Cels vs. Digital Animation

[JulieYBM]

What was this thread about, again? Cels? Cels don't mean good animation. It just means some poor bastard's sweat can literally be seen on the picture itself. The animation drawings are obscured by others' work just as much as is possible with digital inking and coloring.

People tend to understand things after actually having experienced them. I'd say the last four MCU films (everything after Iron Man 3) have taught me a very good lesson about dealing with adaptions, especially when they're worked too heavily to fit within a generalized context. A work friend and I were watching The Avengers on the break lounge TV the other day and we couldn't stop cringing at the cinematography. Oy vey, did it make me nauseous with its terrible angles and poor cutting. That crowd shot of Fury talking with Hill as the SHIELD base was being evacuated was terribly framed and moved for no reason whatsoever. Ugh.

This bit makes me wonder (and forgive me if I'm going off topic), but do you feel this way for all major Hollywood films these days? I've noticed a lot of the same flaws you've brought up in many of them. I mean, between the cinematography, editing and characterization and all (though me not having paid much attention to the MCU may have something to do with me asking that question).

Yeah, I would say so. I can't remember the last Hollywood film I watched with good framing or well-paced shots. I've noticed that a lot of episodes of shows on The CW had the same problem with really bad editing and cutting, to say nothing of poor sound mixing, especially during climatic scenes. It's like there's this sudden rush to speed through segments for no reason I can think of.

I do try not to blame anyone for their ignorance and when I do it's only because I'm disappointed in myself for hoping against all the odds that I can actually make the difference others have made in me.

Your statement is very condescending.

I don't understand, are you implying that I should feel repentant for being condescending? I'm on an internet message board discussing animation of all things. Clearly I'm an arrogant enough piece of poop to think the things I have to say are worthy of others' time. That I should have the self-awareness to understand and admit my own psychological fallacies is a good thing. It means I can turn the page and get on to the next subject.

It's a drawing OF A CAR. It doesn't represent anything other than bad animation. Just because a car makes a turn doesn't mean the car bends. This was brought up by the creators of the show, not just by me. The consider it a mistake as well. There's no context neccessary, solid metal objects dont' bend like that.

First, I have yet to view this supposed shot of bad animation. Second, having the car bend does not mean bad animation. This is a drawing, not a real car. Drawings are not beholden to reality merely because we can relate images to our own reality. "Oh, it's a drawing of a car therefore it can only do these things, rather than what I need it to" defeats the whole purpose of self-expression. Merely from your description of a car bending on a sharp turn it sounds as if the snap decision of the turn and the ferocity of the turn is being expressed as if physics itself was being turned on its head. It's poetic. It's the same thing with any Wakabayashi Atsushi episode or a smear.

What was the original point of this line of discussion again? Off-model does not mean bad animation. Character models are beginnings, they are not the end result. The key animation drawings are these to get across an idea, using character models as mere starting points. The actual addition or subtract from that starting point is where animation begins. Mind you, I might still say "this shot is terribly animated" but I doesn't mean that the problem is "oh, it's off-model". It means that it isn't well-timed or laid out to get the necessary impression across.

I think you are confusing dialog and script.

No, I just never got around to revising this section. The script is a clearer articulating of the structure of the narrative but is still rarely reflective of the finished episode or film until after the fact where it is reformatted to match the film as finished.

We do it through both, and I'm not talking about visuals, I'm talking about the animation, not the same thing. You can communicate story without words. What I'm saying is that even if the animation is absolutely amazing, unless the story and characters aren't there, it doesn't matter how great Clayface's transformations in Feat of Clay are or how great Goku looks, the episode will fall flat.

Visuals and animation are intimately tied. A cold, impersonal animation won't evoke a response. That idea it represents might, but not the adaption of that idea into film or television itself. What we are reacting to is no more than an idea written on paper, rather than articulated through one of the various mediums of storytelling.

Good animation is good because it conveys its animator's feelings about the character and circumstance, it translates idea and emotion into even a single drawing. Yamashita Shingo's work on Naruto Shippuuden Episode #167 is something I continually come back to as a great example of this. Pain's logic is so twisted and self-masturbatory that as he speaks those self-pitying words he literally deforms into a disgusting figure that seems as if he will break apart at any moment's notice. What we emphasize with film and television is not some imaginary character spontaneously taking life, what we take in is the feelings of a real person, here that Yamashita or Wakabayashi propose that Pain's logic is ludicrous to the point of the breakdown of the physical world. We care because a real person cares.

Ideas are things we do not love. We respond to them, but what we love is the path that extends (the context built around) from the starting point which is the inception of the idea. This is why everything in film and television after the story is so crucial, because it is ultimately what the finished product is made up of.

Do you need to understand them that bad if you know you don't like them? What are you getting out of them?

You can't know if or why you do or do not like something until you have viewed it. Even then I wouldn't say I'm a wordsmith capable of properly writing out why those films leave me utterly nauseous. I think it's safe to say I've pretty much come to the point where I probably won't bother with anymore of the MCU films, though. Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man were completely empty experiences. I watched those and could have sworn I had literally been transformed into a being incapable of emotion and for that I feel great horror in hindsight.

You talk like an expert on movie making, so why are you spending so much time on this forum instead of making your own movies?

I have more important things to do, like work a job to insure my financial security and re-tweet lewd art on Twitter.

(For the record, I do write, I'm simply under no illusion that I could ever be ambitious enough to turn those works into scripts, let alone film, serial or otherwise, without incredible financial security. In other words, I'm incapable of doing it because it's simply not as important to me as other things).

[ABED]

you implying that I should feel repentant for being condescending

No, I just ask that you don't talk down to people. Even if you are more knowledgeable, don't talk down to anyone. You can speak knowledgably about a subject and even inform people on the subject but being condescending is rude and helps no one. Are you legitimately trying to inform people?

It's poetic.

It's not, it's just bad animation OF A CAR. Considering the producers criticize it, it's not a good thing. You can talk about artistic flair and integrity, but art should be a cohesive whole. If the animators are doing things the executive producers don't like such as making the car bend when it shouldn't, they aren't doing their jobs.

I generally don't like things when they are off model. I'm hard pressed to think of an instance where I thought it was for the better. Either it's something like giving Batman's cowl a hook nose, Vegeta look like Lupin, or The Joker an even more ginormous chin.

A cold, impersonal animation won't evoke a response.

Perhaps, but that's a matter of taste. I could just as easily say great animation without anything else behind it won't get much more than the fireworks reaction. By that I mean, it's nice and fun for one time (like the fourth of July), but not much else. Maybe you might think the animation of the scene where Batman consoles Ace as she dies has no heart, but that scene gives me the feels, just like the scene between Goku and Kuririn after the finish of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai.

Ideas are things we do not love. We respond to them, but what we love is the path that extends (the context built around) from the starting point which is the inception of the idea.

I haven't a clue what you are talking about.

You can't know if or why you do or do not like something until you have viewed it.

It's a fair point, but not 8 years in. By the third film, you should know whether it's something you enjoy or not. After that, it's your fault for continuing to watch it. It would be like watching DB for over 100 episodes and then complaining about how much you hate every episode. Sure, you'll be more knowledgeable about that which you criticize, but if you don't enjoy it, then I don't see what the appeal would be in getting that far down the line. It seems like an awful waste of time. Wasting time can be fun, but why compound that doing something you clearly aren't enjoying if you don't have to? Another question, DB and Marvel have a similar feeling - it's fun action oriented stuff loaded with humor. What does DB have that the MCU lacks?

[rereboy]

Ideas are things we do not love. We respond to them, but what we love is the path that extends (the context built around) from the starting point which is the inception of the idea. This is why everything in film and television after the story is so crucial, because it is ultimately what the finished product is made up of.

Actually, I love plenty the ideas. I might also love the way those ideas are presented in a movie, in a book, in a comic, in poetry, in a song, etc, and the way they are presented might even make me love them even more... but that doesn't mean that I don't love the ideas themselves.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

What was the original point of this line of discussion again? Off-model does not mean bad animation. Character models are beginnings, they are not the end result. The key animation drawings are these to get across an idea, using character models as mere starting points. The actual addition or subtract from that starting point is where animation begins. Mind you, I might still say "this shot is terribly animated" but I doesn't mean that the problem is "oh, it's off-model". It means that it isn't well-timed or laid out to get the necessary impression across.

The line-art and sketches are what the starting point is. Then the model is what is supposed to be the ideal refined design for something. Its what the final is expected to mirror. Its not about abstract interpretation if the original design was already comparatively objective. There shouldn't be a requirement for a viewer to use their imagination on something that they can pull up and compare to when done right in prior. What emotion would an off model image convey if it wasn't designed to actually convey it? We already have it in our heads what certain emotions are supposed to look like when its presented, so that would already be the default we would expect, an off model exaggeration only emphasizes how far from the original it is.

[zDBZ]

I've often wondered if it would be possible to get the best of both worlds - to make large swatches with the inks and paints used in cels, scan those into a computer, and use them to fill in the backgrounds and characters, and maybe use software to get a 35mm look. You'd get back some of the organic quality of cel animation, without so much time and manpower.

As for my own preference - for me, the best DB/Z/GT ever looked was in the best animation done around the time of the Buu saga - the "We Gotta Power" opening, Movies 12 and 13, the better episodes of Buu itself. I'm not absolutely appalled by the digital work being done nowadays, but I do think there's something off in both the line work and the colour palette used in BoG/RF/Super. It'd be hard to put into words just what I mean about line work, but the palette IMO is too bright and glossy.