Analysis

Studio Ghibli, Disney, and The Range of Their Brands

Both Disney and Studio Ghibli have very strong brands in their respective home markets. Both are famous for their animated feature films. However only one can be said to be more truly representative of the dramatic range that animation is capable of. That entity is Studio Ghibli, who release all their material under one brand. In contrast, Disney uses multiple brands for their releases, restricting the core one for family-friendly content exclusively. Why does this perplexing situation exist?

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Comparing Eastern and Western Animation: Cost Versus Variety

When it comes to producing animation for television, there are two differing approaches that are used. Go really cheap and make a lot of shows, or make one really good show with lots of actual animation. Neither approach is better than the other in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s hard not to notice that Japan produces a far greater variety of animation than the US, despite being a far smaller market.

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Does This Pixar-Related Kickstarter Project Break the Law?

Kickster_Pixar models

Kickstarter is white-hot right now (that means the customary fall from grace/popularity is just around the corner) and we’re seeing projects, specifically animetion ones, popping up all over the place. While some are to fund entire films or TV series, others are a lot simpler, but no less ambitious. For example this one, which purports to model every Pixar character over a 12 month time frame. Ambitious, yes. Legal? It’s not so clear. Let’s take a look at how this particular project once again highlights the tricky intersection of copyright and trademarks.

It’s Copyright Infringement

What may be abundantly clear is that yes, it features the use of Pixar’s copyrighted characters and designs. For many studios, that’s a no-brainer. The creator is proposing to recreate (as accurately as possible), every major character from all of Pixar’s films without permission.

Furthermore, he is performing exact replication. Even though his own efforts are going into creating the models from scratch, he is essentially creating facsimiles. In order to ‘escape’ the copyright protection afforded Pixar, he would have to make them transformative in some way. Something he does nto appear to be doing.

It’s Trademark Infringement

The copyright aspect is clear enough, but what about the trademarks? Ah, you say, he’s not selling anything or masquerading as Pixar so it doesn’t matter.

Well, actually, it does. While he is not pretending, or even pretending to pretend to be Pixar, trademark law also looks at things like brand dilution. By creating Pixar characters and such, he is, in a way, diluting Pixar’s abiity to sell those characters that also function as trademarks in the same way that Mickey Mouse does for Disney.

On top of that, his project requires funding to begin with; it isn’t being done for charity. The money raised will feed and clothe the creator for a year while he produces the models. That makes it a commercial enterprise and almost certainly puts it under brand dilution.

The final aspect to the trademark case is that many of the characters in Toy Story aren’t even owned by Pixar. The original ones (Buzz, Woody, the martians, etc.) are, but almost every other toy in the film is owned by another corporation who hold the trademarks. Selling models of those toys, even if they are based on a Pixar film, will infringe on those trademarks instead and almost certainly again be covered by dilution.

Escape From Infringement Via Fair Use

Fair use is a clause within US copyright law that shields users from the perils of copyright infringement provided it is for certain, codified functions or situations. An example would be news reporting, or critical commentary.

Another aspect is education:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

So, is this a “commercial” venture? Ostensibly no, but the fact that he will be living off of the monies raised certainly complicates matters. A court would likely find that it is, if not on the basis of the living expenses, but on the basis of him distributing DVDs of his work.

What about the educational aspect though? The whole aim of the project is to illustrate and explain the process of modelling a 3-D CGI character, right? Yes, absolutely! However, does that count as being educational for the purposes of copyright?

On the surface, it is. Delving deeper though, it again gets pretty complicated. It could easily be argued that the creator could simply use his own designs; he’s clearly talented enough. The use of Pixar’s characters is admirable and would be beneficial, but their use does not preclude other possibilities, especially non-copyrighted ones. Lastly, educational purposes generally do not create things for use by others, rather they are instructional. In this instance, the models created will be available for others to use; not use for their own education.

Conclusion

Once again, we see how easily it is to get bogged down in some of the legal concepts that govern animation.

It would be nice if Pixar released their own models, or even instructions on how to make them, but that is not the case. Disney is well known for being overly protective of its creative designs.

Filmmakers like David OReilly are leading the way by making their character rigs available for non-commercial purposes, but until a process of sorts is formalised, Kickstarter projects like this on are on shake legal ground.

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Henry Sellick Calls a Spade a Spade

Too little time today for a full post, but at SIGGRAPH, Henry Sellick made a whole slew of statements and comments about the industry as it stands and what he thinks of it.

Variety has coverage where Sellick discusses his future ventures, and by the sounds of things, his feature is dormant for now at least.

The Hollywood Reporter takes a slightly different take by looking at the entire panel, but quotes Sellick as saying that blockbusters are bad, and that there is too much homogeneity between the blockbuster animated content out there.

Both articles are well worth your time, but yet again, they highlight the fact that we’re in a bubble.

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PBS’ Idea Channel Discusses How Radical BMO’s ‘Gender’ Really Is

BMO burglar

Unusually enough for a blog about animation, you don’t see that many videos posted here. That is let slide today because PBS and their Idea Channel on YouTube have released a rather excellent video:

The topics of animation, gender and the issues surrounding the two are a familiar site on the blog and in Is BMO Expressive of Feminism? host Mike Rugnetta does a great job of analysing both BMO’s character and it’s gender (or lack thereof) and how it relates to the so-called third wave of feminism.

Now this isn’t a feminist blog per se but many of the goals of the movement can be related to and discussed within, the boundaries of socially mandated gender norms and expectations.

BMO, as Rugnetta contends, ignores many of those established norms and, in effect, makes gender a non-issue simply by not having the character defined as one. BMO is both male and female and yet is also neither, being an electronic box of parts that cannot comprehend self-definition of a gender because it simply isn’t possible.

Rugnetta is right that BMO serves to break down the social norms we are used to but not at the expense of the character themselves. BMO is universally loved by all fans of adventure time and serves as one of the few such unifying characters in animation today.

Is BMO representative of third wave feminist ideals and goals? It’s a bit of a stretch to entirely attribute BMO’s character to the notions of biological and social gender identifications. But having said that, the character does illustrate how the concept of gender identification does not need to be something that is forced on individual viewers.

It is ironic that Adventure Time is, overall, heavily geared towards boys and that despite some fantastic, strong female characters, it remains that way. The fact that it includes and is proud of, a character that defies such gender logic is just another aspect to an already super show.

Does BMO represent the future? Rugnetta argues as representative of the third wave of feminism, he/she is. I, on the other hand, would contend that BMO is more of a prototype of sorts as to how such characters could work if and when they become more mainstream and how existing gender norms could be applied in equal measure to a character.

The important lesson to impart from the video and this post is that gender continues to be something that is incredibly dependent on our social upbringing and environment. While it is perfectly fine to self-identify as a particular gender, society continues to impress certain norms and expectations on individuals that are not entirely, well, compatible with the ideal of a free and open society.

While BMO is but one character in an animated TV show, he/she is groundbreaking from the standpoint that such societal pressures are just that and the character’s ignorance of the expectations associated with it, display a positive message for kids that will hopefully take root.

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Why Action Cartoons Are Not On the Verge of Extinction

Yoinked from The Mary Sue
Yoinked from The Mary Sue

Action cartoons have been around since forever, and despite efforts in the 70s to kill them off, they managed to survive and even prosper. Apparently the ‘golden age’ of the action cartoon is now over, at least according to one of the producers of the latest Batman series. Over on Screen Rant, Mitch Watson had this to say:

To be perfectly frank with you, the action genre of television cartoons right now is sort of on the verge of extinction, so I’m really hoping that if people like Young Justice and people liked Green Lantern, that they’re gonna give this show a chance, because quite honestly, if they don’t go for this kind of show… and you know what? If they don’t like it, they don’t like it, but give the show a chance, because we really set out to make something that was gonna appeal to both fans and new people, and to pull back in the Green Lantern and the Young Justice people.

There’s a good bit going on there, but it can basically be split into two parts: action shows are about to disappear, and we had to compromise when it came to our show.

Ignoring the latter aspect (because it refers to his own show), it’s quite a statement to say that action shows are on the verge of “extinction”. Besides being here before, this time around the supposed culprit is purely commercial in nature. Depending on who you talk to, Young Justice and Green Lantern were canned for various reasons, but the common reason given is that it didn’t flog enough merchandise.

Now you could argue that it was a repeat of the Sym-Bionic Titan saga from a few years ago when not enough toys were sold for the simple reason that not enough were produced in the first place. However, that simply isn’t the case with the likes of perennially-popular Batman.

So are action cartoons really dying or is Wilson making an inaccurate (if impassioned) plea for his preferred genre of cartoons?

Honestly, there is little to back up his claim that action cartoons are about to bite the dust. Legend of Korra isn’t even halfway through it’s total run on Nickelodeon and since Disney bought Marvel, there’s been a ton of shows based on their properties too. If you wanted to stretch things a bit, you could say that there is also no shortage of action-packed anime emanating from Japan either.

Action Cartoons Will Never Die

Action cartoons are too important of a genre too disappear. In all likelihood, Watson is aiming his ire at Warner Bros, Turner and parent, Time Warner for their collective failure to get co-ordinated and synergized when it comes to their DC subsidiary and animating their comics.

Outside of the comic bubble, action cartoons continue to flourish and given past experiences, there will always be a demand for it. Where action cartoons could improve, is their inclusion of more female characters, but that’s a topic for another day.

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Does Animation Face the ‘Meltdown’ Predicted By Lucas and Spielberg?

A while back during a Q&A at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, both George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg predicted that the movie business as we know it today is doomed to extinction. Their view is that video on demand will triumph and that the cinema-going experience will become a rare, expensive event on par with football games and Broadway shows. Are they right and what does it mean for animation?

Where Animation Fits Into Their Prediction

Animation is of course, quite expensive, or rather, it can be. While Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Sony and Blue Sky aim high with their films often coming in over $100 million (or $350 million in the case of the first two), they are a natural target for what Lucas and Spielberg predict.

It’s true that animated films have suffered as of late from the kind of tentpole mentality that has infected live action. Massively expensive films supporting long term franchises make good money and with the longevity of animation, you have a match made in heaven.

However, those big budgets rely on audiences coming to see them in droves, and as far as animated films are concerned, it (regrettably) means parents being hauled in by their kids. Which is fine until you end up with a situation like we are facing this year in that we have too many such films crammed into too little summer space. Nobody has managed to truly stumble just yet, but we’re not even halfway done and there’s still plenty more opportunities.

What Could Happen To Animated Films

If the prediction is true, the most logical outcome is either drastically fewer films or (more likely) drastically cheaper ones. We all know that cost is not a function of quality, but how will audiences respond to films that do not cost what they used to?

I’m reminded of A Monster in Paris, a film that was made for surprisingly little and which was exceedingly entertaining. It never received a theatrical release in the US although is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. A comment by someone from GKIDS over on Cartoon Brew stated that the film was a tough sell to theatrical distributors because although it looked more expensive, audiences would somehow connect cost to quality and therefore avoid it.

If animated films were forced to be made for less, would they all suffer a similar fate?

It’s unlikely, but a distinct possibility nonetheless.

Are Spielberg and Lucas Right About The Demise of Movies?

It’s easy to take them at their word, given their experience. That said, both have been responsible for numerous tentpole films over the years (Lucas especially) and while both decry them, it hasn’t stopped them making them.

More so than that, we’ve been here before. Back in the 1950s, television was supposed to be the harbinger of death for the Hollywood studios. Predictions ran that the entire industry would be decimated! What happened? Why nothing of course! TV eventually became the saviour of Hollywood studios thanks to broadcasts and licensing of their films.

Almost every studio managed to survive too, and prosper!

Is history repeating itself? Absolutely! Studios will figure out a way to make to new system work for them, and will carry on much the same as before.

Animation will no doubt adapt as well, and the hope is that we’ll have a greater variety of animated films to choose form too.

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Sexy Disney Princess Warriors And The Limit of Tasteful Fan Art

Stretching the limits of what this blog will cover animation-wise, the topic of today’s post nonetheless commands attention. We’ve all seen what fans are capable of doing to beloved characters for their own amusement. Heck, deviantArt is filled to the brim with established characters contorted into all sorts of different manners; anime-isation is a popular one among others. However, where does the limit of tasteful fan art lie and what harm can it cause? The topic of today’s post straddles that limit and challenges what some would consider acceptable.

Meet the Disney Princess Warriors

disney-warrior-princesses-1

Yes, (individual shots to follow), they are a sight aren’t they? (Thanks a bunch Geekologie!) While there is no denying artist Mike Roshuk’s artistic talents, one must nonetheless consider in what taste his creations lie. Are they classified as fan art? Absolutely; there’s little reason to see any legal conflicts with them. That said, where do they stand on the emotional and scale of good taste?

What They Produce

Disney Warrior Princess-2

There is a ton of blogs devoted to the portrayal of female characters in a diverse range of media (this one is a favourite), but it is video games that seem to be attracting the most attention as of late. If it isn’t the stature of girl gamers within the community, it is the portrayal of female characters in games that garners attention and provokes debate (or rather, harrassment).

While the obvious argument is that a lot of games are created to appeal to males (and rabid, hormone-addled teenage ones at that), that does not excuse the logic that the portrayal of female characters in either subservient or slave-like roles is necessary and even required to be successful.

Video games have been shown to have [relatively] minimal impact on player’s emotions and their ability to separate fiction from reality. There does not appear to be a lot of data regarding the impression that such games can have on their opinions however. If male gamers (and especially impressionable ones at that) are fed a constant stream of content portraying female characters in such roles, then there is the possibility that such views carry over into their opinions of girls and women in the real world.

Where They Subjugate the Characters

Disney Warrior Princess-3

Although this is less of a concern when it comes to animation and animated content (because you usually have to seek out the more depraved stuff relating to those), when the two cross over, we have the issue where characters representing a particular ideal are poisoned by a view of females that is completely the opposite.

The Disney princesses (horrible brand that they are) are a diverse range of strong female characters that have long represented the strength of Disney storytelling. Combining them with what represents the worst of video game storytelling seems to be an odd move for someone attempting to highlight their character strengths.

Why That’s a Concern

Disney Warrior Princess-4

Now obviously that is part of the reason for creating these pieces in the first place; the idea of contrasting character idioms and traits is a common one in the fan community. But what we have here is the use of some of the most well known characters of the last 100 years. It also destroys the characters for the joy of turning them into something that, quite frankly, denegrates them.

The recent Merida hubbub certainly highlighted the concern expressed in many quarters about the overlap that a teenage character like Merida occupies; ostensibly ‘mature’ on the one hand but appealing wholly to kids and tweens who are not.

These ‘warrior’ versions of Disney princesses, while clearly never intended or wilfully aimed at kids, would certainly be seen as being acceptable for teenagers. There is no nudity after all, and they’re certainly no worse than what many teenagers are seeing in video games and elsewhere.

Why They Are Concern for the Disney Princesses

I’m reminded once again of this:

Krisztianna how to draw super chicks

It’s by Krisztianna and highlights how simple elements of a character’s design can influence the character itself. Most fan art retaines a degree of respect for the character and their design. Sure it’s fun to try different styles but a central tenant of fan art is that the core of the character themselves is never compromised; if it is, you’re not really creating fan art any more are you?

It’s why we see so many fan-created original characters out there. Subjugating the actual characters to a ruinous extent is usually frowned upon, but creating one of your own is fair game for whatever you want.

In the case of these fan art creations, the legitimacy of the characters themselves is compromised and instead of something meant to illustrate the strong and forceful nature of the character, we have instead, models wearing artefacts that are merely reminiscent or alluding to something that is far superior.

 I’m curious to hear what YOU think of all this. Do you agree or disagree. Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

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The Disconnect That Leads to Industry Breakdown

Donald_chalkboard

Any industry is a complicated beast and animation is no exception. The skills in demand are constantly changing and nobody really knows where things are heading in that regard. Many still pine for the days when traditional animation was either hand-drawn or stop-motion. Today, CGI comes in a dizzying, vast array of forms and associated skillsets. How these skills are taught is something that has been discussed here before with this blogger advocating a return to apprenticeships in animation as opposed to undergraduate degree programs that teach skills that may be obsolete by the time students graduate. On a recent post on a related topic, commentator johnV posted a comment excerpted below:

I personally feel that the reason there are more CG films than Traditional Animation is because the lack of talent and the colleges that only teach CG animation. Before, the majority of animators were artists. They went to art school, not to an animation school. They knew how to draw, paint, sculpt, and create art. They learned animation from other animators while working in the animation studio. They knew the fundamentals of ART. John Lasseter said it himself, that all animators should know the fundamentals of art.

Today, most animation students don’t bother learning the necessary principles to creating art. Thus, they become button pushers. There’s not enough people who can do Traditional Animation anymore, because it’s not being taught. Animators who want to animate traditionally, have to teach themselves, watch Youtube videos, and read books. But there are no colleges for that anymore. There are a few that will teach a class or two, but not one that will have it as a degree.

And that’s perfectly fine for the colleges. Colleges are nothing more than a business, they use the technology and computer animation aspect to attract new students. They don’t care about the industry or what is the viable form of animation. They care that they fill seats in their class rooms, sell books and supplies, and charge an insane amount of tuition that the students will be paying back for a very long time.

And speaking of business, the major studios love button pushers… they’re easy to replace. Do you think that a computer animator has the pull and power of a traditional animator…. computer animators are a dime a dozen. A traditional animator is hard to come by. They can demand from their employers. So the studio prefers the control over the computer animators.

I’ve broken the original comment up for clarity, but let’s discuss all the very good points raised.

Learning the Art

Animation is grounded in art. It’s where the inspiration comes from and where it’s influence is felt. It is nigh-on impossible to completely appreciate animation if one does not have at least some appreciation or understanding of art in general.

So the question arises: should students be forced to have a solid grounding in art before undertaking a study in animation?

I would hazard that they should, animation can be taught, but appreciation requires coaching of the kind that education is supposed to provide in an ideal scenario. While many artists employed in studio’s today undoubtedly have artistic talent, we must consider those coming behind us as well.

Skillset Supply and Demand

johnV is right about a shortage of colleges not teaching traditional animation, but it comes back to the notion that a bachelors degree is something that affords the holder the ability to produce animation. That isn’t true, and plenty of the best animators managed to get by without any sort of formal qualification when it came to their animation talents.

In a way, we are seeing the flipside of what CGI went through 25 years ago. Back then, if you wanted to learn CG animation, you had to suss out the information for yourself; hardly anyone was going to teach it in a formal setting aside from a computer science degree.

Do we strictly need a traditional animation degree? Maybe not, but it is the lack of one that indicates how the skill faces a decline as old masters retire and their skills are lost to the ether.

College as A Business

Is college a business? Undoubtedly (at least in the US), it is, and we’re talking about more than the “for profit” colleges of the kind highlighted on Cartoon Brew a while back. Therein lies the disconnect between the education and the industry. Cathal Gaffney of Brown Bag Films has long bemoaned the skills taught by Irish animation programmes that are out of date compared to the ones he needs for the studio. The result is that he must source (more expensive) animators from abroad.

Do universities and colleges strictly care about whether or not what they teach matches what the industry needs? Well, why should they? Employment after graduation is the student’s concern, right? Whose to blame if they learned the wrong skills. Again, it comes back to schools teaching “animation”, a skill that, theoretically, should be universally applicable. Software is software after all and it can be learned or taught separate from the academic program.

We have long ago lost the close connection between studios and schools wherein there was co-ordination and cross-pollination between employees and students. CalArts is the utopian example, but others exist too. Today, employees, as disposable as they are, do not have the long-term relationship with studios that encouraged the notion of investing in oneself for the betterment of the whole. This leads to employees (to the delight of employers) acquiring a set of narrowly defined skills and relying upon them. Not only does this make them more disposable, it also tends to make them cheaper since they now compete against each other rather than everyone. Which leads us to…

Skillset Supply and Demand

Even a basic course in economics can highlight just what it is about supply and demand that vexes most people. They know that as supply increases, the price you have to pay for something decreases, but what if the supply is people, and the price paid is your salary?

In a purely economical situation, your salary will fall relative to the increase in demand. Any time salaries for animators falls, it isn’t so much because studios are trying to squeeze the extra buck (they are), but they can also get away with it because they can still find the labour they require.

CG animators are currently in demand, but there are also a lot of them. As johnV points out, they’re a dime a dozen, and unless you have something over and above what everyone else has, you’re expendable!

That said….a traditional animator may have a large skillset but not be in high demand. How much can they earn? Well, while price goes up with decreasing supply, it can also go down with decreasing supply if demand similarly drops. A traditional animator can hope to earn near nothing if there is no demand for their skills.

Where This Leads to Industry Breakdown

Where all the points discussed in this post tie together is that without sufficient co-ordination of skills, the industry from an employment standpoint starts to break down. We see studios close, artists laid off and production shifted elsewhere.

Colleges continually push students without any consideration for actual demand, that pushes salaries for existing employees down thanks to a larger than necessary supply of talent. We won’t even mention what unpaid internships do for the industry as a whole, but you get the picture.

On the other end, studios continually alter the skillsets they require leaving vast swathes of artists to either get with the program or get out altogether.

In the end, what results is an industry that doesn’t know what it needs and is incapable or producing it when it does.

The end result is breakdown.

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The Real Reason Why 2D Animation Isn’t “Viable”

Ernest & Celestine
Ernest & Celestine

The ‘death’ of 2D/traditional animation has been making the rounds ever since Tron appeared 30 years ago. Traditionalists were reluctant to work on it then because they felt it was the dark horse in the form of a computer coming to take their jobs. Of course that wasn’t really the case, and even with all the technology we have today, artists are still employed in vast numbers to make static artifacts move on a screen. On a more contemporary note, is the rumour that such old-school animation isn’t “viable” anymore in an era where CGI rules over all. That’s not true, and in this post, we’ll explore exactly why that is.

What it Means to Be ‘Viable’

When we say a particular technique isn’t ‘viable’, what do we really mean? Right now it seems like we want it to mean that it is too old, out of touch and likely to fail at the box office. The Princess and the Frog is widely scapegoated for being the straw that broke the camels back so to speak and any attempt at a follow up is as good as flogging a dead horse.

But enough of the animal metaphors. Viability means, as far as large, Hollywood-based, subsidiaries-of-conglomerates are concerned means making money, and a lot of it.

Traditional animation is labour-intensive, time consuming and (at least for large films) completely moribund in terms of style thanks to the stranglehold that Disney has had for many decades. To say that audiences have been overly attuned to their house style is to admit that every imitator  coming behind them knew as much too.

Why 2D Only Appears to Be Nonviable

Large studios, whether you want them to or not, will always, always seek out the least risky option. It’s why we had the rash of musicals in the 90s and it’s why we see nothing but CGI now.

CGI sells stuff, and in huge amounts. It matters not whether the style is ubiquitous or headed for a collapse. It only matters that as of right this very minute (June 2013), a CGI film that is halfway-competent will make money.

Traditional animation hasn’t produced a proven winner since, oh, 2007? Five years ago when The Simpsons movie came out? Has there been traditionally animated features in the meantime? Of course, but nothing on the scale that those of us of a certain age were accustomed to.

The lack of such a large scale, traditionally made success story does much to convince executives that the technique remains a risky bet.

The truth is very different of course. The last crop of bug-budget 2D/traditionally animated films that came from the Hollywood animation studios were, well, not that great. By the early 2000s the Disney renaisssance was done and duster, Warner Bros. shuttered their feature film division and Shrek was just around the corner for DWA.

The key takeaway is that recent history could have been quite different had the traditional films that were released been financially successful. Hindsight is always 20-20, but consider if there had been a Pixar flop prior to 2000 or even 2005. Would we have seen the sheer volume of CGI features we do today? Nope, we sure would not.

When It Will Rise Again

Traditional animation is currently what could be considered dormant in the US. It thrives overseas in Europe and Japan however, indicating that its popularity as a storytelling medium has not been affected at all.

When will we see a rise in traditional output? It is hard to predict, but suffice to say, we will see a decline in CGI features first. Secondly, and this should be obvious to anyone, traditional animation can have a ‘timeless’ look that CGI films have yet to be able to match. They date quickly and it’s amazing that studios have yet to realise that all the money they continue to make from traditional films will not be repeated with CGI features.

A conservative estimate for the sake of it: the latter half of this decade at the earliest.

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Doing the Math On Celebrity Voice Acting

There is absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever why this man was ever let near an animated film.
There is absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever why this man was ever let near an animated film.

It’s a topic that strikes a nerve within the animation business, but celebrity voice acting (in features and TV) has become ubiquitous over the last 25 years. Today, practically all features from the larger studios rely upon celebrity voice talent regardless of whether or not the performer is right for the role. Aside from that though, is their cost, which is what we’re taking a look at today and why it’s detrimental to them.

The Base Cost of Celebrity Voice Acting

For starters, there’s the salaries. Not all will make a killing, but certainly the ‘millions’ term is bandied about often enough when it comes to celebrities that it makes as good a starting point as any.

Yes, millions of dollars is a lot of money, especially for one person and especially when there is often a full cast of them in a single film. All those extra millions add up once you get larger stars involved. Chris Rock may get one million for Madagascar, but Cameron Diaz purportedly got around $10 million for one of the Shreks.

Where Their Cost Multiplies

Say we have one or two big stars and, oh, five lesser known ones. The two at the top earn $10 million each and the lesser ones earn a million. There’s $25million right there; a quarter of the cost of a $100 million film!

Now, we have to double that to cover marketing costs so a $100 million film has to pull in at least $200 million just to break even. Where do the celebrity voices fit into that? Well, they were a quarter before and they’re just about a quarter now as well. So your $25 million voice actors are actually costing $50 million before you even make a cent.

Ah, but we’re not done yet. After all, box office grosses are no reflection on revenues since cinema chains keep a significant portion (up to half). Even at a conservative estimate (25%), that’s another $6.25 million that celebrity voice actors have cost the production.

Grand total: $56.25 million for seven voices before even $1 in profit is made and we haven’t even touched on those stars that can get gross points; you can add many millions for those if the film is successful.

What That Means For the Production

You see how easily celebrity voices can get out of hand? Is Eddie Murphy voicing the donkey in Shrek and getting $10 million really going to bring in $22.5 million in extra ticket sales?

If you’re making a film, wouldn’t you much rather put that $25 million into the animation itself? Or better yet, save the money and realise it as profit?

Regular readers of this blog will know where I would put it (hint: employment is a profitable investment), the question is: why do studios insist that major non-professional voice actors are a necessity? Remember, it was Robin Williams performance that made is appearance in Aladdin so successful; not the fact that it was Robin Williams doing the voice.

Today, (and we’ll defer from naming names right now) it seems that studios attempt to grab as many celebrities as possible and throw their names on the poster without thought to their talents. Sure Beyonce is a great singer, but does that make her a great voice actress? The trailer for recently-released Epic suggests not in an avoid-at-all-costs kind of way.

Animated films will continue to suffer the blight of celebrity voice acting until there is a bit of a shake up of the business. It’s coming at some point to be sure, but hopefully it puts things right.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, here’s professional Marice LaMarche at work:

Maurice LaMarche in full flow at a recording session
Maurice LaMarche in full flow at a recording session

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