for the ask game! i think your content gives away that you're very detailed (a very good observer, maybe even unintentionally so), clever and a very die hard and loyal friend! :3c
wah ty!
i’ve had art teachers tell me i have a good eye for detail!
hey sira ..... about that post with the time periods with sinbad and treasure planet and all that ..... WHAT WAS GOING ON? you said you wouldn't rant about it in the tags so i sent this ....... i need answers ..... TT_TT
Alrighty so the main way I know about it is because I learned about the decline of mainstream 2d animated films in the US so I’m gonna be covering both, partially using a copy/paste of a rant I made months back. All info under the readmore:
HOKAY SO, this isn’t all the factors and it’s not everything it’s just what I remember. I tried to fact check this mess and I think I changed any inaccuracies but I COULD BE WRONG.
So, animation in the 2000s, why it was the way it was and why a lot of films went under-appreciated.
One thing you gotta remember is that while animation is a creative field, the companies in charge of them are businesses. And businesses will almost always go for low risk/high reward shit. This means, if there’s something tried and true they’ll stick with it. This is why studios often modeled works after other studios (funny talking animals, white gloves, black eyes with that lil white slit, musical shorts like Silly Symphonies, Happy Harmonies, and Merrie Melodies which yes were all by different studios), or in direct opposition of other studios (don bluth going darker with themes to contrast disney’s cuteness, bugs bunny’s trickster personality to contrast mickey’s nondescript Good personality, etc).
But there’s only so long you can do the same stuff before people get tired of it. Most animated feature length films had the same formula: a retelling of an old tale with musical numbers and cute sidekicks. And they started not doing so good.
However, animation at this time had grown in leaps and bounds. Digital coloring and compositing, merging of 3d effects, big studios run by huge companies, and a track record for being profitable as fuck. At the time the companies didn’t want them to go under so they decided to try to get Innovative. Cause that’s how they’d stayed afloat when things went bad before.
They weren’t going to stray from adapting though, too many unknown factors in original stories (which would also require more workshopping and pre-production). So, they’re still adapting old stories. However, they’re pulling from different sources, and in the case of Disney giving them a twist.
Atlantis was inspired by Journey to the Center of the Earth mixed with the myth of Atlantis, Treasure Planet was of course Treasure Island but Pirates in Space (which is one of my favorite nonsensical aesthetics), Dreamworks SKG (their 2d animation dept) went super old school with myths and legends (Sinbad, Prince of Egypt). And both studios went ham on trying to be innovative with the tech at their disposal.
There’s another reason why they went so hard, besides of course being artists. I said before that at the time companies didn’t want their 2d departments to flop, but as time progressed a new alternative began to become prevalent: 3D animation. And this became a huge threat to 2D studios.
Important to note in this regard is the advent of Pixar in the mid 1990s. 3D animation had come a long way from its clunky, surrealist roots. And with the success of movies such as Toy Story and A Bug's Life, it proved itself to be an upcoming profitable medium. It wasn't just the animation though, Pixar had amazing storytellers and directors. And this shit was new, not directly based on an old Grimm Fairy tale or something. In short their whole package was amazing. Dreamworks started being active around this time too and added fuel to the 3D animation fire. Granted Shrek was based on fairy tales, but in a way that was a subversion and became incredibly iconic for it.
At the time Pixar was independent from Disney but working in contract with them. And the success was more than welcomed. As always in capitalism, the question of profitability comes into question. Traditional 2D animation, especially at the high framerate disney was known for, is expensive af to make. Often if directors and producers are not careful, a budget can really run away from you. For example, Toy Story only cost 30 Million USD to make. Treasure Planet cost 140 Million USD. (granted that's because of the combination of 3d and 2d elements. But Lilo and Stitch was almost strictly 2D and still cost more than Toy Story at 80 million USD.)
Also, Disney also kinda oversaturated their market. They released a fuckton of straight to dvd sequels (which Disney himself was avidly against) which kinda degraded the overall quality of the Disney 2d animation brand.
There was also competition from other factors. The early 2000s saw the Harry Potter boom, and Lord of the Rings came not soon after.
Those of course siphoned off a lot of attention. They were part of pre-established series. The experimental stories that Disney was doing at the time, i.e. AU versions of literary classics, fell flat because the target audience was not familiar with the origin sources, and those that were weren't interested in "kids movies" They had no fucking clue how to market them, and the target audiences didn’t know to look for them.
Lilo and Stitch actually met with success, because 1) they marketed the hell out of it and capitalized on Stitch's mascot-like status and 2) it was more rooted in the kid demographic rather than that awkward kid/teen straddle the other two had.
But even Lilo and Stitch couldn't save the Orlando animation studio when Disney finally decided to shut it down. They concentrated the last of their 2D animation studios in Burbank, California.
Pixar's contract with Disney ended in 2004, and Disney tried to capitalize on the success of 3D with their own films, Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little. Both were uh...the Meet the Robinsons wasn't too bad but Chicken Little was like...trying to hard to be a hacky version of a Dreamworks movie
Ratatouille was released by pixar independent of Disney which is a neat thing to note. And of course met with success
Meanwhile 2D kept falling behind, and whenever it flopped like with Home on the Range it was just another nail in the coffin.
Disney renewed its contract with Pixar, and after the release of The Princess and The Frog they switched gears to focus solely on 3D animated feature length films, relegating their 2D staff to tv shows. Granted there's some great shows like Gravity Falls etc but, the fact that they've given up on films is disappointing.
But the numbers don't lie. Tangled was its biggest success in a long time. And then Frozen came and blew it out of the water.
tl:dr
- People were tired of seeing grim fairy tales stories retold with musical numbers and sometimes talking animals.
- Studios tried to use different sources for adaptations and put cool spins on them and incorporate new technology.
But it didn’t end up working in their favor and 2D animation declined because:
- success of studios that were using 3D animation (though credit can also be given to their pre-production staff/writers/storyboarders)
- competition from other growing franchises, in some cases Disney cannibalizing its own profits (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean)
- Cost effectiveness of 3D vs 2D
- Changing of fads and appeal to audience
- Inability to market movies properly to target demographics
- Studios actively sabotaging their 2d studios to have an excuse to tank them and focus on 3D work.
So yeah, that’s all I got. I’m definitely missing some nuances here though feel free to correct me whoever sees this.
@traumasystem replied to your post “@traumasystem replied to your post “anyway, my girlfriend saw i was...”
oh!!! that so cool!! i love sunflowers they're very valid!!! if u havent u should share pics of ur tattoo!! id love to see it! : D
it’s not super clear because it’s a phone picture, and also it was one of my first 3 tattoos, which were all done by yt ppl before i started an only-allowing-QPoC-to-colonise-my-skin kick (so the arabic is shaky and Bad even tho literally all she had to do was trace my handwriting)
@traumasystem replied to your post “anyway, my girlfriend saw i was having a rough day and brought me...”
THATS SO CUTE!!!!! i send u digital sunflowers and hope ur day gets even better!
aww, thank you, they’re my fave flowers, i have one tattooed on me (they used to be associated with my sorority, but my chapter is a piece of shit sooo) and i want more tattooed on me
