being played. Then I took it out, thinking I didn't want to over-complicate the analogy (projection is also more mechanical than playing an instrument). But what you say strikes a chord with me.
Your question about slowing frame rates is fascinating, too. I was thinking about this recently, while rewatching Robert Breer's "Fuji", which provokes us by actually slowing then upping its frame rate. There may not be a clear answer, but it's nice to know people like him are wondering the same thing.
Alex, this is one beautiful collection of thoughtful insights into a medium/genre/obsession that kicks my ticker into unbounded joy whenever I embrace it. There are a multitude of inspirational participants in the field who are so generous with their experience and boundless knowledge while creating visual magic, one frame at a time. I am so humbled to see the Venn diagram of my life occasionally intersect with their circles. Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks for the kind words, Jim. Yeah, the way these circles ripple outward, so that the whole thing becomes hard to summarise with a single definition, is what makes animation such a joy to work in.
I remember a runner - a RUNNER! - at a company I worked for back in the day explaining to someone as he showed them around the studio while we animated that “this is where the animators “manipulate” the drawings” - the definition struck me at the time, coming as it did from someone who wasn’t an animator & had no intention of becoming one, as a case of an outsider’s perspective.
Historically in cinema definitions have often had a commercial dimension, to distinguish a technique or process from another - the trend was at its height throughout the 50’s and into the 80’s after which it no longer held any value.
Harryhausen’s “Dynamation” is an example and he himself described his work as “kinetic sculpture” to emphasise his rigorous and serious approach to what he considered was an art form, not some novelty.
As regards live action - images nowadays are “graded” deliberately to infuse a film with a mood depending upon genre so they effectively become divorced from reality, often in very subtle ways thanks to digital manipulation.
Lastly, if anyone is going to challenge Del Toro re his often and tediously repeated pronouncement, it’s going to be me…lol
Your runner wasn't Norman McLaren, by any chance?! Thanks as ever for reading, Ravi. And you're right that artifice is present in live-action images, too.
Gravity is another relevant example of a film that really blurs that line. It won the Oscar for Best Cinematography despite (arguably) not having much cinematography in the traditional sense of that word.
Hi Alex, another great post! Here are some slightly disconnected thoughts spurred on from your post
- When it comes to visual effects and the definition of animation, here's a thought: I think it's significant that, say unlike a Pixar cartoon, a CG animal in a live action movie is intended to be integrated in with the footage, and not draw attention to itself. It's made using computer animation techniques, but it is not caricatured or significantly exaggerated.
So is it possible to see the definition of animation as not just about the technique and process, but also about the aesthetic end result, how the art ultimate 'reads'? Despite the fact that many high profile blockbusters have many animated elements to them, no one thinks about Marvel movies as being live-action animation hybrids, the way would say, think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as one. They both use a mixture of live action and animated elements, but Roger Rabbit is a movie where principle characters are literally cartoons.
In that sense, could The Lion King remake be a live-action movie from an aesthetic reading, but an animated film from a production/technique point of view? (the same way a tomato is a botanical fruit but a culinary vegetable) I understand that this could be contentious, and my point is absolutely not to undermine the under-appreciated art of animation artists working in effects.
- It is insane to me that the Oscars rejected Apollo 10 1/2 because it was rotoscoped. Especially when you remember that Loving Vincent was a nominee at the 90th Academy Awards.
- That book by Takahata sounds fascinating, even though I'm a little bit unconvinced about the premise. This makes me think about the connections people draw about comparing scrolls to manga. However that's another conversation entirely, and warrants multiple books worth of discourse.
This might be a stupid and naive question, but I'll ask it anyway: Is translating the written works of Takahata something you've considered pursuing? I have no idea what that journey would look like, (and also which books to translate, how long it would take, actually convincing a publisher that people would want to read non-fiction from the less famous Ghibli co-founder) Still, if you ever do, I'd buy that translation day one.
Hi Zach—thanks for reading and for taking the time to write such a considered response. Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew made a similar point responding to this article elsewhere: there's a growing divergence between how animation is made and how it's perceived. Though he was mostly talking about the reverse, when something (like a real-time avatar) is generally perceived as animation despite not being made through a typical animation process. Again, there's no one to arbitrate here: the debate is what matters. (But I'd argue that Disney don't seem interested in debate so much as cynical obfuscation.)
I'd love to translate Takahata's writings. They're a goldmine. Same with Toshio Suzuki's books, only one of which has come out in English. But you've put your finger on the issue, which is finding a publisher who'll take them (and pay enough to make the work viable). It's encouraging to know you'd be interested in reading, though!
Just a stray comment on this fascinating conversation -- Thoughts While Making Movies and its sequel (the original Starting Point and Turning Point!) are at the top of our list for books we want to see in English. If you ever need backup in selling a publisher on that idea, we'd be happy to help however we can.
That's very kind of you! I'll bear that in mind. It's heartening to hear that people are keen for it.
Thank you for the article, I enjoyed the thoughtful exploration of animation.
I have a friend who is a conductor, and he has talked about how music only really exists when it is being performed or played, that the sheet music is not the music, it's just symbols to describe the music.
Do you think this applies to animation too? A peice of animation is not the frames or pages in a flip book, or paint on a wall, but the experience of them being shown one after another in quick succession.
This leads me to another hazey edge of the definition. If you play a film back at a slower and slower frame rate, does it at some point stop being animation?
Thanks again, just thought I'd throw my thoughts on the pile.
Thanks in turn for your thoughtful comment! Funny you mention "playing": in an early draft of this post, I'd written that projection is like an instrument being played. Then I took it out, thinking I didn't want to over-complicate the analogy (projection is also more mechanical than playing an instrument). But what you say strikes a chord with me.
Your question about slowing frame rates is fascinating, too. I was thinking about this recently, while rewatching Robert Breer's "Fuji", which provokes us by actually slowing then upping its frame rate. There may not be a clear answer, but it's nice to know people like him are wondering the same thing.
Alex, this is one beautiful collection of thoughtful insights into a medium/genre/obsession that kicks my ticker into unbounded joy whenever I embrace it. There are a multitude of inspirational participants in the field who are so generous with their experience and boundless knowledge while creating visual magic, one frame at a time. I am so humbled to see the Venn diagram of my life occasionally intersect with their circles. Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks for the kind words, Jim. Yeah, the way these circles ripple outward, so that the whole thing becomes hard to summarise with a single definition, is what makes animation such a joy to work in.
I remember a runner - a RUNNER! - at a company I worked for back in the day explaining to someone as he showed them around the studio while we animated that “this is where the animators “manipulate” the drawings” - the definition struck me at the time, coming as it did from someone who wasn’t an animator & had no intention of becoming one, as a case of an outsider’s perspective.
Historically in cinema definitions have often had a commercial dimension, to distinguish a technique or process from another - the trend was at its height throughout the 50’s and into the 80’s after which it no longer held any value.
Harryhausen’s “Dynamation” is an example and he himself described his work as “kinetic sculpture” to emphasise his rigorous and serious approach to what he considered was an art form, not some novelty.
As regards live action - images nowadays are “graded” deliberately to infuse a film with a mood depending upon genre so they effectively become divorced from reality, often in very subtle ways thanks to digital manipulation.
Lastly, if anyone is going to challenge Del Toro re his often and tediously repeated pronouncement, it’s going to be me…lol
Your runner wasn't Norman McLaren, by any chance?! Thanks as ever for reading, Ravi. And you're right that artifice is present in live-action images, too.
I loved reading this.
Thanks for reading Jason!
I'm going to remember and link to this piece the next time someone wants to debate what "anime" is lol
Excellent as always!
Thanks for reading!
Gravity is another relevant example of a film that really blurs that line. It won the Oscar for Best Cinematography despite (arguably) not having much cinematography in the traditional sense of that word.