Quotes About Animation

Yeah, once we decided to use that replacement animation, and the seams are a function of that animation, and other movies paint those out, we decided we wanted to keep the presence of the animation and the type of animation that it was rather than make it look polished. It created a kind of vulnerability, I think.

I love all sorts of animation, probably the most beautiful would be the tradtional hand drawn animation that Disney is known for. Stop-motion has a certain "grittieness" and is filled with imperfections, and yet their is an undeniable truth, that what you see really exits, even it if is posed by hand, 24 times a second. This truth is what I find most attractive about stop-motion animation.

People, they think that animation is a style. Animation is just a technique. It's like, people, they think that comics is a style, like comics is a superhero story. Comic is just a narration, and is a medium, you can say any kind of story in comics and you can say of any kind of story in animation.

Even when I'm writing animation, I think of them as real people. I think of them as completely three-dimensional beings, even if it's a talking teapot. I don't think of them as one-dimensional drawn characters running around. Maybe that's why, to me, there's really no difference in writing the two - animation versus live action.

Although all studios are now moving towards digitalization, a foundation in which we draw pictures by hand hasn't changed, so I foresee that we will continue to keep it in the future. After all, we used the digital method based on a conception of expanding and advancing the expression of the traditional animation cel in Steamboy. The first goal of this project was to overcome limitations of camera angles caused by platforms. On that aspect, I won't go back to the traditional method. I hoped to combine the merits of the traditional method of cel animation with the merits of the new CGI method.

I got a job as the Visuals Art's Teacher at my Alma Mata, St. Mary's College. Then my interests shifted to animation. Ironically, it was one of my students who sparked this energy in me by introducing me to an animation program called FLASH. So I dabbled and played around with it.

I went into Hollywood and met Mike Aarons and went to Grantray-Lawrence Animation to work on the, by today's standards, extremely cheap and crude Marvel superheroes cartoons which basically consisted of taking stacks of the comic book art, taking parts of the art, pasting it down, extending it down into drawings and occasionally a new piece of art to bridge the comic book panels and limited animation and lip movement.

In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.

I just like voicing films in general. I do a lot of documentary work and it's a short hop really to narrating a character, especially if you're on film and you're there in a visual way. It sounds obvious, but voicing an animation really focuses you on the way that you're communicating through your voice. It's a very specific ability that you need to be able to have in order to pitch it just right.

With animation, if something does not fit, you always have the time to change it. When you make a live-action movie, when your days of shooting are over, they are over forever.

I don't necessarily consider myself part of the animation world.

Learn how to draw. It's the basis of what we [animation directors] do. Keep a sketchbook. Try making a very simple little film. Try and tell a story clearly and entertainingly. Study the way people move and animate move. Observe all you can, and try and capture that simply in a few lines on paper.

As an actor, doing animation is definitely on the list of most actors because it is such a freeing, fun, different experience than being on camera. There's just something different about it that's not more fun, but a different sort of fun.

Luckily with animation, they give you a lot more leeway than a live-action show.

For me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.

Genndy [Tartakovsky] is so good at directing and so wonderful with animation.

I don't know if I really watched any Disney animation as a kid.

If I wasn't acting or doing stand-up, I would be in animation. Or if I had the discipline I might studies physics.

Well, what if we did this in the mind as opposed to the brain? So instead of blood vessels and dendrites, what if it was consciousness and dream production? And that would allow us to have characters that represent emotions. And that felt like, man, that's exactly what animation does best - strong, opinionated, caricatured personalities. And that just got me excited.

Well, for one thing, the executives in charge at Cartoon Network are cartoon fans. I mean, these are people who grew up loving animation and loving cartoons, and the only difference between them and me is they don't know how to draw.

You basically go in animation and it's all in the imagination. There aren't even pictures to look at. You usually go in there and work with whoever the director is to create this voice and this character.

I think the animation helps divorce the violence from reality. The sex certainly doesn't look all that realistic. I think the fact that it's animated, we get some leeway because of that.

Depression is melancholy minus its charms - the animation, the fits.

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.

I guess my first digital movie was 'Tintin' because 'Tintin' has no film step. There is no intermediate film step. It's 100% digital animation, but as far as a live-action film, I'm still planning to shoot everything on film.

No matter what happens with technology or whether you're in traditional animation or stop-motion or CG, the biggest challenge always is story. The flow of making the movie is usually determined by how your story is coming together, and when your story is straining and you can't quite get your hands around it, your entire production is straining.

I usually have 10 different animation projects going at a time.

And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.

I think that there is always room for improvement so I am seeking to reach as far as I can in my field of art, film and animation.

I really can't stand any more to pay for a burst of animation when someone comes in for drinks with a depressed and low-keyed next day, in which I have to go around on my hands and knees.

Behind us lay the great Antarctic Land; snow peaks rising beyond one another until by distance they dwindled away into insignificancy. The silence and immobility of the scene was impressive; not the slightest animation or vitality anywhere. It was like a mental image of our globe in its primitive state - a spectacle of Chaos. Around is ice and snow and the remnants of internal fires; above, a sinister sky; below the sombre sea; and over all, the silence of the sepulchre!

I try to be aware of technology and Japanese animation and old Belgian paintings, and get all my references from bits of everywhere.

You can tell a story clearly in the storyboards, but if you don't keep the correct focus in the animation, it can be ruined.

I like the idea of seeing a film that has the artist's hand in there,a film where you can see his strokes, you can see his working patterns. It's like going to a museum and seeing a Renoir drawing. You want to see their work and you want to see how they put it together. For me to see that in animation is really fresh, it's really exciting, it's really original.

Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It's produced by humans who can't stand looking at other humans. And that's why the industry is full of otaku!

Acting is a plum gig, and then animation is an even more plum gig.

We've always liked music in movies, you know, just 'cause it helps tell the story. It can be emotional. It can be funny. It can be so many different things. And it just and it gives you variety from and again, there's a certain stylization that happens with music. Animation and music seem to go together well.

Intelligence, goodness, humanity, excitement, serenity. Over time, these are the things that change the musculature of your face, as do laughter, and animation, and especially whatever peace you can broker with the person inside. It's furrow, pinch, and judgement that make us look older - our mothers were right. They said that if you made certain faces, they would stick, and they do. But our mothers forgot that faces of kindness and integrity stick as well.

I think it reflects well on the state of animation that people are knowledgeable about it and love the fantasy and imagination that goes into it.

I convinced Tim to add one song, and then we added five. We changed a lot of things while we were shooting, which you should never do in stop-motion animation. With this, it was a much smoother ship, so I wasn't getting sent the scratch reels of things.

One of the best animated films I've seen come out of Disney was the Tarzan movie. I wasn't crazy about the story or the design on Tarzan's face, but the traditional animation was spectacular.

Here's my take, for what it's worth: I think that a lot of people in the US, as well as other countries, have the idea that animation is primarily for children, and kids like to be entertained! And animated films here tend to have crazy fantastic situations that would be difficult to do in live action, like with talking animals or monsters or whatnot, and that lends itself well to comedy, I think.