Philosophy: Traditional animation vs. CGI animation
Posted by Fred Patten on Tue 27 Aug 2013 - 02:46 — Edited by GreenReaper as of Tue 26 Dec 2017 - 05:51
Amid Amidi of the Cartoon Brew uses this new GEICO commercial to ask, what is an animated cartoon and what is reality, anyway? – a meaningful question for anthropomorphic fans today.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
somebody has to write an article:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/advertising/the-geico-gecko-does-not-like-being-calle...
Just because there is a cartoon with a gag in it in a commercial?
I know that cartoonbrew.com focuses on cartoons (or rather I assume this since I think I have probably only seen one of their articles) but lots of commercials have had cartoons in them.
And the joke is INANE. And not in a funny-inane way either.
Geico, we get it, over and over. You are pretending the Geico Gecko is real. it's not funny. it never was funny.
also:
"and?what?is?reality,?anyway?"
How is this commercial about that?
uh, is there even an editor on this site?
-QC
Jesus, did your goldfish die or something?
I remember the first commercials where the Gecko wasn't an employee at Geico, instead has getting sick of people confusing his species with the brand.
Hi QC, a while back, I sent a few remarks to Fred that were a bit displeased with the relevance of some of his articles to this site. After a while, I got to appreciate Fred as a unique and valuable guy who has tons of experience, so now I think they all add "Fredness." Cartoon Brew also has a strong reputation for "shop talk" about animation, so if you have professional interest, as many furries do, that's another OK reason to share this casual one-liner article. Stick around and share the kinds of articles YOU want.
(and now the trifecta is complete)
The story on the Cartoon Brew website has 26 comments so far, most from professional animators. Since so many animated movies today contain anthropomorphic characters, such as the rats in "Ratatouille" from Pixar or the cast of "Kung Fu Panda" from DreamWorks or the mice and bears in "Ernest et Celestine", a discussion of how today's public perceives the difference between cartoon animation and Computer Graphic Imagery animation seems pertinent here, especially in that Geico animated commercial which dramatically juxtaposes the two.
Fred Patten
To answer QC, the point of the GEICO commercial is that GEICO is pretending that the CGI gecko is "real" while the cartoon gecko is "only a cartoon". The point of the animators commenting on the commercial is that CGI animation is different from cartoon animation. It may all be animation, but a GEICO commercial using the CGI gecko is not a "cartoon". But to the average public, it is all "cartoons". The second point is irrelevant to Flayrah and Furry fans, but the first point is pertinent in asking to what extent do Furry fans consider CGI anthropomorphic characters as "more real", or as preferable to Furry fans, than cartoon-animated anthropomorphic characters? Or than stop-motion characters, who share cartoon characters' trait of never being photorealistic?
Fred Patten
Computer imagery, of course, can encompass a very wide range of styles, from movies like "Hoodwinked" and "Despicable Me" and "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" where everything looks "cartoony" or unrealistic, to the pseudorealism of the GEICO gecko, the living teddy bear in "Ted", or the talking animals in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Which do Furry fans prefer? Or do Furry fans not have a general preference, but a preference to individual films? A lot of people really like Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" and "Robin Hood", whatever they may think about cartoon animation compared to CGI animation in general.
Fred Patten
That makes sense. And interesting info!
Thanks!
-QC
As the Cartoon Brew article points out, this commercial is actually getting pretty 'heady' into the idea of what is 'cartoony' and what is not, mostly by the fact that they show the gecko (the CGI version) in an unusually extreme close-up, one which really emphasizes the texture of his skin, the motions of his eyes, and subtleties of his expression. To my eye, this is "GEICO goes Meta" -- it really has very little to do with selling car insurance, and a lot to do with the art-form making fun of itself.
Traditional animation will be part of my childhood and I loved it. CGI is amazing and is part of modern times.
Amen! I am a wide-eyed 73-year-old today, constantly amazed by what was considered fantasy or cutting-edge in 1950 is "old-fashioned" or real today. Heck, up until 1960, some teachers and "responsible adults" still insisted that space travel was fantasy and that man would never get to the Moon. In the animation industry, the first two- or three-minute CGI films to catch professional animators' attention in the 1980s were widely considered curiosities that would never replace traditional hand-drawn cel animation.
Fred Patten
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