Computer generated VS Hand Drawn

In april 2013, Disney gutted their entire hand-drawn animation staff, firing all of their animators. All of Disney's upcoming announced films are computer animated, and many films previously announced as being traditionally animated were subsequently re-announced as being computer animated. The last traditionally animated films to be released by Disney were 2009's The Princess and the Frog and 2011's Winnie the Pooh.

Fron Disney's Tangled

Concept art for Tangled's Rapunzel

Disneys upcoming musical film 'Frozen', a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, was previously announced as a traditionally animated film, before being retooled to use the same technique and visual style as 2010's Tangled. An upcoming film detailing the story of the Easter Island Idols was originally believed to be traditionally animated, however was subsequently announced as a computer animated film. All is not lost however, short films are still being traditionally animated, Frozen is being preceded by a Mickey Mouse short, which is being traditionally animated, and which is being projected in 3D. At the most recent Academy Awards, the award for best animated feature, went to Paperman, this black and white Disney short managed to blend 3D computer animation and 2D traditional animation effectively, creating something modern and timeless.

Will computer animation ever be as good as traditional animation? I think yes, i feel that in the past, computer animation was clunky and unrefined, and attempted to translate live action films directly to animation, and these films often failed to bridge the uncanny valley and ended up looking ugly and hyper-real. This changed with Tangled however, Tangled combined methods of computer animation with traditional animation, using non-photorealistic animation, and creating vistas akin to pre-raphelite paintings. This represented a huge turning point for computer animated films, with computer animation finally being as textured, layered and beautiful as some traditional animation.

Don't get me wrong, traditional animation is wonderful, however the bean counters at Disney aren't happy, Winnie the Pooh barely made back it's meager 30 million budget, and The Princess and the Frog's 300 million gross pales in comparison to the 550 million made by Tangled. 3D has only been used with hand drawn animation experimentally, and only the 3D re-release of The Lion King made any real money for Disney, with disney subsequently cancelling re-releases of Aladdin and Tarzan.

Still from Dinsey's Paperman

Overall i think we will see a return to hand-drawn animation, but only when animators have figured out how to use it successfully in conjunction with 3D. Both techniques can be beautiful when used correctly, and Tangled ushered in a new era of computer animation. Until the return of traditional animation on our screens, we will have to console ourselves by just watching Sleeping Beauty over and over again!