![]() Across the world, animators pushed the boundaries of what CG could be and fleshed out the hand-drawn animation that major American studios abandoned. While American animation has stuck with one style for pretty much the last 20 years, international studios haven’t been bound by those expectations. Part of the long-standing limits they faced did come from the physical restrictions on what computers could render, but part of it was simply what studio executives deemed worth investing in. But now, American directors have more of a choice - one they weren’t allowed to make before Into the Spider-Verse proved that audiences were hungry for stylistic experimentation. Last summer’s The Sea Beast, for instance, definitely skews toward the side of realism, especially when it comes to the crashing ocean waves. Not every single animator out there is trying to break away from verisimilitude. “When it came to shading clothing or skin textures, there was just a little bit more of an artistic touch to it.” “There’s just something tactile that you kind of feel is missing from a lot of CG animation,” Turning Red director Domee Shi says. And we’re like No, I would love it to be a beautiful line that is simple and poetic.” But Casarosa sought more warmth and expression for the water in his film: “The computer wants to do a beautiful splash of water that has every single droplet in it. For a long time, animators coveted the ability to animate photorealistic water - rendering convincing, believable textures was the ultimate goal. When it came to that 2020 sea monster movie, animating water offered an interesting scenario. Luca Image: Pixar Turning Red Image: Pixar ![]() It’s a little bit more: Oh, but can I actually not make it look realistic?” says Enrico Casarosa, director of Pixar’s Luca. Now it’s more about, how do you use it? So it’s not like we have to make a completely new tool. “We’re at this place where so much has been conquered. You can see the trend is shifting a little bit.” “I find … ‘boring’ is probably excessive, but I want to see something different,” says The Bad Guys director Pierre Perifel. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but in the same way that it got tedious to see other studios copying Disney’s musical formula in the post-Renaissance era, it can be tiresome to see the same visual style over and over - not just for audiences, but for the animators creating these movies. And while technology has radically changed animation from the days of Toy Story to 2022’s Lightyear, chasing realism became the stylistic norm. After one last wave of traditional cel animation, CG became the norm stateside. The Disney house style defined cartoons for decades, and when Pixar started releasing movies, it set a series of CG standards that everyone else reached for. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Image: DreamWorks The Bad Guys Image: DreamWorksįor most of the history of American animation, studios have been copying past successes. Not only did it show audiences what animated movies could look like, it also emboldened directors and animators to push the boundaries of accepted aesthetics and take a chance on more stylized and personal art. Its stylized approach celebrates animation as an anything-goes medium. In 2018, the first Spider-Verse movie redefined not just superhero blockbuster movies (and if you want to get specific, Spider-Man movies), but also American animation as a whole. Like so many American animated movies released in the last few years, The Last Wish veers away from the aesthetic that defined American animation for decades, working toward a more impressionistic and dynamic design.Īnd for that, we have Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to thank. But it doesn’t just give an existing series a makeover. When Polygon asked Januel Mercado, co-director of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, about animation that inspired the visual look of his DreamWorks movie, he had an easy answer: “Obviously Spider-Verse.” The movie’s evocative oil-painted style doesn’t look like the Shrek franchise that spawned it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |