3D Animation and the Film Industry

When it was announced that the giant 3D animation studio Pixar's latest masterpiece Up will open for the prestigious Cannes film festival in France, it was celebrated as the very first 3D animation film to hold such distinction. After all, only edgy films with stalwart and even socially responsible themes get to be played at Cannes. Thus, there is eager anticipation for the movie because it may break movie standards once more.



In a nutshell, Up is a movie about a 78-year-old man who goes on a trip to the world by attaching balloons into his home. He is joined by a stout boy who sneaked his way to the trip. With the premise alone, the film promises to have much potential for creativity.

However, much to the dismay of the Walt Disney Company and Pixar, there are two major sectors who are not so high on the movie: both Wall Street and toy retailers.

The argument: who would be excited with toys of a grumpy old man? Moreover, there are no female characters in the film - a move which will already alienate the massive fan base of Disney Princesses. Accordingly, although the film may become a film with excellent content, there may be problems with potential suitors for character licensing deals.

"The worries keep coming despite Pixar's track record, because each film it delivers seems to be less commercial than the last," says Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company.

With a budget of $175 million, it is easy to see the attention it attracted from Wall Street. Retailers are forecasting slim character licensing revenues for Up compared to the most recent Pixar film Ratatouille which was a weak performer for Pixar.

Major stores such as Target and Wal-Mart are stocking up little "Up" merchandise, mainly because there was not much interest from manufacturers: Thinkway Toys, which has churned out thousands of Pixar-related products since 1995's "Toy Story," will not produce a single Up item. Disney Stores will offer "Up"-related products, but even that will be on a limited basis.

However, Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, gave this response: "We seek to make great films first. If a great film gives birth to a franchise, we are the first company to leverage such success. A check-the-boxes approach to creativity is more likely to result in blandness and failure."

So what should it be? It is easy to focus on the creative aspects but the commercial part can never be taken for granted because it is still a crucial element. Thankfully, for a huge studio such as Disney, such money can be overlooked somewhat in the early stages.

John Lasseter, a co-founder of Pixar and now Disney's chief creative officer, believes that marketability is not a factor in decisions about what projects to pursue. "Quality is the best business plan" is one of Mr. Lasseter's favorite lines.

The animation of Up is said to be heavily stylized. The cranky old antagonist, Carl, is not realistic looking but has square attributes. Moreover, there is a lovable 8-year old kid character, an exotic bird, and talking dogs. When carefully studied, it can still have potential for character licensing. After all if children fall in love with the characters, there will be a demand for retailers.

"We wanted more 'Dumbo' and less 'Star Wars,' " says director Pete Docter. With improving technology, more and more films may put the emphasis on special effects and profitability to recover production costs - but the moviegoers have not changed a bit throughout the years. They still want quality for their movie tickets.

Although both video games and animated movies can fascinate and players and viewers with its captivating 3D animation graphics, they are more or less not the same thing. Basically, it is just the same medium applied in two various means - much like the difference between the steel string for an electric and an acoustic guitar.

The main difference between video games and movies is its interactivity. Animated movies, after all, are simply meant to be experienced in movie theaters, while video games require the involvement of the player to make characters and sequences in the television screen move. However, this is simply the tip of the iceberg. There are more differences between the two platforms.

3D Environments

Imagine yourself entering your bedroom. For animated movies, if the sequence requires the screen character to likewise enter the same room, all they have to model is the line of vision of the character or the intended camera view angle specified in the story board. The 3D environment which has to be created is just the mise-en-scene - or everything that has to be seen in a movie screen.

However, in video games, if one is entering the bedroom, one is more likely to explore the whole house. This is why video games productions are more tedious. They not only worry about the mise-en-scene; they also work on creating the entire 360-degree 3D environment where the character would have to explore for a full range of motion. Motion is the premium in video games thus it is important to create the entire environment where the character should move.



Console Engine Limitations.

Ever understand what the fuss is about the graphic engines of the current video game platforms today such as the Sony PlayStation 3, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii? Because these engines define the look of the rendering of animation.Since video game players are interactive with the world of the game, every input is important and the graphic engines react to these inputs to produce renderings.

This is the reason why there are different rendering levels in a video games - and why usually the normal graphics are not as polished compared to non-interactive cinematic scenes within the game. Video game graphics are always dependent on user input thus their focus is to keep up with the video game players.

On the other hand, since animated movies are created on relatively longer timetables, they can focus on painstaking details. They can work thoroughly on certain sequences because after the work is done, the movie sequences are already set in stone. Now, all the viewers would have to do is, well, view it.

Similarly this same dynamics is what happens to the quality of sound and sound effects. Video games often rely on looped backdrops for music and simple generic sounds for sound effects in order to reduce the strain on the graphics engine. Meanwhile, movies don't have much limitation. Because of its non-interactive nature, the quality of the audio can be configured to come out on top.

Artificial Intelligence
Artificial engines have been a great tool used to develop the interactive 3D animation environments of video games. Because they have to react to stimuli, video games have benefited much from letting AI engines to perform routine responses for the video game user. Movie animation has no need for such complexity because they are following a pre-determined script - the only focus now is on execution, which is not to say that this process is not similarly complex.

Although there are delineated differences between how video games and animated movies are applied with 3D animation, there is always the common goal of focusing on the experience and entertainment of the end-user. Designers, animators and everyone involved in the production process work their hearts out just to ensure that viewers and users will be immersed in the worlds they have created.

Gossip mongers among Hollywood circles are going amok over the whispers around the grapevine that Disney's upcoming remake of the 1982 film Tron will have a production budget of $300 million.

Tron, if you may remember, is a landmark science fiction film by Disney as it was the first major studio film to use computer graphics animation extensively - giving it a distinctive visual style. It was starred by Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn (and his counterpart inside the electronic world, Clu), Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley (and Tron), Cindy Morgan as Dr. Lora Baines (and Yori) and Dan Shor as Ram. David Warner played the villain, Ed Dillinger (and Sark), as well as providing the voice of the Master Control Program. It was written and directed by Steven Lisberger.

Hollywood writers are questioning the budget rumors by noting if it is worth giving a $300 million budget for a science fiction film without the participation of the giant 3D animation studio Pixar. With the original Tron blazing trails in computer animation, Tron 2.0 just might feature the same CG fireworks.

Moreover, there are still problems with the rumor about the budget. There are still no clarifications whether the budget is tagged in Canadian dollars since the filming of Tron 2.0 is being done in Vancouver, Canada. Through the years, strong movies such as Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End has only had budgets of $240 million and $270 million respectively - so it seems unlikely for Tron 2.0 to have a $300 million budget from Disney.

Whether the rumors and speculations are right about the budget of Tron 2.0, this poses an important issue on how films are viewed. Normally when a film is still in its infancy stage, critics and previewers always refer to the budget of a film to get a feel of the quality of the film.

This can be true to a certain extent because film budgets can give a vague picture as to the preparation it will entail for the film. High budgets may mean that the production team has carefully analyzed the requirements of the films and carefully studied the budget it will take to execute it properly. 3D animation studios, although not enduring physical shoots, have larger budgets because of the technology needed to craft sequences from storyboards.

However, once the film has finished, budgets should never be the primary consideration for the success of a film. The content should reign supreme - the workings of a plot away from a tried-and-tested formula, a roster of characters which will endear themselves to its target market (usually children for 3D animated films), and the values and moral lessons it teaches to its viewers.

However, sadly, commercial filmmaking is always a numbers game. The future of an animated film franchise and its sequels are always dependent on box office receipts first and foremost. This is where reviewers judge its commercial performance with its film budget. Being an industry, the focus is always on the recovery of costs allocated for the project. This is why if a film tanked in the box office, it is an automatic failure.

While this may be an effective barometer because a bad film will never really warrant viewers in theaters, there are factors working in today's field which renders this treatment obsolete. There are other factors to consider such as home viewership for DVD releases. The bottom line is that film budgets should never be the all-important guide, whether its budget is low or high, it is for the viewers to decide if the animated movie deserves merit.

Since the early beginnings of cinema, the power of production has already been in the hands of a select few because the capital and operating costs needed to create films were very exorbitant. This is why throughout the decades, the monopoly of film creation rested in the Hollywood prototype -- a concentrated area where large commercial studios prevail.

However, commercial studios tend to focus more on profit, thus more often than not, these studios become over-reliant on formula and tried-and-tested stereotypes to mass-produce films and rake in profit. The downside here is that the content of films become diluted and bland.

Thus came, the alternative and independent movie scene.

The independent movie scene -- indie, to its dear followers -- breaks away from the mold of the traditional major commercial film outfits. They secure their funding through their own pockets, thus there is no pressure to rake in profit. Accordingly, the focus now rests solely on the content of the films. With no commercial motivation, these kinds of films can concentrate on topics which are not marketable such as offbeat and taboo topics -- subjects which audience find enriching and empowering.

However, the major downsides of the indie scene were promotion and access to technology and equipments. With the coming of the digital age, these problems were erased for indie filmmakers, ushering a new era of films created from handheld camcorders and post-processed from home editing softwares.

With this paradigm shift, it is quite tempting to ask the possibility of 3D animated movies entering the fray of the independent movie scene.

At first glance, 3D animation movies seem a longshot to be created independently. With the complexity of animation, it seems a given that it should be created within the bounds of a 3D animation studio. If these studios take years to create a full-length feature, how about an independent filmmaker?

But looking deeply, the premium on indie films is always the content. Story is always king, as they say. Moreover, as much as technical prowess, precious time and equipments are needed to create 3D animated movies, these films are relatively easier to create than live-action full-length films.

As far as logistics is concerned, live-action full-length films would need to manage the operating expenses of a huge crew and its cumbersome equipments for shooting days. Moreover, the lead actors and actresses have to appear live and participate in the shooting days.

In 3D animation, the most basic requirement are the dubbing voices of the cast involved. If sophistication needs to be incorporated, actors and actresses should only participate in motion capture sessions to effectively create a 3D range of motion. Still hard work, but not as taxing compared to live-action movie shoots.

Moreover, there are boundless possibilities available for stories in 3D animation. With no physical limitations to think about except budget and the skill level of animators, quirky and alternative content can be effectively pursued in the 3D animation movie medium.

Indie filmmakers would have to shell out a hefty investment in order to secure the top-of-the-line animation software and equipments needed to create a 3D animated movie without the support of a major commercial studio. However, the rewards can be promising. Creating an indie 3D animated movie will be very difficult indeed, but the thing to remember is that it's not impossible.

Often times, people would always want to be out of the box. But sometimes everyone is determined to come out of the box - that people tend to forget the inside. Eventually, the outside of the box becomes the new box. This is what's happening with the current trend of 3D animation-powered movies.

Ironically, Disney tries to provide a spark in the animation industry by going back to the basics: 2D animation. This December, they will release the new family feature film The Princess and the Frog, returning back to the roots of hand-drawn animation.



While 3D animated-powered films are always a guaranteed family experience, they have become predictabl e throughout the years. Cuddly talking animals have been used endlessly. Moreover, plot developments have been stuck with formulas. With the stiff competition and high costs of production and marketing 3D animation films, it is not a mystery why major commercial studios would stick with tried-and-tested procedures. However, that doesn't mean they should not try to bring something new to the table.

Disney has announced in 2004 that the 2D animated feature film Home on the Range would be their last hand-drawn feature film. But there has just been too much 3D animation films that people has become nostalgic of the success of the 1990s wherein Disney's Princesses reigned in classics such as Cinderella, Aladdin, and Sleeping Beauty, among others. It seems the funny 3D movies of today lack the glitz, the glamor and the Broadway-style soundtrack of Disney Princess fairy tales.

The Princess and the Frog, loosely based on the book The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker, tells the fairy tale of the Maldonian prince Naveen who was transformed into a frog by the voodoo magician Dr. Facilier. When the frog prince, according to tradition, asks the lady Tiana to kiss him to break the spell, things become awry as Tiana becomes a frog herself. Now, the frog pair needs to reach the good priestess of the Bayou, Mama Odie, in order to reverse the spell. Along the way, they meet valuable friends in a musical alligator and a romantic firefly.

It is interesting to note that people also got saturated with 2D animation during the 1990s. So the emergence of Princess Tiana may not guarantee a surplus of hand-drawn princesses and fairy tales once again. It is all about providing dynamic variety in content. 3D animation can take a page from this creative insight. Too often, the current crop of 3D animation films try to cater to the young audience while using punchlines and jokes about popular culture which only the parents can understand. This is why it is important to be specific of one's target market. After all, one who pleases everybody is a nobody.

The Princess and the Frog is the 49th animated feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios. John Musker and Ron Clements - who has worked on previous films The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and Treasure Planet - are in charge of direction. Songs and scoring are composed by the award-winning Randy Newman. The lead character of Princess Tiana will be voiced by Anika Noni Rose. Joining him in the star-studded voicing cast are Oprah Winfrey, Keith David, Jim Cummings, John Goodman, Jenifer Lewis, Bruno Campos, Michael-Leon Wooley, Peter Bartlett and Terrence Howard.

Take a magazine from the 1980s or even the 90s and one can easily see advertisements of the latest gadgets of that time. Seeing them from the perspective of 2009, some of these gadgets can be laughable: huge music players, bulky point and shoot cameras, crude looking television sets, among others. But that's the pace by which mainstream technology develops.

This is why it can be a painstaking process to wait for the new 3D camera photography technology being developed by Fujifilm. When they exhibited their 3D camera concept during the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) Annual Show for 2009, images of those bulky 1980s gadgets come to mind.



However, Fuji film won all the points for their unique vision to enable 3D technology into the point-and-shoot cameras of everyday people like you and me. Their booth for the FinePix Real 3D Camera in the Las Vegas Convention Center generated the most buzz - even for a bulky gadget

FinePixReal 3D camera is not yet available for mass production as it is still undergoing tests and further configuration. Basically, its prototype will enable the taking and displaying of 3D photos, something that has only been established in the animated movie industry.

The 3D camera has two lenses, which take two different images. Fujifilm's RP Processor 3D then takes the two images and combines them to create a single image immediately. Reviewing images on the fly is also possible by clicking the 3D button and the camera's internal backlighting system on the display will render the image 3D. The Fujifilm lighting system controls how light hits a person's right and left eyes individually.

When in 3D-auto mode, the camera is able to determine shooting conditions which are optimal for both sensors and synchronize the settings for that purpose. After the shutter is triggered, the camera immediately processes the data from both CCD sensors into a single high-quality image. Apparently 3D movies are also possible to create with this procedure.

Another aspect of Fujifilm's 3D system is a printing system that allows 3D photos to be printed and viewed without special glasses. While details are not aplenty, the 3D effect is achieved by the use of fine pitch lenticular sheets. Lenticular sheets have long been used to create animation effects on toys, such as those found in Cracker Jack snack boxes.

3D photography for the everyday end-user may develop gradually. But that's usually the point of the companies - so they can milk the audience with a new release with each new update. The question to ask is if there will be a market for this technology. Let's take it straight from Fujifilm: "We don't know yet," says Shizuo Habuta, a manager in the electronic imaging products division at Fujifilm. "But 3D is the most interesting technology for entertainment right now."

If there is such a premium on 3D images, why not opt for video instead? Fujifilm elaborates that one of the possibilities of their 3D system is the ability to take a wide-angled shot at the same time as taking a telephoto shot or being able to take photos while also recording video. It is also possible to take two photos at the same time, each with a different exposure setting, giving rise to high dynamic range photo abilities.

If 3D photography indeed adds a new dimension in the industry of animation (imagine one would only need to take a succession of digital pictures), this may become a handy gadget for aspiring animators with no sophisticated animation equipments. But in the meantime, we should just enjoy looking at those bulky 3D cameras and laugh at it a few years from now.

With the placement of a new billboard in the Warner Brothers studio to commemorate eighty years of existence, it is only fitting to recall the roots of the giant studio which had an enormous impact on the animation industry. As with any other success story, the people behind Warner Brothers Studio started with early struggles.



Hugh Harmon, Friz Freling and Rudolf Ising were artists working under the wing of Walt Disney when they lost their jobs after Disney had to surrender their first hit animation series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. When Disney struck gold again with the new Mickey Mouse character, the three fellows decided to create their own trail in the sound cartoons industry. They created Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid (which had the dubbing voice of animation icon Max Maxwell).

Moreover, another animator Leon Schlessinger was doing well with his own music-inspired cartoon series which had influences from Disney's blend of a talking mouse and symphonies. This became the iconic Looney Tunes. A merger between Schlessinger and the Harmon-Freling-Ising created Warner Brothers Animation.

However, through the years, the tandem of Schlessinger and the tandem of Harmon and Ising came to an end after five years because of issues with stingy finances. This was when a would-be animation icon came into the scene: Tex Avery.

Avery and his team composed of Clampett Jones and Tom McKimson created an animated feature "Porky and Beans." Ironically, the lead character here was a black cat (probably a reference to Felix the Cat). But more attention was given to the co-star of that feature, Porky Pig. Porky Pig was sensational and won many fans; this number grew when it was paired with another lunatic character, Daffy Duck.

After a year, Porky Pig would feature in a film where he would go out in a rabbit hunt. Probably this is the time when it is most apt to say "and the rest was history." True enough, the rabbit involved in this hunt, created by Bugs Hardaway, became another sensational character: Bugs Bunny.

Over the next forty years, Looney Tunes - powered by Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, anarchistic sequences and witty and humorous gags - became an animation fixture.

Bruce Timm protégé and now associate James Tucker got involved with Warner in a much more traditional way. Like everyday Americans, Tucker first learned about the Looney Tunes from television.

"It made me realize that Warner Brothers was the kind of place I wanted to work at. Just by their work, from almost the very beginning, I knew I would fit in well with them. No other studio has the aesthetic they have. Inside is very much like what they produce. They focus on the outsider looking in. The anarchy and anti-establishment attitude, that whole idea, is in here and that's why Looney Tunes endures. They look good on a t-shirt, but Looney Tunes and Warner Bros. Animation represents independent thinking. It was a little mean, but that's also an American trait I think."

"At the time, they did a lot of stuff that was of the time but they made them so they are still relevant today," said Tucker, who is a supervisor of the cartoon series Batman: The Brave & the Bold. "They made characters that were timeless. As a kid, I picked up on the rudeness of everything. Everyone was also smart. They expected you to keep up with them. If you didn't know what they were talking about, they encouraged you to look it up. If it was the case of using some old movie star, sooner or later you see that movie star and get it. A good example there was Humphrey Bogart met Bugs Bunny.

"I related to that much more than the more well-mannered cartoons that were also out. They were beyond being just funny and rude, they were also very culturally educational for me. I think it shows in a lot of the things I do now."

Even with the success of Looney Tunes, there was a time when another struggle would hit their studio. Avery and Clampett moved on to television. The others would retire or form their own studios. Friz Freling, one who was there in the beginning, also created his own studio which powered Pink Panther.

However by this time, Looney Tunes was already an established brand. It was helped stay afloat by timely endorsements from influential producer/directors George Lucas (Star Wars) and Steven Spielberg. Lucas would use some snippets of Looney Tunes as an opener for Star Wars while Spielberg financed the iconic cartoon animated series Tiny Toons.

Tiny Toons made a significant hiring of the talented team of Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Eric Radomski, and Alan Burnett, among others. This team then worked on the animated adaptation of another hit Warner Brothers film, Tim Burton's Batman.

Seeing as how the new billboard of Warner Brothers featured superheroes and the lovable characters of Looney Tunes, it is safe to say that the perseverance of the key personnel of WB throughout the years is really showing the fruits of its labor.