Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[Sotiris]

It's that time of the year again! Time for the "excuses and lies about Disney not doing 2D anymore" show!

Rich Moore: Well, you would definitely find that there are people who prefer 2D over CG. There's always going to be people that have a preference. We work at Disney and right now Disney's method of telling a story is CG. Would they make a movie in 2D if a great story came along that required 2D to tell it? Would they do it? Of course! But right now the method of choice is CG. I trained in 2D animation at school and in my career so I know 2D well but as a director when I'm talking with animators who are doing CG, they're still thinking about the same principles. It's the exact same principles. It's just the difference between using a pen or a paintbrush when you're talking about the emotion or the technique or something. If you know animation and you know how it works... A stop-motion animator and a 2D animator, all talk the same language. Maybe they use a different word or something but it's the same thing.

Byron Howard: I think because what we're expected to do with Disney films now, the scope is so huge, CG is very beneficial for that. CG is great for creating a world that feels massive and convincing and almost like stepping into another planet. We can move the cameras around, we can use different lenses, we can light the characters like real animals, or real human beings. It's become a really versatile set of tools and now it's bordering on exactly what live-action can do. We light scenes very much like live-action does, the camera's use is very similar, and the acting has become so subtle with CG that it's incredible. But Rich is right, if there was a project that came through Disney where we went 'this has to be 2D', we would do it.

Source: https://vimeo.com/155689736

Q: Since now most of animated feature films are CGI, do you think there’s any future for 2D films at all?

Byron Howard: It really is project dependent. If one of the directors came and said ‘I have this amazing idea that can only be told in 2D’, we’d totally support it. With this movie, it was so big and it was so important that the city be believable and you could feel like it was a real world that you’d step into, I don’t know how you’d do this film in 2D. I suppose you could, but it would feel very stylized and I’m not sure if you would connect with the world and the characters in the same way. But everything that we do in CG has the same foundation as we used in 2D.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Yn7wTsMjs

Spencer has been working with Disney for over two decades and has truly become a seasoned producer of animated films. His first big hit, “Lilo and Stitch,” was hand-drawn animation — he still feels that that medium serves a purpose in the more intimate worlds. “But when you really want people to experience the world, when you want to feel huge and vast…I mean, some of the scenes have 5,000 animals in them, you can only do that on the computer,” said Spencer.

Source: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/get_ou ... cc8fc.html


If CG is so great why do they need 2D animators to draw over CG footage on every film?

Howard brought his own experience as a trained 2D animator to reviews, drawing over shots on a Wacom Cintiq tablet to suggest stronger poses for the animators, Moore says.

Source: http://www.animationmagazine.net/featur ... -building/

Back when 2D was starting to switch over to CG at Disney, I trained in CG but didn’t really have a very natural propensity toward it. I had really good instructors but there’s something about CG that's more like puppeteering than drawing which is fast and intuitive. […] 2D is still very much alive at Disney. With Tangled, Glean Keane was in there drawing over every single frame, every single pose of Rapunzel, and Flynn, and Maximus during dailies. Tony Fucile did it on The Incredibles.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHcYExJNERg

A compilation of draw-overs from director Byron Howard. He’ll typically draw over our CG shots in dailies with a Cintiq. These are a small fraction of the drawings, most of which will never be seen by the public. His drawings are so gorgeous and charming.

Source: http://day-to-day-disney.tumblr.com/pos ... 015-one-of

[unprincess]

We work at Disney and right now Disney's method of telling a story is CG. Would they make a movie in 2D if a great story came along that required 2D to tell it? Would they do it? Of course! But right now the method of choice is CG.

[Semaj]

They were probably trained to say this stuff.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

One of the differences is that animation drawn by hand stand the test of time much better than CGI. Aladdin escaping the cave is one example. Or the CGI elements in Metropolis (2001), which looks very dated today, and probably makes the studio wish it had used the computers less often. Obviously computer animation have come a long way since then, and if it will be possible to watch the present day Pixar or Disney movies a decade or two from now without them feeling dated, only then will it have reached the level where it needs to be. CGI requires much more than hand-drawing. Texture, rendering, tiny details like strands of hair and procedural animation, and making objects look less smooth, perfect and polished, are challenges the animation crew never needed to worry about in the old days. The objects and characters are also actually 3D in nature during the animation process. Everything takes time to make perfect, much more than traditional animation. Which does not mean that hand-drawn is inferior in any way, as it has its own distinct look and charm.

[Sotiris]

Malcon Pierce, a CG animator at Disney who's currently working on Moana as animation supervisor posted the following on Twitter that caught my attention.

Even though a lot of people in the animation industry don't care to admit it, there is indeed an inherent rigidness or stiffness in CG animation. It takes a lot of work to mask that but even then it's still present to some degree. It's refreshing seeing a CG animator admitting that.


Source: https://twitter.com/malconpierce/status ... 3122023424

[unprincess]

if I had Twitter Id reply that rigidity wouldnt be a problem if the film had been hand drawn like in the past.
Of course Im aware its not his fault the studio chooses the method and Id just end up sounding like a jerk anyway. Sigh...

[ce1ticmoon]

I don't really see much lingering rigidity in the big budget CGI features today. I mean, I definitely think it is a huge obstacle that needs to be overcome and requires a lot of work (CGI films definitely require a lot more work to achieve the fluidity of 2D animation), but Pixar, Dreamworks, Disney and the rest are creating works with very fluid animation, and it is something they are able to overcome because of the huge budgets they can throw at these products. Obviously, lower budget projects are unable to achieve that level of fluidity and malleability. And generally, in the realm of lower budget films, 2D films look infinitely better than CGI films.

It is true that in some of the big budget CGI films even today, background figures and figures in crowds are still generally given less emphasis and at times come off as rigid and less fluid (and less detailed in terms of rendering and such). But that is generally true for 2D features as well.

As for the comments by Moore/Howard, I will agree; I definitely don't buy what they are saying about 2D.

Would they make a movie in 2D if a great story came along that required 2D to tell it? Would they do it? Of course!

I mean, is there actually such a thing as a story that requires 2D? Yeah, maybe if the story is about lines and points and revolves around two-dimensionality, but I don't think Disney, let alone anyone else, would do a story about that. But I actually think they were a little bit more forthcoming than usual this time. I mean, they usually say that each project is decided based on the directors' preference, but at least this time they said that " We work at Disney and right now Disney's method of telling a story is CG," which basically means they will default to CG for the foreseeable future.

If CG is so great why do they need 2D animators to draw over CG footage on every film?

That said, I don't agree with this. Because if they can use 2D principles to improve the CGI, why shouldn't they? Just because they rely on 2D concepts and artists to improve the CGI doesn't make the pros and benefits or "greatness" of CGI any less.Things such as lighting and cameras are definitely great benefits to CGI animation, which help make it a versatile medium.

That's not to say that I think the 2D artists and 2D animation in general are getting their due credit at Disney. They aren't, and it's unacceptable. But just because CGI is "so great," I really don't think that has anything to do with whether or not they should employ 2D animators to draw over the CG footage. If it helps improve it, they should use it, shouldn't they? And should they acknowledge it and give it due respect? Absolutely.

[Kyle]

Sometimes I read these posts and quotes and feel like this is like the presidential race. Too much echo chamber going on with both sides unwilling to hear the other one out. We know cg lends itself to being too rigid its not some secret. Animators have said as much since toy story, and while it has gotten way better it's not going away any time soon if ever. But just because you can't sketch out a quick idea in CG as intuitively as you can scribble on a napkin doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other things CG has a better handle on.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

That's the stuff I find interesting. Artists who admits the difficulties computer animation are still suffering from. When they have finally overcome the challenges about doing character animation in CGI and have full control, and also have perfected the rendering, people will no longer compare the two animation forms in the same way.
An example of how hand-drawn can vary in quality, see the difference between the original Peter Pan and Return to Neverland.

[Heil Donald Duck]

If CG is so great why do they need 2D animators to draw over CG footage on every film?

Good question,

[Kyle]

No, its a stupid question. Drawing is the simplest and fastest way to communicate ideas. CG is the realization of those ideas.

[Disney's Divinity]

No, its a stupid question.

Nope. I don't think 3D has made many steps forward the past few years. It's still struggling against itself to look like a hand-drawn animation looks effortlessly rather than working on how to do new things. I wish following that development over time was exciting, but it's not. Seeing them do things that are more stylized would be better, but of course that's never going to happen at Disney.

[Marky_198]

I agree, there is a stifness to CG character animation that I really can't stand.

That animator hits the nail on the head. Making CG "somewhat" work, is a matter of masking things. CG character animation is mainly a matter of masking dead looking and stiff moving digital puppets (the masking still doesn't work quite well) while 2d animation is more "creating" things, what you start out with, is what you get. Which results in a much more natural fluidity and characters that are actually alive behind their eyes.

In other words, seeing something for what it is always works better than presenting something and alter it for 99% to make people see something else, which clearly will never fully work. Because it still looks like stiff, dead in the eye dolls, no matter how hard they try. I am starting to believe that what they start out with and what they want to achieve is just per definition too different. That we just have to admit that CG can be used for backgrounds etc, but is just not the way to go for characters.

[Kyle]

That's not really true about getting what you start out with. You seem to be glazing over how much life gets lost upon clean up. No matter what the final animation is going to be lacking a certain energy present in the rough animation. So don't act like the whole masking stiffness is something exclusive to CG, it happens in hand drawn as well. The only way you avoid this is if you bypass the cleanup phase, like that charcoal shot glen keane did in Pocahontas, or his short "duet". But these don't represent the norm in hand drawn animation as studios prefer cleaner line work.

[Marky_198]

That's not really true about getting what you start out with. You seem to be glazing over how much life gets lost upon clean up. No matter what the final animation is going to be lacking a certain energy present in the rough animation. So don't act like the whole masking stiffness is something exclusive to CG, it happens in hand drawn as well. The only way you avoid this is if you bypass the cleanup phase, like that glen keane did in Pocahontas, or his short "duet". But these don't represent the norm in hand drawn animation as studios prefer cleaner line work.

The "life" lies in other things. The motion, the look and movement of their eyes. A certain energy that is definitely present in the final product of 2d, yet missing in the final product of CG.

[DisneyJedi]

Hey, I was cruising deviantart and someone made a motivational/demotivational poster claiming that hand drawn is the only form of animation and that CGI isn't animation. At all.

As much as I favor hand-drawn animation and want to see that make a comeback, the person who said that CGI "isn't" animation sounds incredibly biased. And I suppose stop-motion/claymation "isn't" animation either?

[Escapay]

Hey, I was cruising deviantart and someone made a motivational/demotivational poster claiming that hand drawn is the only form of animation and that CGI isn't animation. At all.

As much as I favor hand-drawn animation and want to see that make a comeback, the person who said that CGI "isn't" animation sounds incredibly biased. And I suppose stop-motion/claymation "isn't" animation either?

Was it 2Disney4Ever?

Albert

[DisneyJedi]

Hey, I was cruising deviantart and someone made a motivational/demotivational poster claiming that hand drawn is the only form of animation and that CGI isn't animation. At all.

As much as I favor hand-drawn animation and want to see that make a comeback, the person who said that CGI "isn't" animation sounds incredibly biased. And I suppose stop-motion/claymation "isn't" animation either?

Was it 2Disney4Ever?

Albert

His name's ToonEGuy. But given 2Disney4Ever's history here, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they were the same person.

By the way, this is the poster: http://tooneguy.deviantart.com/art/The- ... -592689825

[Rumpelstiltskin]

According to Brad Bird (and most people's experience), high quality animation done by hand in America, has been defined by Disney in such a degree that it is difficult for people to imagine this kind of animation done with the same budget and quality in other genres. And this limitation could be one of the reasons why CG has taken over, because in hand-drawn all we have is either Disney, Disney clones or low-budget movies with less artistic talent. When Disney stop making hand-drawn movies, it sends a strong signal to other studios since Disney in many ways is the definition of hand-drawn animation.

http://collider.com/brad-bird-wants-to- ... ated-film/

And what has not been done is that there’s been no American animation done on Disney-level quality that has really gone into different genres. For instance, there’s never been a horror movie in animation executed at Disney-level quality and hand-drawn, I’m not talking about CG I’m talking about hand-drawn, but it doesn’t take a lot to imagine how cool that would be. If you think of the scariest parts of Snow White or Pinocchio or Fantasia with Night on Bald Mountain, you could do something really scary in animation and I think if you did it right, if you did it with all the art that Spielberg did Jaws, I think that it would be an amazing experience because there’s something intuitive about when people are drawing directly with their hands.

The problem is that every time people have deviated from the Disney playbook in hand-drawn animation, they’ve done so with staff that are nowhere near Disney-level talent or Disney-level budgets. So you have things like Heavy Metal, which not all of them are great, but a couple of them are really interesting, but they didn’t have the money or the artists to pull them off at the level that maybe they should’ve been pulled off. Where as in live-action film there are all kinds of new films being done in different genres where people can really execute an idea at a top level. It’s just that animation rewards grooming a team and keeping a team in place. That’s why when studios try to emulate Disney on the quick-and-cheap they always fail, because Disney has refined their animation team over years, they have a history of it.

I absolutely think that hand-drawn animation is valid and I actually hope to do one in the future with a large budget and a longer schedule than we had on Iron Giant.

[Semaj]

Was it 2Disney4Ever?

Albert

His name's ToonEGuy. But given 2Disney4Ever's history here, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they were the same person.

By the way, this is the poster: http://tooneguy.deviantart.com/art/The- ... -592689825

It is him. http://2disney4ever.deviantart.com/