As character animation techniques become more advanced thanks to animation technology, does the way we tell stories change along with the way characters change?
The way that characters are animated in western full-length feature animations has become more advanced thanks to technology. Computer generated animation has allowed for more subtlety in character animation to the extent that we can animate realistic breathing and complex micro-expressions that are difficult to capture with hand drawn animation. In Toy Story, for example, “Woody is famed for his complexity, and the number of distinct facial movements … were designed to satiate an audience appetite for more astute virtual beings” (Greg Hilty, Watch Me Move) As character animation becomes more advanced, there is more potential to create characters with a larger breadth of emotion, as well as more characters to tell panoptic stories without the effort of hand-drawn animation, and on a larger scale. “Even the hand-drawn Disney movies incorporated CGI … when there was a hoard of something” (How CGI Transformed Animated Storytelling, a video essay). Technological advancements have been important to creating meaningful, emotional character animation since the 1930s. In Snow White “New Techniques by the Effects Department and Inkers and Painters created … realistic tears to help with the sincerity of the scenes” (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, The Illusion of Life). However, this has never been more prevalent than with the dawn of computer animation. Computer aided character animation has leaked into stop motion films, with Laika hooking up the largest stop motion animatronic to wires and moving them with a computer to create fluid movement that’s more convincing. The more nuanced, technologically advanced and convincing the character animation is, the more impactful the story is.
The way that characters are animated in western full-length feature animations has become more advanced thanks to technology. Computer generated animation has allowed for more subtlety in character animation to the extent that we can animate realistic breathing and complex micro-expressions that are difficult to capture with hand drawn animation. In Toy Story, for example, “Woody is famed for his complexity, and the number of distinct facial movements … were designed to satiate an audience appetite for more astute virtual beings” (Greg Hilty, Watch Me Move) As character animation becomes more advanced, there is more potential to create characters with a larger breadth of emotion, as well as more characters to tell panoptic stories without the effort of hand-drawn animation, and on a larger scale. “Even the hand-drawn Disney movies incorporated CGI … when there was a hoard of something” (How CGI Transformed Animated Storytelling, a video essay). Technological advancements have been important to creating meaningful, emotional character animation since the 1930s. In Snow White “New Techniques by the Effects Department and Inkers and Painters created … realistic tears to help with the sincerity of the scenes” (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, The Illusion of Life). However, this has never been more prevalent than with the dawn of computer animation. Computer aided character animation has leaked into stop motion films, with Laika hooking up the largest stop motion animatronic to wires and moving them with a computer to create fluid movement that’s more convincing. The more nuanced, technologically advanced and convincing the character animation is, the more impactful the story is.
