Every industry today works on an overly corporate belt loop of product without regard to much aside from cost cutting. We've talked about how kid cartoons aren't even made for kids today, but not so much why every cartoon looks the same. Sure, it's cheap, but its never been this blatant before. What is the moment that lead to this downfall?
The above video merely goes into the greater trends in the industry, but doesn't really talk about the root issue. Where did it come from?
I have to be honest, it's that the industry has never really cared that much for creativity except when trying to establish a foothold. Whether the Disney Afternoon, early Nickelodeon, or the early imports of Japanese anime, these hits all came about from risks taken by putting trust into the creators to do what they do best.
With the way the industry is now, risk is forbidden and to be avoided at all costs. Even worse when there is no audience growth as they aim for older audiences who want childish animation instead of animation for kids or adults. There is no incentive for creativity anymore, and therefore the industry is in a death spiral. It won't actually die, but it will continually mechanize itself until the point that AI can replace a creative team that isn't hired to be creative.
Perhaps that is the end goal. Who knows? But every since the introduction of flash animation, industry insiders have defended every move their bosses have made to cut costs, streamline processes, and mechanize creativity.
When machines can be programmed to do what they themselves dumb down their own industry to do, should we be surprised? You can make the argument that "at least there was human input" but don't forget that every change since the millennium in animation has to remove the human element. A machine taking charge is just completing the cycle already begun long ago. If you don't like the loss of humanity then you should have questioned why every change made since digital came in has made the industry more sterile.
Why can nothing still look as good as old Tom & Jerry or Popeye shorts? Why is anime allowed to have more variety of genres? Why do hand drawn cells and traditional animation at their peak still blow away even the best CG over a quarter of a century after being replaced? Why is "better than nothing" considered a worthy standard worth maintaining? At what point should you demand more instead of accepting constantly lowering standards?
Until we address that, nothing is going to change.
In other news, the Gemini Man Kickstarter was funded! If you are a backer, check out the recent update and see just what is happening next. I'm still deciding on some things, but I'm still planning on sending out the first book of the series for digital backers once I've got all my ducks in a row. This has been a long time coming!
That's all for this week, hopefully I can get the blog back to normal again. I know some of you are probably sick of hearing about Gemini Man by now, so don't worry. I'll be heading back into other subjects again now that the campaign is over. I've got some subjects I definitely want to go over in the near future.
That's all for now. Have a good weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment