Monocle went in search of new-generation animators who don’t follow the hi-tech pack… via the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and South England, and sat down with them to go behind the scenes with people like Vera van Wolferen, Lucie Sunkova, and Daisy Jacobs. The videos looked at their process, animation techniques and why they favoured non-digital techniques like stop motion.
“There’s a rawness to it, a sort of desperation. And that reminds you that this has been made by someone.”
As the Animation World Network mentioned in 2012, the world has more enough people who can do great tricks with computers, and what animation needs are visionaries and dreamers:
For the past fifteen years, the Holy Grail for most new character animators has been a staff position with one of the major studios – Pixar, DreamWorks, Sony, Blue Sky or Disney. Today’s new animators are encountering a rapidly changing industry landscape that includes entirely new production models. Movies such as Chico and Rita, Rango, Coraline, The Illusionist, and Waltz with Bashir cost much less to make than, say, Brave or Madagascar 3, and they play for more demographically specific audiences. New channels of distribution and exhibition are emerging, and Hollywood’s big studios are feeling the sting that accompanies a mega-budget flop like Mars Needs Moms. Even lofty Pixar is having trouble sustaining its own high creative standard while producing three movies per year on an assembly-line basis.
We can do a better job of preparing the next generation of animators for the industry realities that await them. We can do a better job of mentoring the next Miyazaki, Lasseter or Disney. Based upon my personal observations from interacting with young animators around the world, the schools and universities are graduating too many technicians and not enough artists. An ability to draw, as evidenced by the work in a strong portfolio, is increasingly optional or even irrelevant for admission to many animation-training programs. Granted, the computer has largely replaced the pencil as a primary animation tool over the past twenty years, but drawing skills are a visible marker of aptitude for animation in general. Take that away and you are basically left with analytic computer programmer/operator potential. The increasing numbers of animation technicians that is gathering at industry portals is creating a competitive climate that will drive down entry-level compensation that is, arguably, already too low. Aspiring animators are becoming a bright target for entrepreneurs that want to exploit them.