Animation: Hand-Drawn vs. Computer Created?!


Question: This one might be generational, I guess. I was one who grew up w/ Bugs Bunny, Saturday morning cartoons w/ a slew of Hanna-Barbera works, (back when Saturday mornings was pretty much The Only time to see many 'toons in one sitting)
Flintstones, Super Friends, Spiderman, Batman etc...

Then technology evolved & along came "Toy Story" & it hasn't been the same since. It was innovative stuff, for sure. & I *know* that it isn't simply "point & click" to make computer generated animation films. I learned from a guy I know that it Does take pretty much an equal amount of talent & imagination, BUT...

Is there something still...lacking w/ a computer image? I'm talking *cartoons*, not 'live action' like "Jurassic Park" or "Godzilla".

So do we miss hand-drawn 'toons on the big screen? I'm not up to speed on newer tv ' toons. But I'm guessing the anime-influenced hand-drawn stuff is the popular thing now. (which I'm not crazy about, but that's another post)


Answers: This one might be generational, I guess. I was one who grew up w/ Bugs Bunny, Saturday morning cartoons w/ a slew of Hanna-Barbera works, (back when Saturday mornings was pretty much The Only time to see many 'toons in one sitting)
Flintstones, Super Friends, Spiderman, Batman etc...

Then technology evolved & along came "Toy Story" & it hasn't been the same since. It was innovative stuff, for sure. & I *know* that it isn't simply "point & click" to make computer generated animation films. I learned from a guy I know that it Does take pretty much an equal amount of talent & imagination, BUT...

Is there something still...lacking w/ a computer image? I'm talking *cartoons*, not 'live action' like "Jurassic Park" or "Godzilla".

So do we miss hand-drawn 'toons on the big screen? I'm not up to speed on newer tv ' toons. But I'm guessing the anime-influenced hand-drawn stuff is the popular thing now. (which I'm not crazy about, but that's another post)

You're making me feel all nostalgic now, Fonzie!
These last two weeks in the UK, one of the newspapers has been giving away DVDs of classic childrens shows, and all of the animated ones are hand-drawn ones.


Speaking as a 25-year old who mostly grew-up on the hand-drawn animation, but who also took her younger cousins to see films like 'Toy Story', I *much* prefer proper hand-drawn films.

There is something wonderful about knowing hours of talent and skill went into producing each cell, and just the overall 'look' of the finished films.

This could just be a nostalgia for the films I watched as a child and young teen ~ most of which I still love now ~ such as :~

Watership Down
The Secret of Nimh*
An American Tale
Balto
The Aristocats
Alice in Wonderland
etc...

* = first film by Don Bluth, who's animators had left Disney because they didn't like the changes being made.


And I loved the old cartoons, like :~

The Raccoons ; The Flinstones ; Loony Tunes ; Henry's Cat {UK} ; Heathcliff ; Top Cat ; Bananaman {UK} ; etc...


I do like CGI, but only when it is used sparingly. There has been an unfortunate tendancy recently to say "Why film it, when we can just use CGI?". But when it is applied correctly, it can be amazing.

I totally agree after a while the whole CGI thing gets a bit old. ah how I miss hand drawn animated movies. i watch alot of miyazaki films to make up for it. sure theres some CGI in it but its not all in cgi. I use to love disney animatied films but now there all the same and pretty much cgi animated. I love the lion king though that was there best film but this is just my view on the subject :)

By hand-drawn, you mean what the Disney people did decades ago. Those guys drew every frame by flipping up the previous page and making small changes. Very time consuming, but wonderful movement.

As an example of how similar animation is done today, look at The Simpsons. The writers and animators make mostly extended story boards and then send everything over to Korea or Taiwan where each frame is animated and colored.

The 3D stuff is very time consuming and still can take years to make something like a Pixar movie. That's all done on computers, but the characters and story boards are done by hand.

Anime is the cheapest form and the style lends itself to low cost animation. They don't even worry about proper mouth movements since the language might change.

These days the easiest way to make your own hand drawn animations is to use something like Flash on the computer.

I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I have to agree that really good hand drawn animation is a real treat.

Ah, memories. I too grew up with the Loony Toons and Hanna Barbera cartoons. I remember seeing Toy Story at the cinema and i was amazed with the animation for a few minutes but the story was so good that i didn't pay any attention to how it looked anymore. I think as long as the story is good, it shouldn't matter if it's made by hand or computer. Look at Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within from 2001. The computer animation on that was spectacular but the film had such a poor story that all the fancy graphics in the world couldn't make it any more interesting.

Good question. Fonzie!

For me, it depends on the medium.

I still enjoy hand-drawn for its place in Art History - and some movies like Mulan are amazing and hand-drawn - I have to appreciate that.

CGI has brought a whole new world to us - for "animated" movies - I think CGI is great... spectacular. For movies where CGI is mixed-in with people, I used to marvel at it, but now that it has become a less-expensive technology - a lot of movie-makers are making "bad" movies with spectacular CGI.

I saw a special where at the time of the first Jurassic Park, CGI was working-hard to catch-up with the ideas of the Director - by the time Jurassic-3 came out - they said that CGI is so far ahead, that NOW, it's up to our imaginations to catch-up with it!!

I wish we could solve other problems like this LOL



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