Animation

10 More Important Moments in Animation History

8 Comments / Animation /

Over on Neatorma today, it a list of ten landmark moment in animation history. I can’t disagree with any of them, but I could not help but wonder whether there were more that are just as significant but not mentioned in the list. As it turns out, there is. Here are 10 more important moments in animation history

Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs

As far as landmark moments go, this is the biggie. Not only was it the first feature length animated film, it also had numerous technical achievements, became the highest grossing film up until that point and legitimized animation as a serious form of entertainment and art. Suffice to say, it is still a magnificent film almost 80 years later and the fact that it is should be proof enough that it was a significant moment in animation history.

Hanna-Barbera Move To TV

The venerable MGM duo of William Hanna and Joe Barbera suddenly found themselves out on the ear in the early 1950s and through near desperation were forced to consider TV as a potential outlet for their creativity. Overcoming many obstacles including severe time and budget constraints, they managed to create a successful studio that made animation efficiently enough for the small screen. Needless to say that animated TV landscape could be very different today if Hanna-Barbera had not succeeded or even tried. True, UPA may have been the first, but H-B made it their bread and butter and made a rather decent living from it for many decades. (Obligatory link to Yowp, your definitive online repository for early Hanna-Barbera information)

ACT

As much of an influence as Hanna-Barbera had on televised animation, Massachusetts housewife Peggy Charren had an even greater one. Under the guise of the Action for Children’s Television organisation, she successfully eliminated many of the staple concepts of animated TV shows; namely cartoon violence and slapstick. In conjunction with downsized budgets in the 1970s, animated TV fare changed from the likes of Johnny Quest to the likes of Scooby Doo. Such changes were not necessarily the worst that the technique endured in that decade, but they did create a malaise in animated TV for much of the 70s and 80s that is still etched in many memories.

TRON

TRON was Disney’s first attempt at a full CGI-rendered feature film. Although it wasn’t as critically acclaimed as Star Wars, it did usher in the modern era of CGI animation that unfortunately remained dormant within Hollywood for over a decade. It also proved to Disney that computers could play a role in animation production, and through a long and complicated road, would eventually lead to CAPS, Disney’s computerized colouring system.

Cable TV

As mentioned above, ACT had a rather negative impact on TV animation. Thankfully, cable TV had just the opposite effect. Although both the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon were created in the early 1980s, it was not until the very early 90s that the power of the platform was realised. The original Nicktoons (Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy) were a blast of fresh air in the otherwise staid and predictable world of kids cartoons. Being creator-driven, they emphasised content and characters over brands and toys. Being so much funnier than the competition meant that Nickelodeon ran laps around competing broadcast networks and sold many millions of pieces of merchandise as a result. Although the concept has been in danger at times, the quality that creator-driven shows provide continues to set the bar for animated kids shows. Just look at the current crop (Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and SpongeBob) and how well they are doing.

The Simpsons

Yes, The Flintstones may have been the first, but The Simpsons took it all the way to eleven. Still limping along after 24 years, this show utterly changed the face of both animated television and television itself. Showing up the banality of contemporary shows, the Simpsons set the comedic and quality bar so high, it cannot reach it itself any more. Not only that, the Simpsons dragged animation back into the mainstream consciousness of the world and led directly to many imitators, stablemates (Futurama, Family Guy, King of the Hill) and erstwhile ‘mature’ shows (Adult Swim, Archer, etc.) Although it doesn’t shine nearly as bright as it used to, the Simpsons has and will be noted in the history books as the defining moment of televised animation around the world.

Beauty and the Beast Gets Nominated for Best Picture

Oh sure, animation had been showered with Academy Awards before (Snow White being the prime example) and a category for shorts had been in existence for many years. However animated films as genuine, dramatic entertainment was still shunned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences until Beauty and the Beast managed to get nominated for Best Picture. It sadly lost, but the effect was immense. Suddenly theatrical animation was no longer the sole preserve of those too young to drive, it could be enjoyed by adults just as easily. The nomination ultimately led to the creation of a category solely devoted to animated features whose effect on animation’s stature remains debatable.

Toy Story

The first wholly 3-D CGI animated film is entirely worthy of mention and has been ever since it came out in 1995. Much more than that though, Toy Story also ushered in a strikingly new form of animated film that shared much more in common with live-action films than animated ones up to that point. There were no musical numbers, a distinct lack of magic, cute sidekicks and a basis on existing stories. Yup, Toy Story was all-new, adult-friendly and a damned good film to boot. It’s influence has been cast over CGI films for well over 15 years and looks set to continue for the foreseeable future too.

YouTube

Why does YouTube merit a mention here? The answer is simple. Until it was launched, if you wanted to see an animated short, you had to either: A) be near a big city where a screening might be held, B) work at a studio or C) make it yourself. The advent of YouTube meant than anyone anywhere could create, upload and watch animated shorts. Combined with the dramatic drop in the cost of computer power and you have an explosion of animated content (both good and bad) that has had an unfettering effect on how the public views the technique. What are the ultimate results of this explosion? It’s still too early to tell, but it is certain that they will make large waves in the 10 years or so to come.

Avatar

Defining moments can be both good and bad and James Cameron’s Avatar merits a mention because it was, in all reality, an animated film albeit with human-powered movements. It completely blurred the line between what was animation, motion-capture and VFX and has set a defining moment for all three. Again, it is too early to tell what the ultimate effects will be, but even now, it is accepted that the bar has been raised. Now we just have to see what happens next.

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Yet Another Open Movie: Tears of Steel

Animation /

The Blender Institute is currently on a bit of a mission to push the limits of what the software is capable of and is using the open source nature of the software as a model for these test films.

The latest release is the 12-minute short, Tears of Steel which seamlessly blends live-action with Blender-animated VFX. The notion that VFX and animation are relatives is not a new one, but Tears of Steel only blurs the line between them even further.

Enjoy!

 

 

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How To Stop The Digital Domain Failure From Happening Again

1 Comment / Animation /

See the update/clarification at the end

The Problem

It’s almost a month since the word broke loose on an otherwise unusual Friday morning that Digital Domain was in very serious trouble indeed. Oh sure there were the warning signs of rough seas ahead, but on the whole, it appeared that the studio was simply in the middle of the kind of cash flow crisis that plagues any business. However the problems were a good bit more severe than even an emergency loan could fix.

Yup, cash flow was a big part of the problem, and a big part of the problem’s problem was the production of animated feature film, The Legend of Tembo. Now many questions can be raised as to how this production was the main part of the problem, but the gist of it is, animated features are still phenomenally expensive to plan, produce, distribute and maintain.

In Digital Domain’s case, Tembo sucked up capital, but it was still only in pre-production; hoovering up funds with nothing to show for it at all. In other words, Tembo was a dollar-shaped black hole. Now this isn’t to pan the production or anything like that. It’s the nature of the business; you have to saddle the costs before you get anything back, something that’s especially so for your first feature. All this combined with a drop in DD’s VFX business halted any incoming monies that were used to service the loan that was financing Tembo. Without either, the company collapsed.

The Solution

The solution to the problem of reducing the risks associated with such projects, funny enough as it seems, is to make cheaper films. Now cheaper in the context of DD’s problem means much cheaper than even they were attempting to do. Tembo was not an expensive film but by all accounts had already swallowed millions and was still in pre-production. Disney and DreamWorks on the other hand spend many hundreds of millions on their films (Toy Story 3 was apparently the most expensive to date at around $350 million).

The problem is that pouring many millions into an animated feature is a poor way to go about it. Features are naturally more expensive than TV episodes, but there is also a much larger risk involved. Studios can normally suffer one or two flops unless, of course, said flop was your first production. They’ve also been moving ever more towards films that are safe; sequels, series and the like in order to hedge those risks.

What the solution calls for is for cheaper features, or rather, features that don’t cost nearly as much money.

Proof? The Secret of Kells cost all of about €6 million (~$9 million at the time). A Monster in Paris was budgeted at around €22.8 million. Think about those numbers; the latter was produced for just over what Disney spends on pre-production alone. The former was made for about the same amount that they spend in coffee (OK, not really, but you get my point).

What I’m getting at is that there is a widening gap, a hole if you will, in the market for the budget feature to exploit. If you can knock out films for, say, under $20 million make and at least your money back, you’re doing pretty well, aren’t you?

Coupled with the new digital economic model and I’m afraid the days of the massively budgeted feature are rapidly drawing to a close. Snow White heralded a good 80 or so years of it, but in the near future such lavishly expensive productions will become even rarer than they already are. Alas Digital Domain discovered that too late.

Clarification: After a twitter conversation with Digital Domain founder Scott Ross, I need to clear up a few things:

  • The collapse of DD was about more than just the Legend of Tembo’s production and included many other factors that together contributed to the company’s collapse. I didn’t mean to imply that the film was sucking all of DD’s money, except that as the company’s first feature, it was absolutely using funds that would not see a return for some time and thus wasn’t doing DD any immediate favours.
  • My solution calls for cheaper features but I forgot to clarify that they are only one part of an overall realignment of how features are made. At present, they swallow up capital and labour for many years, thus contributing to their enormous cost. Cheaper features are more likely to take longer to make, but the payoff is that the resources used are spread out so that it is not necessary to devote an entire department of employees to a production. In conjunction with lower project costs, studios also need to take into account marketing, distribution and home media costs as well. A cheap film will likely have a lower marketing budget but that does not preclude a low gross. Great films will always be seen as word of mouth spreads. How to Train Your Dragon is proof that the concept is not as dead as many advertisers will have you believe. With home media, it is a similar situation. Cheaper films cannot afford the large marketing to support a widespread release, but the shift to digital media will reduce the need for such large expenditures and level the playing field.
  • My two examples of The Secret of Kells and A Monster in Paris were chosen form personal experience and knowledge. Both were from small studios and had vastly lower budgets. However despite neither being a box office success, their requisite studios survived thanks to the project’s low cost and the fact that they were not complete losses. A more realistic example would be Hoodwinked. A film but whose ~$8 million cost was earned back many times before culminating in a total gross of $110 million. Such films are proof that cheap films can succeed.
  • The overarching point of the post was to point out that expensive features can beget financial failures and that cheaper features can eliminate some of the bigger risks to a studio’s business.

If anyone needs any further clarifications, please post them in the comments below.

Thanks,

Charles

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Frame By Frame Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin

Animation /

The proliferation of inventive Tumbelogs continues apace with the latest one I’ve stumbled across being Frame By Frame, which purports to do exactly that. However that is not all, because each shot also comes with it’s own little GIF to show everything in motion. See the example below:

There are many more like it with the posting schedule approximately every other day. Either way, consider this one followed.

PS. Obligatory link to my own tumblelog of awesomeness.

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The A.V. Club Interview with Alex Hirsch

Animation /

As the serious side of the funniest news organisation known to man, the A.V. Club somehow manages to remain a wonderfully rich source of entertainment news. Today is no exception as they posted an interview with the creator of one of the hottest animated TV shows around these days: Alex Hirsch of Gravity Falls.

The entire interview is well worth a read but what got me was this question and its answer:

AVC: Did you take any lessons from how Springfield has been built in the last 23 years apply them to Gravity Falls?

AH: [Laughs.] I think the No. 1 lesson I learned from The Simpsons was just that animation could be as funny as live-action. That animation could be funnier than live-action. That animation didn’t have to just be for kids. That it could be satirical and observational and grounded in a sense of character interaction. I think that’s really what got me excited about animation more than anything was seeing, “Oh my gosh! I love cartoons and these cartoons are also making my parents laugh and making me laugh.” As I grow older it makes me laugh more.

Personally, I find that a great observation of animation’s appeal within comedic entertainment. Animation is often seen as the ugly step-child but it’s much more than that. It’s an integral part of modern culture that The Simpsons is absolutely responsible for. I completely agree with Alex insofar that animation is funnier than live action on many levels and that it can be suitable for both kids and adults.

That’s one of the appeals of the technique; it’s so adaptable and accessible to all ages. Live-action often fails on both accounts and it’s a shame that it continues to get the lions share.

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Win a Frankenweenie Poster!

Animation /

Via: Major Spoilers

Yes indeedy it’s time for the first ever competition on the blog and I’m offering up one copy of what you see above. The poster is the real deal (double-sided and everything).

Thanks to Intervention for providing me with it 🙂

To win, all you have to do is simply fill in the form, answer the question and keep your fingers crossed!

The competition will run until Sunday October 7th.

And it’s closed! The winner will be announced tomorrow!

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Tugg People To The Cinema!

Animation /
Tugg logo

Tugg logo

Via: Indiewire

One of the things I recently discussed was the shift in the entertainment business from a ‘push’ model to a ‘pull model’. In other words, instead of creating content and enticing consumers to view it, you basically let the consumer tell you what they want to watch and create it for them instead. It’s all very simple to how Dell makes computers, i.e. they don’t make your computer until you actually order it.

So it came as quite a surprise to discover that there is a startup out there, going by the name of Tugg, whose business model is exactly that; to pull content and people into the cinema!

The concept is almost deceptively simple:

 how tugg works

It’s a pretty cool concept with a very basic (and almost shockingly underused) concept which is to basically sell the seats in the cinema beforehand, thus eliminating the risk of a loss in a screening. However Tugg is much more than a website to petition for a screening near you. It also attempts to act as a platform for the entire experience. Witness the soon-to-come ability to share events:

 

There’s even the option to attend an event organised by someone else, surely the icing on the cake for both the cinema and Tugg if they can draw in outsiders.

However perhaps the greatest part is the ease of setting up a screening:

 

Now you know that anyone can do it. Which is nice, because the risk to everyone is nothing. The cinema doesn’t risk renting a film that they can’t recover the costs on, you benefit because you can see films you like on a big screen and Tugg benefits because it’s likely either getting a flat fee from the cinema for the screening or (more likely) skimming money off every ticket sale and (probably) gathering info on viewing habits to sell back to the studios. Everybody wins!

This post is about much more than Tugg though, because the advantages of the site should play very well into the hands of animation fans. Why? The reasons are simple.

  • Animation from studios other than the large ones are rare in mainstream cinemas
  • Adult animation is continually shunted in favour of more profitable mainstream fare (both animation and otherwise)
  • Cinemas only care about bums on seats and they will gladly favour a screening with a sold out theater for an obscure animated film than a half-empty house screening the latest release.
  • Digital distribution already eliminates the cost of distribution so cinemas can cheaply screen films without having to pay the large handling fees of traditional film.

All in all it sounds like a sweet deal. Imagine the scenario; you want to watch, say, The Secret of Kells for your birthday. You go online, find a smaller cinema in your area (say a 50-100 seater). You set up the event in Tugg and invite your friends. Let’s say you get 35 people to come. That’s pretty decent, but now the social aspect of Tugg comes into play and people in the area learn that the film is playing. Now they want to come too! Suddenly your birthday party is much more than that, it’s about bringing people who share the exact same interests as yourself together!

So what’s the downside (you knew there had to be one didn’t you)? Well, as with anything and everything to do with the film industry and Hollywood, it isn’t simply a matter of Tugg or the cinema “renting” the film from the requisite studio. Yup, just like Netflix and every other company out there trying to innovate in the market, Tugg is bound by rights. What does that mean? Basically if they don’t have the rights to show a film, they can’t.

What does that result in? Why a limited selection of course! Now naturally we can expect it to grow over time, but as of now (September 2012) Tugg is showing just 25 animated titles ranging from A Town Called Panic to Alvin and the Chipmunks. So unfortunately we may have to wait a while before we can organise that retrospective on Ralph Bakshi.

The future looks bright though. If people can organise their own screenings of animated films, it would greatly increase the diversity at the local multiplex. That can only be a good thing for everyone.

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