Searching through the depths of my old hard drive, I stumbled across this old gem from my uni days…
Discuss the problems in drawing a distinction in contemporary cinema between animated and CGI films
“…films such as Toy Story are produced in precisely the medium they are trying to replicate… whereas (part CGI films) aim for indistinguishabilty from photo-reality… a realism committed to the illusionistic representation of the impossible…”
The CGI film originated in the early 1980s with such films as Tron (1982, Steven Lisberger) and The Last Starfighter (1985, Nick Castle), with both films featuring special effects created on computer, without any indexical link to the real world. CGI allows filmmakers to create intricate special effects or even whole worlds in which to place live action footage. As technology develops and as more and more films become more heavily reliant on CGI, one has to ask, where is the point in which films such as the Star Wars prequels (1999/2002/2005, George Lucas) or The Matrix films (1999/2003, Wachowski Bros.) cease to be animated films and become classed as live action? Andrew Darley claims that CGI still functions within the “integrated battery” of special effects, rather than being considered a new mode of filmmaking, whilst Wells states that “… it may be difficult to prevent certain ostensibly ‘live action’ films lobbying for an Animation Oscar…”, so where does one draw the distinction?
The first and most obvious distinction between CGI and animated film is the use of live footage. There are, of course, examples of animation including live action, that are still categorised as animation, such as in the early American cartoons of Felix the Cat and Betty Boo, but the real distinction lies in the realism of the interaction between live action and CGI. This is in keeping with Comolli’s notion of realism, in which he states that audiences consider things to be real when compared to the ‘unreal’ previous perception of reality e.g. when compared to the hoards of CGI warriors charging into battle in the Lord of the Rings films (2001/2002/2003, Peter Jackson), the stop-motion skeleton soldiers in Jason and the Argonauts (1963, Don Chaffey) seem very dated and ‘unrealistic’. This is not to say that the Felix cartoons were striving for any kind of realism, it is merely to point out that it is the ’realistic’ nature of the interaction between live action and CGI animation in these films that sets it apart from standard animation. To further Comolli’s argument, Alice Crawford goes on to state that realism in CGI is a “relative quality”, that what appears real now is subject to change as technology dictates, and whilst one can accept a CGI film completely as live action now, when the effects are superseded by something more advanced, current CGI effects may well appear cartoon like, and perhaps have more of a reason to be considered an animated film. This is not to say that everything animated by CGI is made to look real to give the appearance of genuine reality. For example, the character of Donkey in Shrek (2001, Andrew Adamson) looks real in the ‘Comollian’ sense when compared to other animated animals, and Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter) looks exactly like the real toy of the same name, yet they both exist within the realms of the cartoon rather the CGI film; they are not designed to convince the audience of a real interaction taking place when Donkey talks to Princess Fiona, or when Andy plays with his toys.
Bazin’s notion of realism is also important in drawing a distinction between CGI films and animated films. He argues that realism in film requires verisimilitude, that things should be shown as they are in real life to assist in what he called an
“…active exploration of visual reality…”In the case of pure CGI animated films, such as Toy Story or The Incredibles (2005, Brad Bird), the animators create a ‘hyper-reality’, in which lines, shading and textures appear too real, too perfect to actually recreate the photo-realism of the photographic image. In the case of a CGI film such as Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg), the CGI animation is taken a step further, however in this case it is to make the CGI dinosaurs appear less hyper-real and more photo-real i.e. as Bazin’s notion of realism requires. The edges are blurred to blend in with the surroundings more, and the definition of the dinosaurs’ skin is toned down so to appear more naturalistic. Creatures such as dinosaurs, as well as other visually fantastic CGI characters such as the Hulk (2003, Ang Lee), Spiderman (2002, Sam Raimi) (who is completely CGI when shown swinging between New York’s skyscrapers) or Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films, can be accepted as real when they are rendered to look more natural. In addition to this, films such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991, James Cameron) or Independence Day (1996, Ronald Emmerich) seamlessly blend futuristic looking effects with live action, and when they are in the correct context, such as the Sci-Fi or Fantasy film, one could possibly forget they are CGI creations altogether.
A good case study for this question would be the aforementioned Star Wars prequels, Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Episode II – Attack of the Clones (1999/2002, George Lucas). Both of the films rely heavily on CGI, with one statistic stating that 95% of the films were constructed on a computer. Entire sets, sequences and even characters in the film are completely synthetic and have a very polished texture much in the same way as Pixar films do. So could they be considered animated films? If one were to take Comolli’s notion of realism into account, then one would accept them completely as a CGI film rather than animation, as the effects do appear more real than the original Star Wars trilogy, such as the stop-frame AT-AT walker vehicles at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irvin Kershner) or the badly rendered matte lines surrounding the animatronic Rancor monster in Return of the Jedi (1983, Richard Marquand). Also, the futuristic setting of the films acts as a kind of ‘get out clause’, a pay off as to why the images, if ever they do, appear synthetic. However, as technology advances, the effects will undoubtedly appear dated, much like Crawford’s notion of ‘relative realism’ (however, in the instance of Star Wars, one is inclined to think that when this happens, George Lucas would simply update the effects in all of the films and then re-release them), and then one could possibly argue the case for the films being classed as animation. However, If one were to take Bazin’s notion of realism into account, then one may have a case to argue that they could be considered to be animation. The films use a largely non-photographic means of capturing footage, and as mentioned above, the films’ aesthetic shares many characteristics with pure CGI animation, especially when compared to the more ‘realistic’ CGI work found in films such as Jurassic Park which, whilst still showing something completely out of the ordinary on screen, has been rendered with a certain grain to match the texture of the rest of the film. The Star Wars prequels are so ”saturated in artifice…”, that they have aesthetically more in common with the likes of Shrek than the original Star Wars films.
Another film that blurs the distinction between CGI and pure animation is The Mask (1994, Charles Russell). In this film Jim Carrey’s character is an unlucky loser whose life is transformed by a Viking mask he finds in the river. When he puts on the mask he becomes a whole new character, a larger than life cartoon character, only in this instance, played out in live action. The character and setting are reminiscent of the Wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood (1943, Tex Avery),and the action is played out as a pastiche of the American cartoons of the 1930s and 40s in general. Darley states that “…it is as if the bizarre characters and worlds of Tex Avery cartoons and the comic strip hero have, in some kind of grotesque transmutation, come to life…” Despite being categorised largely as a live action CGI film, it could be argued that due to its ‘hyperbolic’ cartoon aesthetic, its slapstick narrative and for a large part, an animated lead protagonist, that The Mask is more akin to the cartoon, only in this instance played for real.
But is it possible for the difficulty in distinction come the other way? Can CGI become so convincing that it becomes indistinguishable from live action? We have seen in such films as Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Terminator 2: Judgement Day that CGI can be seamlessly blended with live action, and that it can create entire fantasy worlds such as the Star Wars universe, but attempts to recreate perfect live action have been less successful. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001, Hironobu Sakaguchi) is one the more recent attempt at “Post-Photographic filmmaking”, in which the entire film uses synthetic (human) actors who populate a completely CGI world. There are problems that arise when CGI attempts to recreate human life, such as the sheer difficulty in rendering such things as human flesh and hair, and despite the animators best efforts, they fall short of making the ‘actors’ movements entirely believable. The film was not a success, arguably down to the fact that it did not adhere to what makes CGI appealing to audiences, which is either the entertaining Toy Story or Shrek-like animation, or the “illusionist spectacle” of the CGI/live action film in which real actors interact with their artificial surroundings. CGI, as a technology, is made to blur the lines between artifice and reality, to make the impossible seem possible, a “perceptible but invisible trucage”.
CGI is currently clearly distinguishable from live action, but as technology continues to progress, might we some day witness CGI that cannot be told apart from live action? The Al Pacino film S1m0ne (2002, Andrew Nicoll) hints towards such a possibility, as his character creates a completely synthetic actress so convincing she becomes the ‘next big thing’ and has the world’s media after her. However, this is a long time off. Despite even further advances in technology, apparent in films such as the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), the exact recreation of photo-realism is the CGI film’s final frontier, and despite the “80 million polygons per second = Reality” benchmark being surpassed a long time ago, there is still some way to go. But in the case of animation, it could be argued that CGI is simply another way to animate, just a different type of cell, ink and brush.
