Essay on Future of 2D Animation

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In a modern world where everything is now digital, what does this mean for the future of 2D animation? This essay discusses the 2d vs 3d animation differences and examines the widely debated question, ‘Is traditional animation a dying art form?’.

The History of 2D Animation

From ‘Despicable Me’ to ‘Frozen’ and ‘Finding Dory’, the bulk of contemporary animated films are created using CGI or computer-generated imagery. This is a stark difference from the popular animated films throughout 20th century which are mainly created using traditional 2D animation. In a modern world where everything is now digital, what does this mean for the future of 2D animation? Although the use of this medium isn’t as evident in the recent feature films, it hasn’t completely been abandoned. The origins of traditional animation go all the way back to the early 19th century a principle known as the persistence of vision was determined in order to explain the illusion of movement. Early animation devices were created with this principle in mind, including plateaus phenakistoscope in 1832 and Horner’s zoetrope in 1834. Around the late 1870s, Reynaud invented a device known as the praxis kinescope which allowed animations to be projected in front of large audiences. Stop-motion animation was introduced in the early 1900s, as a result of new developments in photography. In 1914 the process of cel animation was patented by Earl Hurd and was widely used throughout the mid-1900s. This allowed for more detailed backgrounds and made the process of animation more efficient. Walt Disney’s ‘Bambi’: The Magic Behind the Masterpiece (video 1997): “Disney studios ink and paint department created all their own paints, for ‘Bambi’ nearly 250,000 cells were drawn and painted. When you combine that figure with the animation drawings, concept art, layouts, character designs and backgrounds. Over a million drawings went into making a little fawn come to life”.

The Evolution of 3D Animation

Meanwhile, in the early 1960s, 3D computer animation emerged. John Whitney was a major contributor to its development with his creation of motion graphics and animated title sequences. In 1972, Ed Catmull and Fred Park were the first to used 3D wireframe imagery with the creation of an animated hand. Over the decade’s computers became more capable and started to become ever more useful in animated pictures. One of the first Disney movies to use CG was 1986 ‘The Great Mouse Detective’, in the clocktower scene where the girls were animated on computers. During this time, all the animations that were made still had to be transferred onto cells and painted. Around this time, Pixar partner with Disney to produce the computer animation production system also known as CAPs. The animation was still done on pencil and paper but instead of having to put that animation on transparent cells and painting by hand, now they were scanned into a computer and digitally painted thus significantly decreasing the cost of the process. The last Disney movie to use hand-painted cells was ‘The Little Mermaid’ in 1989. Starting with the rescuers down under, a year it was all CAPs. Because of CAPs a lot more was able to be done when it came to computer effects as such Disney used CG a lot more throughout the years, you can see it being used in, be our guest sequence in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (1991). The ballroom scene was entirely rendered on computers with only belle and the beast being hand-drawn. ‘The Lion King’ (1994) used CG to simulate the movements of a real herd of wildebeest. ‘Pocahontas’ (1995) used CG for animating grandmother willow Mulan (1998), used it for the scene where the hunter army attacked. ‘Tarzan’ (1999) has the entire jungle rendered on computers. Although these movies did have parts of them animated or rendered on computers, it’s still was very much traditional animation. All the characters were drawn by hand with a pencil and paper, and just like ‘Snow White’ back in 1937. However, when in 1995 Pixar produced ‘Toy Story’. Their first feature-length animated film and the first film to be animated entirely on computers, was both critical and financial success (100% on Rotten Tomatoes and 373.6 million at the box office), changing animation for the future.

In 2001, the former Disney animator, Katzenberg, with his own studio, DreamWorks animation, released ‘Shrek’ with great success, enough success to obtain the academy award for Best Animated Film. In 2004, they released ‘Shrek 2’, which became the highest-grossing film of that year and the highest-grossing animated movie of all time until 2009, where ‘Toy Story 3’ overtook it. At this time Disney started to have more trouble when it came to animated movies. Starting with the disappointing performance of ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’ (budget 100 million, box office 169.3 million), came a couple of more box office disappointments and straight-up failures. These included ‘Atlantis’, ‘The Lost Empire’, ‘Treasure Planet’ and ‘Home on the Range’. Then in 2005, they released ‘Chicken Little’. Disney’s first fully computer-animated film and the critics weren’t too pleased with it, but it was pretty successful and managed to put Disney back on its own two feet, giving us a string of completely computer-animated films, such as ‘Meet the Robinsons’ and ‘Bolt’, but then Disney decided to return to its roots. They started developing ‘The Princess and the Frog’ (2009), and were finally returning to hand-drawn animation. Not only that but it was a musical, had a prince and a princess and was based on a fairy tale. Some things have changed since the 90s such as CAPs becoming obsolete making the studio switch to toon boom harmony (animation software). While the character animation was done on paper the backgrounds and other effects were drawn directly onto tablets. When it was released, it was received well, with 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and 267 million at the box office. But now, it’s been over 8 years since, we got a 2D animated movie, what happened?

Many people say that traditional 2D animation stopped being used because there’s a lot more expensive than 3D, although this seems like a good point, a little research will show that it really isn’t the case. Compared the budgets from the 90s to today’s released movies, they lower. Using a more recent example, ‘The Princess and the Frog’ (2009) cost around 105 million to make. While ‘Tangled’ released a year later cost 260 million to make and it is still the most expensive animated film to date. Not counting ‘Winnie the Pooh’, every animated movie after it also had a higher budget so, really what happened? I think at this point; computer animated movies just became the bigger successes. Disney’s ‘Tangled’ released the following year took greater commercial success than ‘The Princess and the Frog’ (591.8 million). ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ released in 2012 and made more money as well (471.2 million). ‘Frozen’ (2013) came out the year after that and it is still as of the year 2018 the highest-grossing animated movie of all time (1.287 billion) and ‘Zootopia’ (2016) the current sixth highest-grossing animated movie of all time. That’s also the problem of very little animators left at Disney being trained in the traditional animation, and it’s not just Disney. We can see that computer animation is the current dominated form of animation for American theatres.

What Made 3D Animation So Popular?

Back when 3D animation began, the ability to make a character move from one pose to the next was essentially automatic, whereas with 2D animation each frame had to be made individually, which was an extremely slow process. 2D animation was also considered to be very limited in what it could do in terms of realism, 3D animation can go into much more detail than 2D can depicting shadows, applying textures and placing characters into a realistic virtual space. Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks animation, said: “Audiences’ kids do find a stronger connection today with the CGI characters. It has a dimensionality to it that actually makes the characters and the worlds themselves richer and it makes it a more immersive experience”. There’s only so much one can do with 2D animation with the invention of 3D animation a whole new row of possibilities opened which built a lot of excitement. The question of whether 2D animation is dying is a widely discussed topic. Disney’s last 2D animated film was ‘Winnie the Pooh’ in 2011. Following its release, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the company had no future to make any more hand-drawn animated features. Why the switch? Production studios want to create a film that will make them the most money and will always choose the least risky option. Disney released the 2D animated feature, home on the range in 2004, at the same time Pixar released the computer-animated feature ‘The Incredibles’. ‘The Incredibles’, however, happened to achieve much more success. Pixar’s ‘Up’, a CGI animation, and Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog’, a 2D animation, were released in the same year and both had great box office numbers and critical praise. However, the box office numbers and critical praise for up were slightly better.

Is 2D Being Eaten by 3D?

No, it is not. 2D has different strengths to 3D. It is a much more flexible and expressive medium with a shorter production pipeline (meaning the animation needs to be passed through fewer people before it is shown). Even if 3D did somehow completely eat 2D animation, core elements of 3d animation require 2D design such as 2D storyboarding, 2D animatics, character design, set design, textures, etc. The evidence for 2D animation is alive and well in television is clear. Charles Kenny, an amazing blog writer (Animationanomaly.com), said: “Switch on any TV station with animation and 2D is more than likely what you’ll find. Any Sunday on Fox we’ll have the traditional look that was established with ‘Simpsons’ and continues all the way through to the forthcoming ‘Borderlands’. Both Cartoon Network and Disney have stayed with 2D for their biggest shows and even Nickelodeon, which is dabbled with 3D CGI has come back around for 2D for hits like ‘The Legend of Korra’. Comedy Central even increased their animated presence with the revival of ‘Futurama’ and original show ‘Brickleberry’. While many are no longer drawn on paper and cells, they are still drawn by hand to a greater extent than 3D CGI or flash”. So, 2D cannot completely die without the complete extinction of 3D. Look behind the scenes of Pixar and see how much 2D artwork they pimp out for a 3D feature films. 2D animation remains an extremely effective way to effectively convey stories and complex ideas to other people. The possibilities with 2D animation are almost limitless. You can make anything visually with 2D animation. If you can imagine it, it can be done. That’s the kind of freedom you don’t get with other animation mediums or film mediums. It would be very strange to see a young medium with so much potential dies out so early, I just can’t see it happening.

Is 2D Animation Underperforming?

Traditional animation still thrives throughout Europe with award-winning films such as ‘A Cat in Paris’, ‘The Illusionist’, and ‘Song of the Sea’. Additionally, the medium dominates TV and the web. Animated shows such as ‘Family Guy’, ‘The Simpsons’ and the regular show among many others continue to use traditional animation. Hybrid animation styles are beginning to appear as well. In 2009, Disney produced the short film ‘Paperman’, which combined both 2D and CGI. 2D animation is far from a dying art form. From television shows to web series to gifts to future films around the world 2D animation is still present in numerous different areas. John Lasseter, CEO of Pixar Animation Studios said: “I love the medium of hand-drawn animation. I love it. I think it’s fantastic and I never quite understood why animation studios we’re deciding that people, audiences weren’t interested in watching hand-drawn animation anymore. Never in the history of cinema has a movie been entertaining to an audience because of the technology, it is what you do with the technology it’s what you do with a medium it’s so special”. The success of Pixar films doesn’t come from the use of computer animation, rather the films are popular due to their captivating stories and relatable characters. For example, Woody from ‘Toy Story’. With an engaging story, charming characters and emotional appeal animation we’ll be able to find success and beloved by many no matter the technique.

Is 2D Animation Dying?

My argument is that 2D animation is not dying, it’s changing. People are fixated on the feature film industry when the film industry might not actually be the future of animation as a medium. In the future, we could see 2D animation move further into short films, commercials, TV shows, phone apps, music videos, tiny video formats such as vines etc. Also, it is very likely that we’ll see a democratization of animation in its creation, distribution, and consumption. We`re seeing this more and more with streaming platforms on the Internet. We’re seeing hardware and software widely available to the public at very affordable prices and films are being distributed completely by the Internet and it removed this bureaucracy that was in place in the feature film industry. Not only that, but we’re seeing the animation in 2D take center stage on new streaming websites such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Although YouTube’s algorithms seriously stifle animated content on the Internet, there are cases of highly successful animated series on YouTube, such as ‘Simon’s Cat’. We’re also seeing crowdfunding websites provide animators with the capital that they need to continue creating content. Who knows where this will go in the future maybe crowdfunding will play more of a role or maybe it’s a fad which will just die out, but for now websites like Patreon are providing animators with enough money to make animation their full-time career and this is independent of production companies (or studios). If we look at the animation industry from a perspective of supply and demand, the animation industry will only remain as an industry in 2D, that is if it meets the demands of businesses and people. As people in the animation industry, we need to be looking out for new ways to innovate and ways to occupy new video sharing platforms. Animation remains an extremely effective method of communication and animation can entertain in a similar way that films entertain but, in my opinion, it has less of the restrictions that conventional film does. The main downfalls, of course, are that animation is a costly method of film production and there is a public perception of animation which we`d rather not have. It will be pleasing to see more people to be open to watching and consuming animation. The animation industry is not staying the same, we need to change with the times or become useless and that really goes for any industry that you see today. In order to maximize your chances, you must stay ahead of the curve and to some extent give people something that they will get value out of.

What Are My Thoughts?

Well, like many people I prefer traditional hand-drawn 2D animation. The reason why is that I just find that it looks much more appealing. In 2D I really feel like I am seeing an artist’s work pop into life. It’s weird to say but to me, traditional is animation it is the very definition of animation. It is what I think of when I hear the word ‘cartoon’. I’m not saying that 3D is not animation, because it is, but I just find a movie like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ represents what a cartoon is more than a movie like ‘Tangle’. I love ‘Tangled’, but I don’t want to be like one of those people who dismisses computer animation calling lazy or unimpressive, because it’s not. Looking at ‘Tangled’ again the hair physics in that movie are really an amazing achievement and the results show. That really works great in computer animation, making the hair look and move realistic. Looking at the recent movie ‘Moana’, the water animation is truly top-notch. The look of the hair, when its wet, it’s even distracting to me. I also don’t like it when people say that 3D can look good when it’s done well, because of that assumes that traditional animation always looks good, but look at ‘The Flintstones’ (1960-1966), the animation there is terrible. A lot of TV cartoons traditionally done from the 60s to 80s don’t look all too good actually, and bad 3D can look lazy and awful like ‘Food Fight’ (2012). but so can bad 2D. I just prefer traditional animation, and I don’t think that it can be truly replaced. ‘Paperman’, the short film, had success and the animation looks good, but the technology required to make a feature film like it’s so extensive, that it makes you wonder why not just make a 2D movie instead of a 3D movie to emulate one.

My conclusion is that 2D animation industry will probably not die for a long time because it’s such a great medium and you must take into consideration that 2D animation has been always relatively small compared to live-action film, so it’s never been a huge medium. Even in the time of Disney, we’re talking a handful of studios reaching mainstream success. So, it’s my belief that we’re in a golden age of animation right now, so I’m optimistic of where it goes but we need to stay alert to what’s happening around us.

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