Pixar, Digital Animation and the Contemporary era

Since the advent of cinema few Animation studios in history can boast the reputable filmography of Pixar Animation Studios. Founded in 1979, originally as an arm of Lucasfilm collaborating on special effects with special effects company Industrial Light and Magic, the company didn't really gain it's now international notoriety until it's acquisition by Disney and the success of Toy Story. Pixar pioneered digital technologies in the mid 90s, while other major studios such as Dreamworks were riding the wave of 2D animation, which had seen a resurgence thanks to the popularity of contemporary Disney films such as The Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast, Pixar broke new ground in 1995 with the first fully digitally animated feature film, Toy Story. John Lasseter, the director of Toy Story, who originally worked as a 2D animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation, famously criticized 101 Dalmatians as the film 'where Disney had reached its highest plateau' stating the films often repeated themselves without adding any new ideas or innovations. Part of Toy Story's success can be attributed to the way animators took what were simple and established animation and storytelling techniques from Classic Disney animation and presenting them through this new and exciting technology.

Hand Painted Background from The Jungle Book (1967)

Imaginative staging, detailed backgrounds and accessible characters, all hallmarks of Classic Disney are prominent in much of Pixar's work. The hand painted mattes of Golden Age Disney era animation have been swapped out for meticulously rendered 3D backgrounds. Both serve the same purpose of drawing us into these fictional worlds, and both have their own benefits, but where 3D really triumphs over traditional 2D in this regard is in the depth of the image. With 2D animation, drawings and backgrounds are layered on top of one another, and while it is not impossible to achieve depth in an image, depth is much easier to achieve in a 3D workspace. Assets are not simply overlaid on a background, they are a part of the background and can more easily interact with it and there are less restrictions as to where the perspective can change to in the staging of a scene, granting more access to the repertoire of film language and allowing storytellers to be more flexibility in telling their stories.

3D Rendered Background form Wall E (2008)

Pixar's character designs more often than not also subscribe to the Disney school of Anthropomorphic creatures and everyday objects, such as toys and cars. What digital animation allows for though is a level of detail in these sorts of characters never before seen. Pixar's 2001 film Monsters Inc was heralded at the time as the absolute cutting edge in fur technology with the character of Sulley. During the production of Monsters Inc, Pixar's engineers had to figure out how to animate over 2 million hairs on Sulley efficiently and realistically with shadow and texture, for which they set up their own Simulation department to create a new program exclusively for rendering fur.  Such a level of detail would be near impossible to do in 2D without thousands of man hours to achieve the same effect and its not like the character's design is particularly complicated, but the character is meticulously detailed in it's rendering.

To compare, if you look at a similar character form classic Disney, for example Baloo from The Jungle Book is the same stock archetype as Sulley in essence, with the same posture, similar features and role in the story, but the level of detail is significantly skewed in Sulley's favour. That's not to say Baloo's design isn't a timeless classic, but it shows the benefits of what 3D has to offer and what John Lasseter mean't when he said he thought Disney had reached it's 'highest plateau.'

Over the past 20 years, Pixar has consistently delivered on a technical and storytelling level with their films, but every aesthetic runs its course and Pixar's more recent outing have not had the same impact or critical acclaim that the first few films (Toy Story through to Up) had upon their release and this is partially because other major animation studios, such as Dreamworks have finally caught up. Nowadays, while no longer the tech pioneers they were back in the mid-90s, the name Pixar is still synonymous with quality visual storytelling.

Pendelton Ward and the Appeal of Adventure Time

Adventure Time is a unique specimen in the world of animation. The Cartoon Network show which premiered in 2010 boasts a broad fanbase made up equally of children and adults. It's success can be attributed to the aesthetic of the world Pendleton Ward has created and the appeal of the characters which inhabit it. Ward's designs have a charming simplicity to them. His main characters are often made up of rounded shapes with curved edges, which lends them an accessible, non-threatening aesthetic, which is an important part of their appeal.

In contrast, characters which are supposed to be identified as being 'bad' have shaper edges and features. For example, while there is more to his character than being simply evil, Ice King has a sharp pointed nose and spiky crown, giving off the impression he is the villain in the Land of Ooo, but at the same time his body is rounded much like the other characters, hinting at an additional layer of depth in his design. 

This principle is also applied to the environments the characters inhabit. The Land of Ooo is made up primarily of rounded hills which contrast with the steep geometric shape of the mountains in the background. These design choices reflect the dynamic and alignment of the characters, whether you notice it or not, which is part of why the show is so broadly appealing to all ages.

Many of the friendly characters in Adventure Time follow a primary colour scheme and the relationships between characters are shown in the use of colour. Finn and Jake's primary colours are Blue and Yellow respectively. These are complimentary on the colour wheel and reflect the relationship between the characters, showing them together in a visually appealing way to show they are friends.

Similarly, the backgrounds and world they are presented against adhere to complimentary colour theory. The Land of Ooo features numerous colourful landscapes, often times with complimentary colour schemes, such as Jake and Finn's treehouse, which is green and often depicted against an orange sky backdrop.

Pre-Film Animation processes

The Magic Lantern

While Animation is now, in the contemporary era, almost universally associated with film, early forms of the practice predate film by several centuries, dating back to the 1600s with 'The Magic Lantern', a precursor to the modern day projector consisting of a piece of limestone squirted with oxygen and hydrogen which once lit projected hand-coloured slides on a screen. Slides showcased a sequence of images that changed every 30 seconds, depicting illustrations set to a soundtrack performed live by musicians in concert halls and theatres.

While initially invented centuries before, Magic Lanterns saw a resurgence in popularity around the Victorian era, where they became a popular source of entertainment. One of the most popular shows during this era was E'tienne Gaspard Robert's 'Phantasmagoria', a forerunner to the Halloween Show, which was held in an old convent that was converted into a magic lantern theatre.

Phantasmagoria soon evolved into its own form of theatre designed to terrify audiences by projecting frightening images, onto walls and semi-transparent screens, of ghosts, demons and other frightening imagery. Robertson's first Phantasmagoria was shown at the Pavillion de L'Echquier in 1797 in Paris, which elicited a strong response, with many audience members being so convinced of the reality of what they were seeing, to the point that police had to temporarily halt the show.

Phenakistoscope

Also in the 1800s, Joseph Plateau's Phenakistoscope paved the way for more traditional forms of classical animation, consisting of a disk with a series of images drawn evenly spaced apart, which is placed in front of a mirror and spun to give the illusion of motion. The invention was popular with the Middle Class of society and was successful commercially.

Zoetrope

A Zoetrope, similar to a a Phenakistoscope, consists of a series of images that depict varies phases in a motion which are displayed in a cylinder with vertical slits cut in the sides which the user looks through as the cylinder spins to give the illusion of motion. A Zoetrope works much the same way as the Phenakistoscope, but is more suited to being viewable by several people at once. Instead of being displayed on a disc, images are displayed on a paper strip which is placed inside the lower half of the inside of the cylinder.

In 1980, Artist Bill Brand created a linear Zoetrope in an unused New York subway platform he deemed the 'Masstransiscope', popularising use of the techinque as a means of advertising, with works being installed on transit systems throughout the US and beyond from San Francisco to Kiev.

Previsualisation in contemporary animation

Pre-visualisation is the process of planning out complex scenes ahead of time. Processes such as storyboarding fall under this category, as does the process of creating an animatic for animated productions. As the technology evolves and proliferates, so too do the methods which artists and creators have at their disposal for pre-visualising their projects. Most animated productions nowadays employ digital methods of pre-visualisation, which vary from production to production. These processes can range from 3D software for visualising complex scenes in a 3D environment to digitally produced hand drawn sketches for character concepts, animatics and storyboards.

In animation in particular, the pre-visualisation process is important to ensure an efficient workflow. With animation being such a labour intensive, time consuming process, studios often divide large teams into specialist areas for efficiency sake. Usually this starts with the concept phase of production, depending on the nature of the project, most projects begin with artist sketches based off some sort of treatment or project briefs. These may include things like character designs, environments or prop designs. Before a character design can be used by a group of animators, they must be formalised, in the case of 2D animation, with model sheets depicting a turnaround of the characters drawn to scale.

Storyboarding is also important in the case of film animation, as a storyboard artist plans out ahead of time the staging of a scene and any directorial decisions such as camera movements. The storyboards are then often converted into an animatic, where the pace of the editing is decided upon. Depending on the production, the animatic can either consists of a set of storyboards set to sound or some early design assets, such as keyframes or backgrounds played in a sequence to act as placeholder until the assets have been finalised. This allows animators and directors to notice and pre-emptively iron out any problems in the pacing of a scene or timing of a motion and minimise the construction of unnecessary components. 

Cinematic Techniques and The Unique Language of Animation

In the cultural consciousness there is a common misconception that Animation is a subsidiary or genre of film and as a result somehow the lesser of the two art art-forms. However, while the two do share a common visual language, animation also has a language all of its own. 

Every Frame A Painting highlights this in it's episode on the editing style and sense of time and place in Satoshi Kon's works. Kon makes use of Animation's unique form in his transitions between scenes and the way he stages inserts. Kon famously stated that he had no desire to direct live action due to his editing style being too fast, which is certainly the case in Paprika. While Live Action directors such as Wes Anderson have tried to implement similar techniques with quick inserts that display visual information in a simplified way, they do so to the detriment to the overall aesthetic while Animation does not have this problem.

Unlike live action film, animation is not a lens through which we see the world, but an entirely artificial world created from the ground up by artists and animators. This grants the director total control over every aspect of a sequence from the lighting to the staging of characters to the overall design and aesthetic unburdened by the shackles of the human form. Animation allows animators to play with proportion and a sense of space to create experiences unique from film. There are certain aesthetics and sequences which can be achieved in animation, that would be impossible to do in live action film due to limitations. What makes animation unique from film is the way it can depict things from visuals alone. As every frame is hand drawn this makes for more potential for storytelling through visual design, whether that be design of characters or the design of the environments they're in.