Is there quality in animation?

[Sotiris]

I got a little confused on what would be considered quality animation. Can we have a clear distinction?
I mean if we presume that all styles and types of animation have their own quality and uniqueness then are we suggesting that quality is subjective in entertainment, arts etc?
Well, how about 'The Danish Poet', it may be a great story but surely it is clear that the animation is so bad like a child's drawing. Or what about the Golden Films movies, what do we say about that?

Your thoughts?

[Mr. Toad]

Well its art(quite literally) as opposed to science. So the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Prudence]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there's no denying that some animation is horrible.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Clear distinction? Difficult.

Simple, "limited", even obviously low-budget work doesn't have to be "bad". I'd say doing over again what basically has been done before could make it "lesser" in terms of "art", though. Certain paintings made 150 years ago might be considered great art, but would perhaps not if they had been painted today.

I still wouldn't say that "doing something new" all the time would be a good definition of art either, though.

But I tend to believe that the concept of "art" is somewhat "artificial" and a product of later decades (or the past couple of centuries...). If we go back in time I think "art" would not be distinguished from "good craftsmanship".

Both "art" and "quality" could mean a lot of different things. When the term "quality" is tossed around in discussions of, say, Disney animation, it doesn't necessarily make much sense without an explanation of what it means in the particular context.

[stitcharielbeast]

i dunno, to me, when one thinks of quality regarding animation, it all depends on how much movement is illustrated. Since the word animation would pretty much describe the movement.

to me good animation is when it captures movement very smoothly and gets the idea across very naturally (like Disney's which has come to set the bar for such, hence the term, 'Disney-Quality Animation') while bad animation would be the absence of any real movement (like practically every Television Japanese Anime where all they show are still frames with mouths opening and closing)

"Animation" i feel should not equal the over-all "look" or "style" of a film, Like the Danish Poet, a piece can look like it was drawn by a child but when it has an abundance of movement and actual "animation", then it should be stated that it has good animation. most TV Anime has a lot of great artwork that are very detailed and stylized and are great to look at, and yet when you watch them, there are almost absolutely no animation happening, which to me would mean it has a very poor quality, in terms of animation.

[Marce82]

Well, for starters I;d like to say I loved The Danish Poet. And the design was a conscious choice, and I think it is charming.
Now the problem with this post is that people think that the quality of animation applies to every aspect of a film. Character design is one thing, art direction is another, and animation itself is another. The derogatory comment about the Danish poet isnt about its animation, its about its design.
I believe good animation is about the performance. Is the character conveying feelings? is it relatable? Do I forget im watching a drawing (puppet, CG image, etc)? Does everything seem physically possible? And natural?
I believe Disney has done some of the best animation ever, regardless of story, design or any other aspect. And it comes from the quality of the artists they can afford, the amount of frames per second they are able to put out.
Bill Plympton makes stuff that is extremely expressive, and usually uses about 6 drawings per second...and he makes it work very well.
Well, I think I;ve made clear what i believe is good animation. But when it comes to design and art direction....yeah...probably all in the eye of the beholder.

[littlefuzzy]

to me good animation is when it captures movement very smoothly and gets the idea across very naturally (like Disney's which has come to set the bar for such, hence the term, 'Disney-Quality Animation') while bad animation would be the absence of any real movement (like practically every Television Japanese Anime where all they show are still frames with mouths opening and closing)

"Animation" i feel should not equal the over-all "look" or "style" of a film, Like the Danish Poet, a piece can look like it was drawn by a child but when it has an abundance of movement and actual "animation", then it should be stated that it has good animation. most TV Anime has a lot of great artwork that are very detailed and stylized and are great to look at, and yet when you watch them, there are almost absolutely no animation happening, which to me would mean it has a very poor quality, in terms of animation.

American animation has focused more on movement (to the point that almost everything has to be in motion at all times,) while Japanese Anime focuses on the detail... To me, that doesn't mean that Anime is "bad." It is just a different style. There are many live-action pictures where there is almost no movement on screen except for the mouths moving, yet that doesn't mean they are bad. Anime is usually based on manga, which is the Japanese version of comics. Because of this, there are more static "dramatic" scenes, where the intended audience can get the drama and action even though the scene isn't full of frenetic motion...

Disney can make bad animation as well... For instance, the Tarzan TV show had a scene where Tarzan was going through the trees, and instead of the feel of the movie (depth, amazing shadows, etc.,) the TV show had a very short "cookie cutter" shadow pattern that repeated constantly. This didn't add ANY depth, it was just dark and light spots on a flat surface. I only saw parts of that one episode, and that was more than enough...

In my opinion, that was worse than almost any Anime I've seen, even glorified toy commercials from the 70s-80s...

[Ugly Pig]

I think low quality animation is when you can tell that it's limited by talent/skill or budget rather than an intentional artistic choice. While it may be difficult to explain in words, I think most of us are able to recognize it when we see it.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I think low quality animation is when you can tell that it's limited by talent/skill or budget rather than an intentional artistic choice.

That's good!

But should every studio/animator/artist be held to the same standards in terms of "budget"...?

[Ugly Pig]

I think low quality animation is when you can tell that it's limited by talent/skill or budget rather than an intentional artistic choice.

That's good!

But should every studio/animator/artist be held to the same standards in terms of "budget"...?

Only if they are aiming for the same artistic style. Mener nå jeg, da.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Så du mener det, du! I didn't know "Ugly Pig" was a Norwegian name.

No one could aim for a "Disney" sort of artistic style without a "very considerable" budget anyway.

[stitcharielbeast]

to me good animation is when it captures movement very smoothly and gets the idea across very naturally (like Disney's which has come to set the bar for such, hence the term, 'Disney-Quality Animation') while bad animation would be the absence of any real movement (like practically every Television Japanese Anime where all they show are still frames with mouths opening and closing)

"Animation" i feel should not equal the over-all "look" or "style" of a film, Like the Danish Poet, a piece can look like it was drawn by a child but when it has an abundance of movement and actual "animation", then it should be stated that it has good animation. most TV Anime has a lot of great artwork that are very detailed and stylized and are great to look at, and yet when you watch them, there are almost absolutely no animation happening, which to me would mean it has a very poor quality, in terms of animation.

American animation has focused more on movement (to the point that almost everything has to be in motion at all times,) while Japanese Anime focuses on the detail... To me, that doesn't mean that Anime is "bad." It is just a different style. There are many live-action pictures where there is almost no movement on screen except for the mouths moving, yet that doesn't mean they are bad. Anime is usually based on manga, which is the Japanese version of comics. Because of this, there are more static "dramatic" scenes, where the intended audience can get the drama and action even though the scene isn't full of frenetic motion...

Disney can make bad animation as well... For instance, the Tarzan TV show had a scene where Tarzan was going through the trees, and instead of the feel of the movie (depth, amazing shadows, etc.,) the TV show had a very short "cookie cutter" shadow pattern that repeated constantly. This didn't add ANY depth, it was just dark and light spots on a flat surface. I only saw parts of that one episode, and that was more than enough...

In my opinion, that was worse than almost any Anime I've seen, even glorified toy commercials from the 70s-80s...

yeah the Tarzan TV show was horrible.

anyway, sure anime uses static scenes for storytelling purposes, and that is definately forgivable, however, when a majority of the runtime is jsut the static scenes with a mouth opening and closing, it's fairly obvious that it would count as something bad. You can;t argue that anime is allowed to have movement free material for the sake of drama while masterpieces like the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo illustrate both detail and actual animation often times even surpassing the disney level.

[kurtadisneyite]

Perhaps the simplest answer is Animation Quality suffers when the "technique" gets in the way of telling the story, or making the character relate in an engaging way to the audience (heroes and villains alike), then the technique fails.

Some problems with techniques include:

Bad timing (do you really need to see a character "holding" a pose for 10 seconds or more just to get the idea of what emotion it's registering)?

Limited drawing count (Cinderella jerks spasmodically climbing a flight of stars (cinderella II)),

Bad compositing (shadows don't complement character)

Excessive use of cycles (character keeps moving the same way no matter whats going on in story (Hanna Barbara, etc.),

Over-Reuse of animation (repeating a scene you've already seen ad-nauseom (Adult Swim loves this approach)).

Bad character acting (is common in limited animation where face expressions are totally mismatched to voice tones)

Bad voice - character matchup

...and there are others. Many are done because of cost. Some because of limitations in the tools.


Then again, I've seen amazing animation drawn by artists using nothing but crayons and shopping bags.