Decades research assignment (Animation)

Research Work

Animation

Sources:

Animation NOW! By Anima Mundi (Taschen books)
The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Institute_of_the_Arts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williams

CalArts

CalArts,
California Institute of the Arts

During the 80’s, CalArts’ animation department’s popularity surged, unleashing a generation of visionaries, including;

Tim Burton,
Ron Clements,
John Musker,
Peter Docter,
Stephen Hillenburg,
Henry Sellick,
and countless others.

Other key people in the animation industry during the 80’s such as John Lasseter and Brad Bird were former students there.

Many of these famous graduates have later returned to the institute as visiting artists.
Though CalArts was established in 1971, the animation industry didn’t begin to bulge with new talent until the 1980’s.

As with all other kinds of art during the decade, animation became extremely popular, with thousands of students heading out into the industry.

Pixar/John Lasseter

Luxo Jr.
directed by John Lasseter.

The introduction of entirely computer animated films was pioneered in the 80’s by Pixar. This new kind of animation would go mainstream during the next decade and revolutionise the industry.

Lasseter worked as an animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation, alongside Richard Williams at first. After seeing some preliminary scenes from the 1982 film Tron, Lasseter quickly realised the potential of Computer generated 3D Animation, using traditionally animated characters. He soon lost his job with Disney after an attempt to get his first project into motion, but soon got a job at Lucasfilm, where he was able to experiment more. He later became one of the founding members of Pixar, creating their first short film, Luxo Jr.

Hayao Miyazaki/Isao Takahata/ Studio Ghibli

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa: The Castle in the Sky, My Neighbour Totoro - all directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata.

Throughout the 80’s, Studio Ghibli gradually started to become recognised around the world through the phenomenal success of their animated feature films.

After leaving television production in the late 70’s, and making the very successful Castle of Cagliostro in 1979, Miyazaki began to work towards larger feature animation projects. His next planned project, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was turned down by studios, for not having popular source material to create an adaptation from, as most Animations produced in Japan are usually based directly off of popular novels and comics.

Determined to make the film, Miyazaki then spent the next 2 years of his life making a popular graphic novel based on his story. After the success, he was allowed to make them film, which became a massive hit, both in Japan and overseas.

Miyazaki was eventually able to found Studio Ghibli, and continued to make films during the 80’s, becoming iconic in the industry, and often referred to as “The Japanese Disney”. After completing Laputa: Castle in the Sky in 1986, he then made My Neighbour Totoro, released in 1988, which is still one of the most popular Japanese films ever made. In the same year, and studio, Miyazaki’s colleague Isao Takahata directed his own project, Grave of the Fireflies, a harrowing drama set during World War Two Japan.

Both films were released as a double feature in Japanese cinemas in 1988, despite being incredibly different in tone. Both were recognised fairly quickly in the West, particularly after Miyazaki’s previous success at the Cannes Film Festival.
Miyazaki is also a respected friend of John Lasseter.

Katsuhiro Otomo/Akira

Despite the success of the Ghibli films, it wasn’t until Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 film Akira that Japanese animated films really found a mainstream audience,
and became the first one to be given a worldwide cinematic release.

Ghibli’s films were extremely popular in Asia and Europe during the 80’s, but were still only considered cult films in America and the UK due to not having widespread releases.

Akira managed to change this and bring Japanese Animation of all kinds into mainstream entertainment. It’s phenomenal success on release was pivotal to the Japanese Animation market in the 90’s.

It also drastically changed the ways a lot of people see animation, leading many previous sceptics to finally believe that cartoons can fully appeal to adults.

Akira was groundbreaking in that it took elements that would usually only be found in live action movies and applied them to animation in a more realistic way than had ever seen at the time.

The film took 6 years to make in total, and contained nearly 5 times as many frames as a standard Disney film, featuring incredibly fluid motion and mind blowing visuals.

The affect that the film had to audiences and on the industry as a whole has resulted in it being widely considered one of the greatest animations of all time.

Disney’s return

At the very end of the decade, after years of poor productions, Disney finally re-emerged with The Little Mermaid, which became their biggest hit in years, and marked the beginning of the Disney Renaissance, which would continue for the next 10 years. The film was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker.