We've been dwelling on animation history the last few weeks, so now let's give a current event about my walk through today...
Inside Disney's hat building, a lot more development artists and board artists are working digitally, either drawing on a computer screen or tablet. (One artist on the third floor was still working with pencils, paper, markers and pens. "What's THIS?" I said in moc surprise. "Hanging onto the past," he said. "I scan this stuff in.")
Work is being done on software so that traditional artists who work on "Frog Princess" will make their drawings on computer screens. So even hand-drawn animation will be created digitally. Technology marches on.
And animation on "Meet the Robinsons" is down to its last few weeks. Walk down the entrance hallway on the first floor, and you can see pieces of it, glowing off the plasma screens in the big cabinets. It looks damn good.
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11 comments:
Traditional animation drawn on a cintiq - incredible. The PENCILs days are numbered!
I sure hope they consider letting the hand drawn animators the hire back CHOOSE between actual pencil and paper and digital drawing. I know for me it'd be a bit of a nightmare to do hand drawn on the computer. just my opinion--
Well, lets' see:
save a few trees vs. getting used to drawing on a tablet....
hmmmmmm....
I think this either-or nonsense needs to stop.
Sometimes I work digitally, and sometimes I draw on paper. Both work -- and that's really all that matters. As has been often said, nobody stop painting because the camera was invented.
Let's use the right tool to create great art, no matter what that tool may be.
Whenever I hear about the future of feature 2D animation being done on cintiq's, I cringe. How can it be the same? Draftsmanship works entirely different on it. I remember Glen Keane (and Ollie) talking about "the pencil having nerve-endings", etc. The computer can do incredible things, but it's not the same. When I took a tour at Passion Pictures (Gorillaz and more) last week, even they said they still do it with pencil and paper cause you can't get the same level of draftsmanship and precision on them. And they have to do everything as fast and cheap as possible! Disney's got the luxury of not having to do this. To me it sounds like using the technology just because they can, not because they have to.
I sure hope the cintiq's stay with storyboarding - where its advantages are much and much higher.
Fools.
When Leonardo was using oils, THAT was the latest in imaging technology.
When Raphaelo was using frescoes, THAT was the latest in technology.
'But I'm used to the paper, I'm used to the paper'...such cry babies!
' BUt the big, ugly, computer doesn't have the "Tactile" experience, etc, etc...'
Can't you guys get a bit environmentaly friendly frame of mind? Yeah, let's cut all the trees so that we can continue experiencing the "Tactile" joy it is to draw and use up thousands and thousands of sheets of paper...
Finally there's an option...
wow-- that was quite the passionate and dare i say, immature reaction to someones opinion. What's so wrong with just giving the artists a choice between either medium? both have their advantages-- neither is better, just different. why choose only one, why not both?
I agree, both have their advantages. Like I said before though, I don't think the computer's advantages outweigh the paper's when it comes to character animation. So I'd rather have them stick to the "old technology" in that context. I say use the strongpoints of both media. Don't switch to one just because it's fashionable. Bringing "Disney 2D" back is enough promotion. You don't need to have "the first handdrawn animated feature entirely made on the computer" to get tickets sold.
Anonymous #3:
Oil painting was invented between the 11th and 13th century. Leonardo was born in the 15th. Frescoes were used in ancient Egypt. Raphael was born in the 15th century. Surprisingly, Leonardo and Raphael died less than a year apart from eachother, and Raphael was the youngest of the two. Oil painting was used by artists because it gave advantages over the prefered method, frescoes. So how the heck can they be "new technology". Whatever new they brought to both of these "technologies", it were certain techniques, knowledge and skill, but nothing techology-wise. And even if your argument made sense, you'd basically be saying all artists should've started using ballpoint pens instead of regular pens or pencils.
And environment? Please. If you're really interested in the environment, you should know there are far worse threats to trees than the use of paper. Paper which, btw, you can recycle. If it'd be about the environment, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been too hard for experts to find a way to recycle paper and still keep the most important qualities of what animation paper needs.
Oh, and btw, I'm still a student, and I've only been animating handdrawn for a year. I have years of experience with computers. I switched when I started focussing on character animation, and I could've just gone with a tablet. A friend has, and for now he's sticking with it, but he misses a lot of things that he thinks he could've done on paper.
Nobody has to make a choice by force. It is up to the artist to choose whatever medium he/she feels comfortable with.
That said, animation and in a larger scale, cinematography is very closely linked to the advances in technology which happen at increasing speeds. James Cameron is tinkering with three dimentional projection, for example, George Lucas made a number of advances himself (non linear editing) and so has Spielberg. Kubrick developed new lenses and an early version of a steadicam.Disney himself was always on the cutting edge.Introducing sound and colour on his shorts, and don't forget the multiplane camera. Not nessesarily the new and hip. All of this for purposes of storytelling. Lasseter himself was toying with cg early in the eighties!
Ok, so maybe Lucas is not the best of storytellers...but he still is influential...
I heard that the animators were going to have a choice between computer or pencil. So what's the argument?
Actually, it was the directors (Clements and Musker) who got the choice, not the animators. And the choice was not if it was going to be done with paper or tablet, but 3D or 2D. This movie will be 2D done on computers.
I hear a lot about the advantages when it comes to paper vs tablet, but I see now examples to support the claims.
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