Ponyo, the latest Japanese hand drawn animation produced by the animation artist Hayao Miyazaki is now hitting the theatre. In 2002, this famous Japanese animators won the academic award for best animated picture by his master piece Spirited Away. Since then, many people started to realise that Japanese Animation is forg­ing its way into Western Popular culture. Actually, the Japanese animation has already invaded the western culture since 1960s. The first invasion was seen to be Astro Boy in 1963. Since then, many animations for instance Dragon Ball and Pokemon have created big hits in the America. Many people may think the Japanese animations are now challenging the western animation industry. However, in my own point of view, the Japanese animations have created opportunities for the western children to get in touch with the Japanese culture. They can be trained up to be more broad-minded and tolerant. Moreover, I believe that those high quality hand-drawn Japanese animations like Ponyo could encourage the production of traditional animation as 2d animations are under threat from computer generated animations.

A recent interview of Ponyo creator Hayao Miyazaki can be seen here.

Below is the trailer of Ponyo, enjoy!

References

Coady, M. M. 2009,  Opinions Editor. Animation Invasion, The Forress  State Torch, accessed 8 October2009, <http://www.ferris.edu/torch/2009/08/26/opinions/animation-invasion/>

The release of 2009 big hit animated movie Aliens VS. Monsters has created a big revolution in the computer animation industry as it brought the stereoscopic projection technology (or we can say 3D technology) to the fore in the animation production. In the past few years, 3D technology was already being applied in the CGI animation for instance Meet the Robinson’s and Bolt. However, not like Aliens VS Monsters, those computer animations are not directly produced with a 3D stereoscopic format but just being converted into 3D in the postproduction stage.

Computer animation producers generally agree that, the application of 3D stereoscopic device to the production of computer animations can generate many opportunities to the CGI animation artists in the production of animations, as well as improve the storytelling ability of animation. In an interview, the chief technology officer of DreamWorks Animation Ed Leonard said that “the 3D revolution is about immersing the audience into the movie. Advanced technical tools that helped eliminate creative limitations allowed us to dive headfirst into the exciting storytelling capabilities of stereoscopic 3D.”

Many years ago, computer animation producers had already foreseen the great future of using 3D device in animation production early. In 2007, Dreamworks Animation made an announcement that all its future films will be made in stereoscopic 3D as they agreed that, besides the ability of creating better storytelling animations, 3D technology in their can also brings them a great business opportunity in creating a unique experience and a new market which its competitors have no experience in.

Although the use of 3D in animation production has created so many opportunities, in contrary it has also brought a whole new set of tough challenges to the animation artist as the production process is seen to be very complicated (details can be seen in Monsters vs Aliens: Behind-the-Scenes Look at 3D) comparing with the production of typical animations for instance Shrek.

The stereotype 3D technology has already become the main component in animation production. In the future, almost all of the upcoming computer animation will be produce in 3D. Moreover, some of the classic animations for instance the Toy Story series and Beauty and the Beast will hit the theatre again in 3D. We can see that, the future of stereoscopic 3D animation is now creating many unknown opportunities to the animation industry and the audiences.

References

Cherian, V. 2009,  Monsters Vs Aliens brings 3D animation to the fore, DigitalProductionME, viewed 6 Oct 2009, <http://www.digitalproductionme.com/article-1233-monsters_vs_aliens_brings_3d_animation_to_the_fore/>

McCarthy, E. 2009, Monsters vs Aliens: Behind-the-Scenes Look at 3D Tech, Popular Mechanics, viewed 4 Oct 2009, <http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4310774.html>

Tran, L. 2007, Stereoscopic 3D Is DreamWorks’ Future, Electro Plankton blog, viewed 5 Oct 2009, <http://www.tran ism.com/weblog/2007/03/stereoscopic-3d.html>

The movie UP was such a big hit in this year. Until now, this 3D  computer animated movie produced by the Pixar Studio has nearly earned three hundred million US dollars in the US box office. Also, it success could be seen in the high rating by the critics and audiences. We could see that, since the release of first computer animated movie – Toy Story in 1995, this kind of computer generated animation movies has shown their potential to become the dominance of animated movies, supplanting the hand-drawn style Disney animations. The rise of computer animation has created such a huge challenge to the future of hand-drawn animation industry and the career of those traditional animation artists. Why audiences generally preferred computer animated movies? The answer is simple and obvious. Explained by the article The making of Toy Story, “In the production  of computer animation, a complete digitally world can be generated to populate it with characters seeming to act of their own volition and experience, and render it with the colors, shapes, and textures of a believable stylized reality.”  Hence, this character of the computer animation makes it more immersible than traditional two dimensional animations. Also, the fact shows that it is more feasible and cost effective to produce a feature length animated motion picture entirely on computers.

Many of the In 2004, Disney abandoned its traditional animation studio in Orlando, and fired more than 250 animation artists. Moreover, many of the traditional animated pictures like Disney’s Treasure Planet and Home on the Range were failed in the box office. Thus, we could see that in this recent years, the traditional animation industry and the hand-drawn animation artists are under threat from the computer animated movies.

The computer animation is now seen to be the norm of animated movie and its technology is getting better after each animated feature. However, Disney is now announced to return to the production to hand-drawn animation. The first returing movie released by Disney animation studio will be the Princess and the Frog. Many people may ask, will the 2d animation rise again? What does the future of 2d animation hold? At this moment, we could hardly foresee the future of it.  But for disney and all hand-drawn animators, they surely don’t want Princess and the Frog falling flat as they still believe that audiences are attracted to see the animation if it has great stories and great characters. Also, hand-drawn animation can helped Disney develop its patented magic and fantasy elements.

Below is the latest trailer of Princess and the Frog. Let’s see whether you can find back the magic of Disney’s classical animation again!

References

Chmielewski, D. C., 2009, Disney hopes its 2-D ‘Princess and the Frog’ doesn’t fall flat, Los Angeles Times, viewed 3 Oct 2009, <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-disney11-2009sep11,0,4078147.story>

Henne, M., Hickel, H., Johnson, E., & Konishi, S. 1996, The Making of Toy Story, Pixar Animation Studio.
Valentine, K. 2009, WonderCon 2009: Disney’s Return to 2D Animation. Associated Content, viewed 28 Sept, <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1549195/wondercon_2009_disneys_return_to_2d.html?cat=19>