The Isolation of Animation as a Medium: Life in Animation and The False Notion of Human Connection
a research essay done for my 2nd year of uni, analyzing my favourite medium, animation and how the film industry is evolving from the perspective of a consumer and also a creator within it.
Animation has become one of the most evolved forms of filmmaking in recent years with the introduction of new technologies and techniques. Although animation is widely used, it is a medium that is consistently undervalued and misrepresented. The evolution of animation in the 21st century has given it a negative facade of being a cheap and shallow media for kids, forcing animation to be presented as a genre, instead of a medium of storytelling. This essay explores animation as a powerful medium for conveying life and connecting with an audience.
PERCEPTION OF ANIMATION
With the convenience of streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, along with the many social media platforms people use in their everyday lives, new media such as movies and TV shows are being released far faster than ever. However, there is a clear difference between the rate of live-action media released compared to animation, along with the reception they receive individually.
While recent highly anticipated movies such as The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel to the Hunger Games series, took just over a year from the start of filming to its theatrical release, animated movies such as Spiderverse; Across the Spiderverse took over 4 years to create (Harrington, 2023). Yet with the amount of money, time and skill it takes to release animated movies of Spiderverse’s calibre, its target audience, mainly Western society, has developed a perception that animation is a specific genre, thus isolating other styles and genres within the medium and underestimating the power of animation. As said by Alan Cholodenko about the isolation of animation on an institutional level, “Film Studies have regarded animation as the most inferior and inconsequential form of film or not a form of film at all, rather a form of graphic art.”(2007).
This is proven clear when we watch the Oscars, the supposed celebration for the pinnacle of filmmaking, that only created a category for animation films in 2001, particularly as animation at the scale we know is relatively new. The Oscar’s animation category is a good example of non-animators' shallow view of animation as a genre instead of a medium. Animation itself is a medium that celebrates the diversity in art and film-making, allowing for different styles and cultures to shine, which is why the very idea of a category for it still gathers mixed opinions. In recent years, the Oscar category has acted like a barrier that isolates animation from being put on the same level as live-action films nominated for Best Picture. Fewer animated features are ever considered for the Best Picture nomination, a phenomenon that has only happened 3 times in history (the last one being Toy Story 3 in 2010) (Russell, 2023). The issue with the category and the Oscars, in general, is the lack of consideration for non-Hollywood-centred films, with only two foreign animated films ever winning in the category, both Ghibli films by Hayao Miyasaki. The category mainly tends to feature animations from big studios that market them towards a younger demographic and doesn’t represent the true extent of animated features, or as animation director Guillermo del Toro puts it, “kept at the fucking children’s table in the industry.” (Mouriquand, 2023).
Animation is a film-making technique so vital to the film industry as it stands today, yet the perception of animation has been so skewed and understated. The separation between live-action films and animations is so prominent yet modern live-action films cannot exist without the very notion of animation. The idea that animation is a less sincere and lifeless medium goes against the very nature of animation.
WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE MEDIUM
The heart of all mediums of filmmaking is storytelling and animation at its core comes from the same philosophy as live-action filmmaking, turning a written story into something tangible that can be viewed. Before the introduction of CG in the 1990s (computer graphics), animation was hand-drawn still by still to replicate the motion of life. The word animation itself doesn’t mean movement, but it comes from the Latin word ‘animus’ which means the soul, life or life (Flaig, 2013). Movements representing life aren’t just a method of animation but are embedded in the very idea of it. The basic principle of animation is to change the way we perceive images, in how we can manipulate a single static object (Wai, n.d.). As opposed to live-action film, animation as a medium finds its strength in finding a space outside of mimicking life and instead creating one.
CGI is a good example of this, as it has been a very prominent portion of the filmmaking process in recent years yet, people lack knowledge of what CGI is. According to the Nashville Film Institute, CGI, Computer-Generated Imagery is “still or animated visual content with computer software, usually refers to the 3D computer graphics used to create characters, scenes, and other special effects in movies, television, and games.” ( 2021). Although CGI may look realistic, it is essentially another genre and technique of animation. CGI technology has developed so much that we can perceive it as real however it still holds the same barriers that animation does. Due to the nature of CGI and the boundaries of animation, CGI works the same way any style of animation would, as the genre of CGI’s realism is still not “the real world”. As such, CGI is a manipulated form and a “rather cinematic conventions of realist representation: the perspective of objects recorded by a monocular camera lens, lens are, perspectival depth, motion blur, and so on.” (Steinberg, 2020).
Hence, people will constantly mistake CGI for a form separate from its root, animation, placing it above stylised art genres, even though they share and work on the same principles. CGI as another embodiment of animation, relies on the whole idea that the “phenomenon of movement testifies to animation as the foundational dimension of the living.” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2009).
THE STRENGTH OF ANIMATION: THE EMERGING WORLD
Due to the nature of animation as a medium, it finds its strength in pushing the boundaries of reality and creating a new one in itself. It allows us to perceive images as something not mimicking life but something that represents a new reality of life. Animation allows for the humanisation of such things. We use animation as a storytelling and filmmaking medium to see how far we can push the limits of human emotion and functionality, translating our imagination into a reality. However, there is the notion that people seem to connect better when they can relate to the characters on screen in terms of looks and behaviour. This is partly why some people accuse animation styles like anime and cartoons of being jarring at times due to their exaggerated style and unrealistic character designs. But aside from personal genre and art style preferences, these features of animation are the reason why as a medium, it’s convincing, due to how it can stretch the way our brains perceive reality and life.
People argue that life-action films are more appealing to an audience because the very presence of a human should mean we can relate to it as humans ourselves. Animation, however, can be an even stronger medium, as its nature isn’t tied to our mortal limitations and ideas of what the extent of life can be. In other words. “There is no death in animation, because there is no being no existence to begin with. There are no necessary limiting features, no essential finitude everything is shadowed by its possible metamorphosis, erasure, and resurrection—and there is thus no ontology.” (Levitt, n.d.). Animation takes the viewer out of their reality and can immerse them in one, without having to question if such a thing is possible. In a conversation, media historian Deborah Levitt claimed that “There is no such thing as “the world” in animation. A particular work might conceptualize and represent “the world,” but it isn’t equivalent to it. There is no animated world, only animated worlds. .… We have the structural limits and affordances of the material media apparatus or the human sensorium, the variety of environments they encounter, and the worlds or “second natures” that emerge there.” (2018).
That is particularly why movies like the animated The Jungle Book (1967) or The Lion King (1994) are easier to watch compared to their live-action counterparts as you never have to question the underlying concept of life within the characters (although the live-action counterparts of these movies are essentially just CGI animations). The viewer never has to question the reality these movies take place in, as the stylised genre already sets that in stone. Establishing itself as outside of our reality is the reason why animation can work as “animation always tells a story about constraints, about the pressures exerted both by materials and by representational conventions” (Levitt, 2018).
That is not to say that animation doesn’t hold any sense of life because of its ability to manipulate reality, as the line between life, death and the uncanny valley runs particularly thin in the world of animation. The process of animation and creating this movement is so painstakingly tedious because animators still have to take from life, to establish a connection with the viewer. In Alan Cholodenko’s words, “animation cannot be thought of without thinking of loss, disappearance and death, and one cannot think of the endowing with life without thinking of the other side of the life cycle” (2007). As said in Paul Flaig’s research on animation aesthetics and the idea of comic uncanny, “We do not just see motion and we are not simply affected emotionally by its role within a plot; we feel it in our guts or throughout our bodies. Rather than miming the character’s immobilization, the spectator here identifies with the movement itself, abstracted from narrative, conscious awareness or the specificity of the medium.” (Flaig, 2013).
This motion of life in animation is so much more than just convincing our brains that still images are moving. This is also addressed in many animations such as Toy Story (1995) as the idea of life exists within the narrative and it’s vital that they never cross that line. If the toys revealed their lives to the owners in the movies that would change the whole relationship with life and mortality within the film as well as how the audience sees everything as a 3rd party spectator (Flaig, 2013). Aside from the basic ideas of motion and styles in animation as lifelike, the close relationship between the animator and the animation is another strength as the “Animator as an artist is bound by these rules of equipping oneself with basic skill in animation principles, towards adapting to the changing environment of animation production, along with its new technology and breakthrough.” Wai, K.K. (n.d.).
Bringing back the idea of needing realism to convey life, it can be argued that the use of CGI in films is part of this growing false illusion of the need for human connection in all mediums of filmmaking. As the increasing use of CGI in modern filmmaking grows, it starts the question of whether or not the viewer can even tell what is “reality” and “life” in film and if it even matters anymore. The presence of CGI in film means that it is bringing along the reality-breaking nature of animation, and destroying our sense of life and reality as traditional animation does. The implementation of this form of animation in life-action allows us to push the boundaries as the two mediums intersect. There is no need to question life anymore as we just accept what we see, a part of CGI animation that has transferred over to life-action as the two mediums go hand in hand. That’s not to say that there isn’t such a thing as animations that lack life, as well as live actions, filmmaking as it is is not that straightforward. But even as these two mediums continue to intersect, the lack of respect given to animation as a strong medium persists.
AVATAR AND THE LAST AIRBENDER
Existing out of reality is the reason why animation has done so well as a medium for storytelling, an example being the TV show Avatar and The Last Airbender (2005) (abbreviated as ATLA) which was created purely as an animation without existing from any prior source material. ATLA premiered in 2005 and ran for 3 successful seasons, along with a spinoff and multiple graphic novels published after the series ended. The show is centred around a fantasy world where people can control 4 elements, water, fire, earth and air and follows a 12-year-old boy named Aang and his friends in his journey as the “avatar”. Although the show is entirely fantasy, the characters, animation, and story are well done so that the viewer never has to question the reality they’re in. As said by Film Studies Professor Marc Steinburg, “The idea of animation has traditionally had a far more tenuous relationship to realism. It is not in any obvious way a realist form. While there is no inherent contradiction between drawing and realism—indeed realism as a concept emerges from both literary studies and painting in the nineteenth century—animators have tended to embrace nonrealistic styles of drawing and movement in their creations.” (2020). Even watching the first episode of ATLA which you can tell, premiered nearly 20 years ago, the animation still immerses you in such a world that the unrealistic features of ATLA’s story never feel uncanny. In Avatar the Last Airbender, although the main characters such as Aang have fantastical powers such as being able to control the elements, allowing him to fly and manipulate air, we still see him as human, not as something above us. We see the fragility of life within the world of ATLA, yet never have to question whether it works in ours.
The juxtaposition of the animated ATLA lies in its live-action adaptation released recently in February 2024 on Netflix. In the animation, we never worry about the very idea of costumes or set design because there isn’t any of that, everything that exists in the animation is simply part of ATLA’s world. On the other hand, the new live-action faced a lot of criticism for not being able to sell the original world of ATLA like the animation does, with reviews saying things along the lines of “This is painting the Mona Lisa with coloured pencil, where it may be great in its own right, but it’s just an entirely different medium that could never live up to the original masterpiece.” (Tassi, 2024). Whilst a lot of criticism about the ATLA live-action could be solved with better writing and pacing, it proves that animation as a medium can present something more compelling to viewers and doesn’t need live-action. It seems ironic to say that the live-action adaptation seems to lack life (Gooden, 2024). Even though many of these issues aren’t directly the fault of being a live-action (ie; bad staging, bad lighting, bad script adaptation), the live-action presents itself as a stage to create more faults not originally found in the animation. It is also so heavily reliant on CGI to the point where it makes you wonder why they needed to create this adaptation in the first place. It’s a shame that instead of funding artists to write and create new animations, we are instead forced to settle with a live-action that presents itself as a true adaptation of animation, but one that doesn’t respect the original medium enough to mimic the life embedded in it. A live-action doesn’t guarantee the presence of human connection and life.
If we invested more into animation, we would find a lot more shows that have life, instead of the feeling of mass-produced media that doesn’t put the viewer's experience first and relies on this false notion of human connection found in live-action. Animation is the one thing that holds onto life in an industry that has been dehumanised by capitalism and overproduction staying true to its nature of creating life. No matter the genre, the nature of animation as a medium cannot be distorted.
authors notes:
This substack has unintentionally turned into an archive for my university writings but this essay in particular I’m very proud of and plan to expand on it for my dissertation this upcoming year. As someone who studies film/design for film/animation (my major is hard to explain), these are thoughts I often have whilst watching film and it was really fun and interesting being able to expand them on a deeper and slightly philosophical level to understand how are we consuming and perceiving media we watch. My next post on here might literally be my dissertation with how infrequently I’ve been writing but hopefully I’ll get another post up before that.
bibliography (formatted harvard bc thats what my uni likes)
Cholodenko, A. (2007). Introduction THE ILLUSION OF LIFE 2: More Essays on Animation. The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation, ed. Alan Cholodenko, Power Publications, Sydney, 2007, pp.13-95. Illusion of Life II https://shop.powerpublications.com.au/products/test-10. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/39364934/Introduction_THE_ILLUSION_OF_LIFE_2_More_Essays_on_Animation?rhid=27987536319&swp=rr-rw-wc-7116020 [Accessed 5 May 2024].
Flaig, P. (2013) ‘Life driven by Death: Animation Aesthetics and the comic uncanny’, Screen, 54(1), pp. 1–19. doi:10.1093/screen/hjs065. https://www.academia.edu/3058516/Life_Driven_by_Death_Animation_Aesthetics_and_the_Comic_Uncanny
Gooden, D. (2024). Netflix missed the point of Avatar. [online] www.youtube.com.
Harrington, K. (2023). Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s craziest sequence took 4 years to make. [online] Dexerto. https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/spider-man-across-the-spider-verses-craziest-sequence-took-4-years-to-make-2169321/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2024].
Levitt, D. (2018) How does animation change our concept of life and what kind of ethics does it require? A conversation with media historian and theorist Deborah Levitt public seminar, Academia.edu. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/37720415/How_Does_Animation_Change_our_Concept_of_Life_and_What_Kind_of_Ethics_Does_it_Require_A_Conversation_with_Media_Historian_and_Theorist_Deborah_Levitt_Public_Seminar (Accessed: 25 April 2024).
Levitt, D. (n.d.). Animation and the Medium of Life: Media Ethology, An-Ontology, Ethics.pdf. www.academia.edu. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/28031753/Animation_and_the_Medium_of_Life_Media_Ethology_An_Ontology_Ethics_pdf?rhid=28210203886&swp=rr-rw-wc-3058516.
Mouriquand, D. (2023). Guillermo Del Toro: ‘We Need to Take over the Asylum and Then Run it!’ [online] Euronews. Available at: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/06/16/guillermo-del-toro-on-leaving-live-action-films-behind-and-calling-out-the-film-industry [Accessed 2 May 2024].
Nashville Film Institute (2021). What is CGI? - Everything You Need to Know. [online] NFI. Available at: https://www.nfi.edu/what-is-cgi/.
Russell, C. (2023). The only animated movies to be nominated for ‘Best Picture’. [online] faroutmagazine.co.uk. Available at:https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/only-three-animated-movies-to-be-nominated-for-best-picture/.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2009). Animation: the fundamental, essential, and properly descriptive concept. www.academia.edu. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/18456894/Animation_the_fundamental_essential_and_properly_descriptive_concept?rhid=27987536319&swp=rr-rw-wc-7116020 [Accessed 4 May 2024].
Steinberg, M. (n.d.). ‘Realism in the Animation Media Environment: Animation Theory from Japan,’ in Animating Film Theory, ed. Karen Redrobe (formerly Beckman). www.academia.edu. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/7116020/_Realism_in_the_Animation_Media_Environment_Animation_Theory_from_Japan_in_Animating_Film_Theory_ed_Karen_Redrobe_formerly_Beckman_.
Tassi, P. (2024). Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Review: Much Better Than You Thought It Would Be. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/02/22/netflixs-avatar-the-last-airbender-review-much-better-than-you-thought-it-would-be/?sh=47d801ec2e77 [Accessed 5 May 2024].
Wai, K.K. (n.d.). Rethinking Animation: Technology, Artistic Expression, and Realism. www.academia.edu. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/17590955/Rethinking_Animaton_Technology_Artistic_Expression_and_Realism?rhid=27987536319&swp=rr-rw-wc-7116020 [Accessed 1 May 2024]