Evolution of Animation
by: Korina Kyra C. Canta, Ervin Ashley B. Rico, Leonel Michael C. Sabello, Lorenzo Miguel D. Laqueo, & Marcel Rhyst Levi B Mateo
Every day as time continuously passes through, the evolution of our technology becomes noticeable in various ways, especially in the entertainment industry. As stated by Ng (2012), it is certain that there will be shifts and changes towards the current modern entertainment industry and for it to come true is by the collaboration of different industries. A good example to show how technology has evolved is noticing the changes in animated movies such the Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 4 (2019).
The main process of the making between the first Toy Story and its continuation, Toy Story 4 is mostly the same. The director and animators first started off with a rough draft of the film using storyboards and reels to create a general idea of how the movie should progress. The main storyboard was the utmost priority for all the Toy Story films, especially with the first one; where the current animation technology at the time was far less developed than the current technology we have now. Considering that the two films were created with a 24-year gap and how Toy Story 4 is more detailed than the first Toy Story film, this gives us an idea of how the animation industry has tremendously evolved.
In general, both films had spectacular stories thanks to the film writers, but what sets the two films apart has to be the animation. This is because the animation and video is the first thing the audience will notice when watching the movie. Since the technology at the time Toy Story was made in 1995 was very limited compared to today's developed technology, to give a sense of how far the animation evolved between the two films, there are scenes that really show a huge difference from the first movie to the last one. For example, there was a scene where the movie wanted to show Andy on his birthday every year. In that particular scene, the only character you could see in there was Andy because the computer used was very limited and couldn't handle processing that many individual faces. Another evidence is that the face alone Woody was composed of 212 animations with 58 specifically on the mouth alone. On the other hand, Toy Story 4 has the smallest bit of detail present, from dust particles lingering to the tiniest bit of wear and tear present on the characters, this level of detail is what the evolution of animation greatly presents (Desiderio, K. & Philips, I., 2020).
The general process of creating animation films was heavily affected by the evolution of technology. With new technology present, the computer and its programs that are used to animate were made simple. With the addition of Internet technologies, the animation film process whether 2D or 3D was greatly accelerated (Aurora, 2018). References:
Aurora, Sunny (2018). The Evolution of Animation: From Entertainment to Business Videos - A brief Journey Through Time. Retrieved from: https://www.b2w.tv/blog/the-evolution-of-animation-a-brief-journey-through-time
Ng,Sheau (2012).A Brief History of Entertainment Technologies.Proceedings of the IEEE.(100). https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2012.2189805
Desiderio, K. & Phillips, I. (2020). How Pixar's animation has evolved over 24 years, from 'Toy Story' to 'Toy Story 4'. Insider. Retrieved from: https://www.insider.com/pixars-animation-evolved-toy-story-2019-6#:~:text=Pixar%20forever%20changed%20animation%20in,%2Dlength%20computer%2Danimated%20movie.&text=In%20order%20to%20render%20%22Toy,render%2C%20depending%20on%20how%20complex.
Ridgely, C. (2019). The Real Reason Andy Looks So Different in Toy Story 4. Movies. Retrieved from: https://comicbook.com/movies/news/toy-story-4-andy-changes-animation/
VHSfx (2013, February 12). The Making of Toy Story - 1995 [Video File]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/1VdERcRJ3jI
Insider (2019, July 9). How PIxar’s ‘Toy Story’ Was Animated | Movies Insider [Video File]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/fT_LdcWFHkA
Copper, L. (2019). The Evolution of Toy Story’s Animation. Grand Canyon University. Retrieved from: https://www.gcu.edu/blog/performing-arts-digital-arts/evolution-toy-storys-animation
