Director-animator-story artist Tom Sito and I whiled away the afternoon reflecting on the ups and down of animation over the past few decades. Tom related:
"My first animation job was working on Raggedy Ann and Andy back in the seventies. At most, there were two animated features released each year: something from Disney, maybe some independent feature from Bakshi, and once in a while a movie from Hanna-Barbera. That was it.
"Last year there were fifteen or twenty animated features released, fourteen the year before that, and fifteen this year. The amount of animation being done has gone to a whole different level."
I responded that there was a good reason for that. Animation was making a lot more money. This trend hasn't escaped the notice of The Hollywood Reporter:
'Despicable Me,' 'Inception' Top Home Video Sales Charts ...
Universal Studios Home Entertainment's Despicable Me finished atop the VideoScan First Alert sales chart for the week ending Dec. 26, its second consecutive week in the top spot. ... Rounding out the top five on the sales chart [was] Disney's Toy Story 3 at No. 5. ... Fox's Return of the Jedi spoof Family Guy: It's a Trap placed at No. 9 ...
When two high-grossing theatrical features land in the top 5 of the DVD charts (one of them repeating in the #1 position), and a television cartoon clings to #9, you don't need the brains of Einstein to figure out why there's more animation in today's marketplace.
The flow of dollars is too big to ignore.
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3 comments:
Thank goodness for strong, narrative, and character driven animated features doing so well. Could be stuck working on piss poor, unimaginative, and badly designed childish crap like these...
http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm/review/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-review/a-20101223155545225005/g-20090821174930197055
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/naild/review/naild-review/a-2010112917253687037/g-2010051414756218073
http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/splatterhouse/review/splatterhouse-review/a-20101129134840812061/g-20080507162445190035
http://www.gamesradar.com/wii/disney-epic-mickey/review/disney-epic-mickey-review/a-2010112416849912052/g-2009102811119630063
http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/the-sly-collection/review/the-sly-collection-review/a-20101115173341437033/g-20100615132832640030
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/kinect-adventures/review/kinect-adventures-review/a-20101104152532227011/g-20100613201015568009
Really? You're including Epic Mickey and Sly on the list? And... Splatterhouse? Wait... what? You're going to need an in depth explanation for what 'childish' means. And Warcraft? Did a video game company punch you in the face or something? Not only are you talking about a completly different medium, but including games that have done really well commercially (Epic Mickey and Warcraft have topped 1,000,000 copies sold each). Sly is a beloved platformer, Mickey's biggest complaint is it's camera control (its story has been lauded), Warcraft is an industry unto itself, and... well the other three aren't anything special, but I've never heard of Naild and Kinect Adventures is a tech demo for Kinect.
I agree, it's great that character driven animation is doing so well in theaters, but the rest of your post, Anonymous #1, makes me feel as though you only commented to complain about a random collection of video games for no apparent reason.
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