Let’s talk about animation, really good animation. I’m not talking about who would win in a fist fight between Pixar and Dreamworks (Pixar, obviously), I’m talking about honest to goodness frame by frame animation. Or perhaps, let’s talk about the antithesis of good animation. I’m talking about Robert Zemeckis and his attempt (perhaps unconsciously) to harm the art and soul of animation.
Zemeckis is a visionary filmmaker; he’s the guy who made Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, both excellent and innovative movies. However, there’s a dark side to that vision of his. Zemeckis removes the humanity out of animation and replaces it with [shudder] Motion capture.
The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol are all examples of this. Each of his latest films features motion capture exclusively, without so much as a touch from an animator. If you’ve seen any of these films you know why I’m complaining. Tell me you weren’t uncomfortable watching The Polar Express. The reason? Motion capture.
Motion capture, for the non-animators out there, is the process of recording movement and translating that movement onto a digital model. In other words, translating the movements of a guy in a ping-pong ball covered leotard (like this guy) to it onto a computer model.
Now I know you’re thinking “Hey, wait just a tick- Avatar, King-Kong and Gollum from Lord of the Rings were all motion capture, and they didn’t suck!” And you’re right, they didn’t suck. The truth is that most modern films use some element of motion capture, but the difference with the Navi, King-Kong and Gollum are animators. Each of those films had a team of animators come in and animate over the motion capture, frame by frame, adding a bit of finesse and emotional connection to the performance.
It’s like cooking. You can make a meal from a box and it’ll fulfill your daily need to eat, but a truly amazing meal needs to involve some added spices and herbs to that box meal, like garlic… everyone loves garlic, right? Animators are the garlic of the modern film. By using motion capture, Mr. Zemeckis skips the garlic and thus the characters in his films suffer, lacking any sort of emotional connection. In short, they’re bland.
And the world has started to notice. The Academy Awards recently modified their rules concerning what qualifies as an animated feature film in regards to motion capture stating “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture… in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.”
Hopefully Robert Zemeckis will take note while he’s gearing up to make Roger Rabbit 2 next summer. Hopefully he will continue to do a great job for Toon Town and doesn’t harm the art and soul from that as well.
