Apples, Oranges and Bananas
When the New York Times features an article in its advertising column on animation, that's an event. This past week, Phil Dougherty, the stalwart observer of Madison Avenue, compared the advantages of animation as against computer graphics and live action. Even before he got down to the brass tacks of the comparison he began his comments with a remark that unsettled many of the producers in town.
Dougherty simply stated that the animation studios were not doing as well as the computer houses. He was leading up to a punch line that quoted computer expert, Judson Rosebush, as explaining that he felt the Japanese would be swallowing up the local computer business in a short time.
Hal Hoffer of Perpetual Animation Inc., felt that even though the past few months have been slow and many businesses have been affected, his studio has been active and is now busily engaged in the production of several spots. Lou Gifford of Kim and Gifford also noted that though there were times when they had been busier, they were active throughout the past year. Presently, Phil Kimmelman of KMCP Productions is also engaged in the animation of a new series of commercials. A much brighter view than Mr. Dougherty painted.
Animation is obviously alive and well in New York, but I think we have all become conditioned to a new situation. In the last 12 years animation studios, involved in spot production, have grown smaller and this condition creates a new norm. When studios were hiring a full staff of artists and even had their own cameras and editing departments that was normal. You didn't open a studio unless you could put together the full complement of talents and equipment.
Today many studios maintain small staffs, free-lance out much of the artwork and farm out the shooting and editing to services. The norm now is a small studio. Being busy today relates to keeping a group of workers bustling that may be one third the size that studios hired in the recent past. Animation is there, it's just become more rarefied. Looming over this situation is the computer, promising to do everything that hordes of artists used to do by hand yet even better and faster. The important thing to remember is that computers do their own kind of thing and animation when it is at its best cannot be imitated by any other medium. As Jack Zander stated in a quote in the Dougherty article, "The Seven Dwarfs could never have been done on a computer."
Comparing animation to live action and computer generated images is really like comparing apples, oranges and bananas. Though each one can be designated as fruit you would be gravely disappointed if when upon biting into an apple you perceived the taste of banana.
All the comparing that we do of advertising techniques misses the point. Each device serves a definite purpose. The guy that rents a blimp to circle the city displaying a message, is reaching an audience that is on the street and not looking at television.
Animation when used to advertise products can often do things that live actors cannot do or would look silly doing. How sad that so many fine actors are being asked to say so many trite things when they could be used in more believable situations. Animated characters could well be employed to mouth all of the remarks that are constantly being touted on the air extolling this or that product.
There is a believability in animated characters that cannot be obtained even from a live actor. An actor is a paid performer, a cartoon character like Donald Duck does not have a private life. When he espouses a product, it's direct and pure.
The sad fact is that too much uncreative animation is just as boring as too much uncreative live action or uncreative computer animation. When something really good comes along it is universally enjoyed. When live action spots are done well and show intelligence there is no touching it with any other technique. When computers perform their complicated, twisting patterns, many of us stand up and take notice, and when animation on television shows something more original than a character simply waving his arms and pointing to a cereal box, then maybe more people will demand animation. Let's face it, boring is boring no matter how it is presented. When an audience is interested they couldn't care less about how the message was delivered.
Perhaps in the coming year we should all forego the comparison between one technique over another, for the good of all the techniques. Let each of us perfect whatever medium that works best for him. Comparing apples, oranges and bananas can only lead to frustration, and if we're not careful we might just wind up with a bunch of lemons.
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