In the little over 100 years that the idea of animation, the illusion of motion, has been around, it’s apparent that the one style of representing the art form has been to meticulously hand draw every frame 24 times a second and the process continues with ink and paint. It’s a long process that in this day and age, hasn’t the time nor the patience to execute in that traditional style. In the past decade, computer generated animation, or 3-D animation, has been the new dominant form of representing the illusion of motion. So it would seem 2-D animation is on the cusp of extinction but it’s this very struggle to survive that could potentially unlock a dormant creative reinvention of 2-D animation.
Studios in Europe are beating the drum to a unique aesthetic that opens new insights on the hand drawn style. 3-D animation is poking holes at the declining 2-D animated features, particularly in the United States. This ‘calling out’ traditional animation has pointed out unoriginal aesthetics and most importantly, poor storytelling. The Western style and the Eastern style, Disney and Anime for the most part, has influenced one another in a cycle that we’ve seen too often. Influences in aesthetic design should break that cycle and look to Europe. Low quality storytelling will eventually be the nail in the coffin for 2-D animation, as Pixar has shown how important narration is in their films. Given a pleasing aesthetic design with quality storytelling, it’s no wonder why 3-D animation has dominated that way it has. But this downslide in 2-D animation, being as complacent as it has, will now have nowhere to look but up, as that is the only way out of their slump. A 2-D revival may be on it’s way.
So along with the research, I also pitched an idea for a possible 2-D animated short that will utilized the aesthetics as a means of storytelling. The story focuses on two individuals who are ideas that exist but have not been realized by the artist. Once they are realized they disappear from their known reality into our’s as works of art. It touches upon themes of death and rebirth as well as the reoccurring themes we’ve seen in class: Materialism, Humanism, and Transcendentalism. As ideas are realized they become immortal, much like the reality we live in may very well be a place of salvation for ideas. Before that, they’ve always existed, but in our minds, with no purpose. They might very well rely only on faith to ponder their existence, as like how we very so often wonder about life after death and the meaning of our existence in a reality that we still know so little about.
I plan for this to be a three part animated short. The first one is below in the Vimeo link. The other two are still in the works.
Here’s the link to the animatic.
Design Denizens 