Toontown Down South

Where animation once meant either cell—characters and backgrounds painted on celluloid—or such stop action methods as claymation, today’s animation encompasses those methods as well as an array of digital tools. In some cases, there’s a convergence of traditional and digital methods, as was the case in the Disney film “Tarzan.” In fact, animation is showing up in places people never expected to find it.

“It’s an amazing time to be involved in the industry because there’s an explosion of different media,” says Michael Ouweleen, Senior Vice President/Creative Director, Cartoon Network. “It used to be so cut and dried. There would be cell animation, like we all know from all those Disney specials from way back when. There was CG, which you could spot from a mile away and was bad; and there was stop motion. Now, there are so many different ways, and they all give animation a different texture and sensibility.”

Adds John Weatherford, President of the Weatherford Group which contains the Animatopia animation division, “People thought of animation as flat, 2-D, cartoon, cell-animated productions. When people saw 3-D animation a few years ago, they would have considered that special effects. Maybe the lines have begun to blur. They all tend to mix together thanks to the prevalence of computers and being able to do what they’re able to do.”

Indeed, defining animation is becoming a difficult task. Says Jason Maurer, Sovereign Architect of Creation for Fathom Studios, “Animation is the art of motion, the art of telling a story, the art of bringing things that are imaginary or unreal to life.”

That definition is as good as any, but Ouweleen further defines it by saying, “Animation is the appearance of movement given to non-real objects. A lot of things you consider to be live action is actually animation. A lot of things in movies are computer generated. You can’t just not like animation any more. You have to hate eight or ten flavors of it to not like animation.”

The growth of animation in recent years can be traced to the coming of age of audiences who have spent their lives watching it. “I’m from a generation that grew up on cartoons and animation,” says Michael Koepenick, Owner/ Senior Editor of Guillotine Post. “That was most of what I watched as a kid. I love that stuff and relate to it. To earlier generations, it’s what you use for humor or passing the time before a movie. Today, it can be used for more sophisticated purposes.”

“You can thank Japanese anime for being a big influence on an entire generation which suddenly clicked with the idea that they can make a career as an animator,” says Steve Carroll, Director of Marketing, Stone Mountain Productions. “There are more schools than ever teaching animation now.”

The popularity of such television shows as “The Simpsons” and “South Park” and a number of feature films have led people to think about animation in new ways. The success of the Toy Story films and “A Bug’s Life” has brought computer animation to the top of mind as a medium for advertising and corporate communications.

“People see things in the movies and say, ‘Can you do that?’ And we say, ‘We could do that four years ago!’,” says Eric Deren, Owner of Dzignlight. “It’s interesting to see people starting to realize what can be done by watching these major motion pictures. Everybody sees that and wants it in their production. They want to know what it costs to do it and they’re surprised at how inexpensively it can be done.”

Deren credits advances in computer technology and software with fueling the animation boom. “The growth is occurring because people are realizing they can do things on computer that save both time and money and make it look better,” he explains. “It’s another result of everything getting faster and cheaper. In the computer world, we’re able to create things we wouldn’t have been able to do five years ago. The great thing about this industry is it’s always changing. There’s always something new being able to be done because the computers are getting faster and faster. It used to be computer animation was simple and flat looking. As the computers get faster and faster, we’re able to do more things in a production-time budget, and the key is getting things done on time. It’s becoming more accessible to more people, and now, almost anyone can pick up a computer and create computer graphics. You win in all ways.”

“Everybody is trying to outdo each other,” says Scott Frizzle, Creative Director for Artifact. “As new tools and techniques become available and less expensive, more and more people are using them in their projects. With programs like After Effects, projects that five or ten years ago wouldn’t have been able to incorporate animation are now able to do that because the clients don’t have to go into a suite and spend $800 per hour doing animation.”

A gander at commercials on television points out the increased use of animation in advertising. “We’re finding that a lot more advertisers are interested in going the animation route because it gives them a look that is unique,” says Carroll. “They can control that look, it can be tailored to accompany your message.”

“It’s freed up the imaginations of a lot of creative directors,” says Maurer. “They don’t feel so restricted. They couldn’t do the same things ten years ago that they can do now, primarily because of the technology. With computer animation, you can bend reality or do things that you either can’t do or would be extremely expensive to do when you shoot live action plates. You can freeze-frame a bullet or show a dancing apple. Before you had two choices: cell animation, which had a very specific look and feel, or stop-action. With the advent of computer technology, turnaround time is faster and you’re able to produce something real-looking that you can match with a live-action plate.”

Koepenick says animation has also become more popular as a solution for corporate projects as well. “They point to the annual report as to what they want,” he explains. “It has stylized images and photos. Instead of going out and doing a film shoot which would match those looks and styles which could end up costing $10,000 to $20,000 or more, what has happened is people are scanning the images to the annual report, doing a similar background and creating an animation from the approved 2-D images that already exist.”

The ever-shrinking cost of doing business, according to Carroll, is helping popularize computer animation as a solution. “A decade ago,” he says, “doing any form of computer based animation was an astronomical undertaking. There were only a handful of companies in the country that could handle it. Now, an ad agency can do simple 3-D graphics in-house. With the software that’s out there and the talent pool that already exists it’s relatively cost effective. It’s almost down to being one-to-one with the price of cell animation.”

Although computer animation is the solution of the moment, Deren says there is still a role for traditional animation. “There will always be cell because there’s a look for that,” he explains. “That’s something people are choosing as an esthetic, so it will always be around.”

The Internet has provided a new venue for animation. Animated on-line greeting cards are becoming popular, and several sites are offering streaming animation. In addition, animators are sending thumbnails and comps to clients for approval and deliver finished work through e-mails.

“We’ve got clients we’ve never met face to face,” says Deren. “I call them ‘Internet-E-mail-FedEx Customers.’ That’s all the communication we have. We set up web pages where they can look up and check the status of the project. We send out the finished product on whatever media they need for their project FedEx. They never come to Atlanta. We have been noticing that a lot of Hollywood studios that would have been working just in L.A. have been branching out over the country, farming out pieces of business or programming to effects houses in different cities throughout the U.S. That means we can be in Atlanta and work on a Hollywood film.”

According to Koepenick, Flash, a software package for displaying animation on the web, is, “The biggest thing happening right now. It’s vector-based graphics, which means you can go from any kind of scale in just a few seconds. Plus, as files, it takes up less megabytes. It loads quickly, but looks as rich as anything.”

In many ways, a large production such as a feature-length film or episodic television series is an international effort. Producers will outsource much of the grunt work to such places as Hungary, Ireland and South Korea where labor is less expensive.

“Over the past 30 years,” says Carroll, “there have been large projects having in-betweens and finishes done overseas. There’s an American company spearheading the design, look and quality of it, but a lot of the incidental labor is being done outside the country, especially the more labor intensive, time-involving aspects of large projects.”

With the advent of computer animation, however, this kind of outsourcing is becoming irrelevant. “The only reason to outsource is to get cheap labor,” says Deren, “but you need smart labor, not cheap labor to run these machines. The computers require people of the Nintendo generation who are reasonably intelligent and college educated.”

One project that definitely isn’t being outsourced is “Delgo, A Hero’s Adventure” being created by Fathom Studios. The computer-generated feature-length film is described by Maurer as “An epic adventure about a world struggle for unity.” Production is scheduled to wrap in 2002, and a theatrical run will follow.

Maurer says with pride that Delgo is being made using Georgia-based talent and support services. “I want to be able to say we can do a full-length animated feature film in Atlanta,” he states. “One of our goals as an Atlanta-based company is to bring that type of business to this city and state.”

Although New York and Los Angeles are still the country’s main centers for animation, thanks to projects like Delgo, Atlanta is beginning to make inroads. “What we’re seeing is a slow increase,” Maurer explains. “It’s picked up in the past three years. People are beginning to come into this specific market place to do business. A lot of agencies are beginning to look at Atlanta.”

“In the Southeast region, Atlanta is considered the place to go for animation,” says Frizzle, who adds that about half of his company’s work comes from outside the market. “We’ve not reached the level of New York or L.A., but in our region, it’s the place people go to inquire about animation.”

Koepenick says that Atlanta may not be getting the acclaim it deserves. “A lot of people don’t really know where a lot of what they see on television comes from,” he explains. “Atlanta is growing that market and it’s getting more sophisticated. A lot of houses started with corporate jobs. Everyone has gotten better and more sophisticated and equipment and effects have gotten cheaper and cooler. That lent itself to getting into entertainment realms.”

While Atlanta is building a reputation, a number of big budget animation projects leave the market for more established centers. The decision of where to work often depends on where the impetus for the project is coming from. “If they’re using an L.A. based producer,” says Carroll, “the likelihood of the animation coming to Atlanta is slim. If, however, they’re looking at an Atlanta-based producer to put the players together for a project, then the first place the regional producers and creative directors are turning to is locally.”

Ouweleen believes that Atlanta’s animators need to develop a little “star power” for the market to advance. “I feel that there are terrific animators in Atlanta,” he says, ”great animation houses and the stuff we’ve done for on-air environments were done here in town. I don’t think we could have said that four years ago. It’s amazing how far it’s come. What it needs is a couple of great directors. The animators in Atlanta need to become animation directors who are known for a style. You go now to groups of animators in Atlanta, but there’s no star director here.”

The Atlanta animation credits the various Turner operations—especially Cartoon Network—with broadening the public’s appreciation of animation and fueling the growth of the Atlanta market. “Turner has been good about bringing animation projects into the Atlanta market,” says Carroll. “Turner uses Atlanta-based animation houses for virtually all of its on-air promotion.”

Like many companies in town, Frizzle says Artifact has worked with a number of Turner divisions on projects of varying size. “No matter how you slice it, it’s what put Atlanta on the map in terms of the animation world,” he says. “I don’t know that we’d be doing what we’re doing if it wasn’t for Turner. We’ve managed to broaden our client base beyond Turner, but they’re still the big player in town and they still continue to feed that market beyond anyone else.”

“There’s been an explosive growth in the Atlanta post production market, and they’ve had a big impact,” says Koepenick. “Not only because they’re putting money into the market, but more importantly, they bring in a sophistication and an international audience for things created here in Atlanta. They’ve allowed Atlanta to grow well beyond the post production needs of a city our size.”

Ouweleen says that the Turner organization recognizes the contributions made by the local community and hopes to keep playing the role of talent incubator. “We’re growing with them and they’re growing with us,” he says. “Everyone’s standards keep growing higher and we’re all getting better at it. There’s a mutual growth between Cartoon Network and local vendors. You wouldn’t get that in New York or Los Angeles because people’s attitudes are different. The amount of good animation already coming out of Atlanta and being seen by the country has gone from not that much to a ton in just four years. I think that evolution will continue at a rapid pace.”

This growth has led to increased opportunities for animators. “Anybody who wanted to be an animation artist had to go to New York or L.A.,” says Koepenick. “Now, with Cartoon Network here, you might be better off here than those places.”

According to Atlanta’s animation houses, the skills needed too succeed in the ever-expanding market haven’t changed since Walt Disney first sketched a certain mouse.

“You still need to know the standard, traditional skills,” says Maurer. “For computer animation, the technical knowledge is important, but I would say a really strong fundamental knowledge of the basics of drawing and anatomy and being able to use a pencil are critical. If you can tell a story on paper, then you can sit down and use a computer to tell a story. It maybe takes six months to sit down and teach someone to use the computer, but it can take a lifetime to develop the imagination to be an artist or an animator.”

“Despite my love of technology,” says Ouweleen, “ the most fundamental skills required of any animator at any time is to be able to convey an emotion, to tell a story, to connect with people and to build suspense. It’s all storytelling. That’s the most important skill any animator can possess.”

Although animation is riding high at the moment, what does the future hold? Peering into their crystal balls, a few people tried to imagine where the artform is heading.

“I think you’ll see more immediacy with animation,” Ouweleen predicts. “You’ll see the process condensing, with guaranteed long production times being cut shorter and shorter. There will be animation that will be real-time. You’ll see a lot of false starts with this, but eventually there will be personalities that aren’t human, but they’re live, real-time celebrities. There will be characters who are in between human and cartoon, it’s a new form of animation creeping up.”

While digital animation will continue to grow, Frizzle sees a role for the tried-and-true traditional forms. “There will be more convergence than we’re seeing now,” he says, “but I don’t think they’ll ever come together. There will always be a need for traditional methods, and there’s no way to reproduce that digitally and have it be more efficient. If you talk to a cell animator, they’ll be the first to tell you that they can get their work done faster with the traditional tools than trying to get it done on a computer. There will always be a separation between things like pure digital animation and things like claymation or cell animation.”