Grey Street Films

Discovering new music is so much like finding out you have just enough milk to make some cereal. It, at least for me, brings a sense of joy that is very rarely equaled. As sad as it may seem, much of it has to do with inspiration. Whenever I hear a new song I like I’m inspired to write. There won’t be a single thing to stop my thought process as long as that song is playing. As much joy as finding a new song may give me, however, nothing brings greater joy than rediscovering an old favorite.

Not enough can be said about the inspiration music has on filmmakers. Every single word I’ve ever wrote has been birthed from music. Even this lowly blog post has been written to music. It has, without a doubt been my performance enhancer.

In 1928 Walt Disney introduced his first ever animated short. “Steamboat Willie” was a silent (as in the characters did not speak), black and white, hand drawn cartoon starring the now legendary Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Pete. This year Disney’s latest release was a 3-D, computer animated feature length film, “Up”. So how have we gotten to this point? What happened to all the old time, intricately hand drawn classics? Why are animators relying so heavily on a new age digital art, rather than the old time analogue art? The answer, in short, lies in that last question.

The release of “Steamboat Willie” was marked the first revolution in animation, as it was the fist animated film to have synchronized sound. And from that point in 1928 on, Disney continued to be the key revolutionary in animation. In 1931 they released the first animation presented entirely in technicolor. In 1937 they became the first American studio to release a feature length animation, and the first studio in the world to release a feature length animation in technicolor, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In 1995 Disney partnered with Pixar to make the first completely computer animated feature length film, “Toy Story”. The way the wrold looked at animation would never be the same. Since “Toy Story’s” release in 1995, Disney has merely released ten “hand drawn” feature length films (“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996), “Hercules” (1997), “Mulan” (1998), “Tarzan” (1999), “Fantasia 2000” (1999), “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000), “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (2001), “Lilo & Stitch” (2002), “Brother Bear” (2003), and “Home On the Range” (2004)) and one more currently in post-production (“The Princess and the Frog” (2009)). Now while this may seem like a decent handful, but when compared to the forty-six computer animated releases across three major studios, Dreamworks, Disney/Pixar, and 20th Century Fox, that number is instantly dwarfed. In addition, both Walt Disney animation studios alone have released more computer animated films than hand drawn, thirteen as opposed to the ten.

With all of this, the question still remains, why do animators rely so heavily on the new age digital art rather than an old time analogue one? And the answer is still simple, there is no longer a need for it. While the world was going through the digital revolution, so too was the world of animation. When animators started doing all of their art on the computer screen it was only a matter of time before they started rendering these images in 3-D. And it will only go on from there. Sooner or later the artistic style as seen in “Up” and “Toy Story” will soon look archaic and “old timey”.

As sad as it may seem, we will never again see the classic art of animation we grew up with but this may not be as much a travesty as you or I might think. Change is very seldom a bad thing and though we are witnessing the death of animation, what is currently taking place in it’s stead ain’t half bad.