Animation defined by an aesthetic?


I wish I could remember who said this and exactly what was said so I could give credit, but today in class I remember someone mentioning that we (the members of this class and film majors/animation lovers in general) recognize that both stylized and hyperhybrid 3D CGI are at the very least different forms of animation, but that most members of the general public would probably only identify the stylized versions as animation if prompted. That got me thinking that, if this is true, then what is considered animation by the general public might be defined by a particular aesthetic that is commonly associated with mainstream animation – a stylized aesthetic popularized by Disney and Pixar that is not hyper realistic and not abstract, but somewhere in between. So people might recognize it as animation because of the way it looks, and not necessarily because of the process by which it is made, which significantly limits the scope of animation in comparison to what we've been discussing in class. I don’t know if this is actually true without running some kind of a survey, but it’s interesting that the line we’ve been discussing about what is and isn’t animation could be defined by a snap judgement comparison to mainstream animation. 

Comments

  1. Jyasi NagelOctober 7, 2018 at 5:23 PM

    I like this thought a lot... I've been struggling a little with all our multiple discussions on trying to define animation and draw a clear line between animation and other things. This is always hard because of the subjective nature of animation and you've actually shed some light on my confusion. I think you're completely right in that animation is defined by its audience and audiences don't love animation.

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