"A fragile show..."

I've been researching 2D animation over the past week or so for an upcoming project, trying to get a sense of what's out there and who's acting as its gatekeepers. Result: it's alive, vibrant and still massively innovative. There's much, much more than just Disney out there.

I think many of us remain fascinated by traditional animation and its sense of built-in magic. Its intuitive hand-drawn-ness counteracts the hyperreality of on-screen CGI worlds that often exist just to be destroyed (preach it to me, Transformers), and rescues the emotional from being too well-recreated. Even the best-received CGI films of the past few years, like Up (2009), Toy Story 3 (2010) or Tangled (2010), have been lauded for their warmth and artistry rather than just for their outstanding graphics. Tangled is especially noted for its reverence for traditional art, as its creators made it their goal to render the film as a "three-dimensional painting": they cite the Romantic artist Fragonard as their main inspiration, lush Snow White-like backgrounds abound, and Rapunzel, the main character, expresses herself by painting large-scale artwork on the ceiling of her tower.

Examples of 2D animation are everywhere, but there were a few that blew me away. Check out the extraordinary work of Ari Gibson and Jason Pamment (Australia, 2011):

How beautiful is that? A whole world in three minutes.

This dreamy emotional intensity has made its way into the gaming world as well, where projects like Limbo (Denmark, 2010) exist in a disturbingly dark and foggy space:

And to keep with the theme of silent film-like ethereality (is that a word? If not, consider it coined), here's a handmade light-and-shadows show by Davy and Kristin McGuire (Germany, 2011) that I found along my YouTube travels. It can take a lot to find something so simple yet so astonishing these days, but these artists capture your imagination with the most basic tools in an animator's handbook: scissors, a camera, and light.

These projects may not seem too warm or fuzzy, but they're just three examples of the innovative work being done in the field. Now that major studios have seemingly switched to CGI more or less full time, it's fascinating to see the tradition flourishing in the online era.

And OK, one more... Tomm Moore's Oscar-nominated feature film The Secret of Kells (2009), mesmerizing to watch and completely in tune with the history of art and storytelling:

Don't you wish you'd paid better attention in art class? I sure do.

Adios!