Animation: Busting Blocks Big Time.

10 June 2006

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The days of animated movies being "just for kids" are long gone. Ever since ‘Toy Story’ exploded into cinemas around the world in 1995, cartoons have been more than just family fodder.The release of the Disney/Pixar classic meant the line between young and old audiences was crossed, coloured in and taught to tell jokes... and Hollywood has never looked back.Now a new breed of animated movies are threatening to put A-list stars out of business as they pull in some of the biggest box offices grosses of all time. With ‘Shrek 2’ already nestled in the top ten, the bar has been set pretty high. Within the first few months of 2006 one film - an animated sequel to a sleeper hit from 2002 - was putting millions of bums on seats across the globe. That film was ‘Ice Age 2: The Meltdown’.Producer Chris Wedge has experienced the change in the movie market place first hand. He explained: "Making ‘Robots’ after ‘Ice Age’ I realized how much I learned on ‘Ice Age’. It’s all character, it’s just all character."People get the story very quickly and ‘Ice Age’ structurally had a very simple story. In ‘Ice Age 2’ although it’s not the same movie, it’s the same characters. John Lasseter is the founder and creative ‘master’ of Pixar. He is responsible for a host of classic movies, including ‘Toy Story’, ‘Monsters Inc’ and this summer’s ‘Cars’ which opens in US cinemas this weekend.At the London Film Festival in 2001 he told an audience: "At Pixar, we like to think we use our tools to make things look photo realistic, without trying to reproduce reality. We like to take those tools and make something that the audience knows does not exist. The closer you get to trying to reproducing reality the much harder it is - especially human beings." He added: "The audience see human beings everyday, so they know when it's not right. That's why we try and stay in the stylised world, which I think is successful." ‘The Incredibles’ director Brad Bird sees the appeal of this type of film slightly differently. As an advocate of traditional ‘pen and ink’ animation - which is how he created his critically acclaimed but hugely underrated movie ‘The Iron Giant’ - he feels there attraction is far more fundamental.

He revealed: "I think what makes a good animated film is what makes a good live-action film. You could have a million drawings that don't make you feel anything or you could have 20 drawings that capture a feeling beautifully. People get obsessed with the numbers of things."

In an interview with IGN.com in 2004 Bird said: "I think people focus too much on technique of animation, and I think the most important areas to a film's success are the same as a live-action film. Do we understand the characters? Can we empathize with them? Can we follow them? "If we don't do those jobs, we're not going to have a good film, no matter what the technology is."

However, not all animated movies are CGI, saccharine and come out of a design workshop in Los Angeles wearing mouse ears.

In recent years a number of alternatively-sketched movies have proved popular with audiences including more mature fare like ‘Sin City’ and ‘Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow’.

However, most notably it was the festive fantasy ‘The Polar Express’ that fired up the imaginations of filmgoers at multiplexes and IMAX theatres around the world. The stars of the film were digitised version of real life actors whose likenesses were put into a computer and animated. Their movements were filmed against a blue screen and the whole thing was matted against a CGI background.The star - and man who played several characters - was Oscar winner Tom Hanks.

However, far from believing processes like this will put people like him out of work, he welcomes the evolution of the process.

At the time, he said: "You can play different roles in the traditional manner with different hair and make up. Peter Sellers has done it, Robin Williams has done it, Jerry Lewis has done it. But the fact that I played an eight-year-old kid here is a good example of the freedom and the possibility that the technology will allow."

He added: "You will no longer be limited by your size, shape, skin colour, gender, none of that is going to matter. If you have the interpretation that the director wants for the role then you can play any role. I could play Florence Nightingale or Abraham Lincoln, and Meryl Streep could do the same thing. That can be very, very exciting for a number of actors who would never get the opportunity to play certain roles. This technology will allow that."

However, ‘Ice Age 2’ voice-star Queen Latifah isn’t so sure it’s a good thing. ‘Playing’ Ellie made her realise how much harder being an actress could get from now on.

She revealed: "Doing this, I never felt so insecure on a job in my entire life. I’m telling you, these things are so hard because you do the scenes and voices so many times and you’re not sure if you’re giving them what they want.

"I kept saying to Carlos the director, ‘Do you need it this way? You want me to do it that way? OK’."

"It’s like working in reverse, working in a vacuum. But when you start to see it come together, you see the magic of the animation and what’s actually happening on screen, you start to feel more confident about what’s going on. You see it all making sense. Then you feel better about it. And now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m cool. I love it."

As long as audiences’ love affair with the genre continues, the future likes more than vibrant... it looks positively animated.

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