Curtis

Probably. That doesn't mean they weren't primarily hand-drawn. But to the folks who hand-drew [i]101 Dalmatians,[i] it doesn't seem like hand-drawing scenes like that would be beyond the realm of possibility.

I've been thinking about CGI. I wonder if we don't need a different word for animation done on computers, because in a real sense, it's an entirely new thing, never done before.

What distinguishes live-action from animation? The latter covers a wide variety of techniques. Puppet/clay and drawing are major types, but there's also animation done with paper cut-outs. I've read about an old-time animator who used boards with pins sticking up, which he would rearrange to make pictures for the different frames. What do they all have in common, that we call them by the same name?

In all cases, the image is manipulated by unseen hands between the frames. Live-action is filmed in a continuous run, so what you see on the screen is a reflection of natural action. From one frame to the next, the figures actually move under their own power; whereas in animation, the camera is stopped so the puppets can be moved, the cels can be switched out, or whatever.

In computer animation, there's continous motion, but not of real objects. The machine does the rearrangement of images that don't have any physical existence at all.

A good analogy is modern music. For many millennia, there were two ways to make music -- voice and instruments. Synthesizers are something new. There, the musician is able to manipulate the sound vibrations directly, opening whole new realms of creativity, not depending on the physical limitations of whatever he's working with.

It's the same with animation. Computers make it possible to be free of the physical limitations of the real objects that are animated traditionally. In a very real sense, it's a whole new ball game.

These are just unformed thoughts. I need to get them organized. But I think we're dealing with a whole new medium of expression.

Quack, Don

Do we really need another term for CGI animation? To me, it would be similar to DC's use of the term "metahuman" which you have (seriously?) criticized.

I presume that if one were to look in the dictionary, animation would be defined as multiple drawings filmed in a manner to simulate action. The only difference between the different styles (for lack of a better term,) is the method used. There is "traditional, hand drawn,"-which now uses copiers, and, computers to aid the animation, "claymation- where clay figures are manipulated between frames," and, the latest, Computer Generated  Imagery.

I guess what I'm trying to say, doesn't use of the word animation to describe a broad range of styles/method work well enough that we need to create a new word?

That's a good point. I've been known to criticize the term "URL", when "address" seems perfectly applicable. On the other hand, the lack of live actors obviously makes it not live action; whereas the lack of manipulation between frames would seem  to make it not quite animation. On the third hand (these are cartoons, so I can have as many hands as I want), you're certainly right that we don't need to clutter up a language that's already not fully comprehensible to our ancestors only a generation back.

By the way, the word "Claymation" is owned. Anyone can make clay animation, but just as commercial interests object to the genericization of "Coke" and "Xerox" (and earlier generations of commercial interests tried to protect "Frigidaire" and "Scotch Tape"), Will Vinton has a valid cause for complaint if anyone else calls his product "Claymation".

Also by the way, "hand-drawn" animation is still drawn by hand. Ub Iwerks pioneered the use of xerographic technology to transfer the drawings to cels, but they're still, as always, made with a human hand holding a pencil.

But "metahuman"? Puh-leeze. I see hat one as being promoted by funnybook writers who are embarrassed by "superhero" because they're trying to put across the idea that they're grown-ups. But trying to bury a word because it sounds juvenile is not the act of an adult

Quack, Don

I knew the term "Claymation"-especially when it's capitalized, referred to a specific studio, but I couldn't think of another term to describe the style generically. Obviously separating the two words works.

And, are you saying that any cel animation that uses copiers and computers in the animation process (even though it is mainly hand drawn,) is not "hand drawn animation"?
Interesting bit of history that Disney contemporary Ibwerks developed the use of copiers to aid the duplication of cels.

I didn't say that at all. What's drawn by hand is still hand-drawn. Use of other technology elsewhere in the process doesn't make it otherwise. I'm not sure what I said to give any other impression.

By the way, I used the phrase "xerographic technology" not because "Xerox" is trademarked, but because I doubt machines that can  make cels clean enough to be used bear much resemblance to office copiers. If you could just put the animation drawings on a glass and press "copy", it wouldn't have taken a technical genius like Iwerks to develop the technique.

Quack, Don

Since it obvious I misread/misunderstood what you said, my apologies. And, though I never thought about it, I guess it would take a special copier to to duplicate any transparency, especially an animation cel where details and color are very important. (To be cynical, I'd bet the Xerox company itself first came up with the process, but now the Japanese companies have the best machines for this work, considering how they are dominating the photography field. {An allied field.})

No apology needed. But the technical expertise isn't just putting them on transparencies. It's cleaning them up. I just don't see how it can be done, but then I'm not a genius like Iwerks.

Animation art is in pencil, and looks sketchy. Transferring it to cels that can be put under the camera used to be the work of human beings in the ink & paint department, and it seems like it would take a human brain to clean it up. In fact, it's exactly that sort of brain function, de-distorting letters, that is often used to verify that people on the Web are human and not machines.

Even the smartest machines can't automatically choose the colors -- that was still the job of the painters. (These days, tho, once the colors are chosen for a scene, I don't doubt the computers can apply them repetitively to the many cels. Geez, I love technology!)

Quack, Don