Applied to traditional cel animation, computer technology speeded up production by executing repetitive drawing and coloring tasks. It also created more textured objects and intricate movements than would be feasible in drawn animation. Disney's Tarzan (1999) enhanced backgrounds with a program called " Deep Canvas," and DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt (1998) used Computer Graphics Imaging (CGI) in fully half of its shots, including the parting of the Red Sea.
In cel animation, CGI enhanced drawings and thus blended in with a traditional look. A more spectacular change in the style of animated films came with the creation of so-called 3-D CGI, generating characters and settings with volume and depth, as in puppet or clay animation. During the 1980s and early 1990s, limitations in computer technology confined animators to smooth surfaces and simple shapes, resulting in toys and insects used as characters in early CGI films. As computer memory and flexibility grew, animators could add complex textures and control hundreds of different points on a figure. By the end of the 1990s, fur, waving grass, and human faces were becoming more realistic. The development of 3-D computer animation was pioneered largely by two firms: Pixar and Pacific Data Images. Following is a timeline of events leading up to the development of 3-D computer animation.
1978 George Lucas founds Lucasfilm Computer Development Division (LCDD, later Pixar) to develop digital applications in filmmaking.
1980 Independent CG studio Pacific Data Images (PDI) is founded to design TV logos, credit sequences, etc.
1981 Working in Disney's computer unit, John Lasseter sees CGI scenes from TRON, then in production. Dilemma, CGI short by John Halas for Computer Creations.
1982 TRON is released, with 15 minutes of pure CGI and 25 minutes of CGI and live action mixed.
The Abyss moves Industrial Light and Magic toward special effects for live-action films.
1984 Lasseter leaves Disney to work for LCDD.
Apple fires Steve Jobs (who had cofounded the computer firm).
Three CGI shorts receive festival screenings: The Wild Things, a short from Disney and Lasseter's first CGI project; The Adventures of Andre and Wally B., an animated short from LCDD that introduces motion-blur into CGI, designed by Lasseter; Snoot and Muttly, a CGI short by Susan Van Baerle.
1985 Lucasfilm spins LCDD off as Pixar.
1986 Jobs buys Lucas's controlling interest in Pixar for $10 million.
Luxo Jr., Pixar's first CGI short, directed by Lasseter, is nominated for an Oscar for best animated short.
1987 Red's Dream, the second Pixar CGI short, is released.
1988 Lasseter's Tin Toy is released; it's the first CGI film to win an Oscar as best animated short.
1989 Knickknack, Pixar's fourth short, employing stereoscopic CGI.
1991 Disney signs a three-feature contract with Pixar (raised to five after the success of Toy Story).
1994 After leaving Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg forms DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.
1995 Toy Story, first completely CGI feature, directed by Lasseter, released by Disney.
1996 DreamWorks buys 40% interest in PDI.
1997 Gerri's Game, Pixar short by Lasseter; wins Oscar for best animated short.
1998 Antz, second completely CGI feature, produced by PDI, released by DreamWorks.
A Bug's Life, second Pixar feature, directed by Lasseter, released by Disney.
1999 Toy Story 2, third Pixar feature, directed by Lasseter, released by Disney.
2000 Dinosaur, first feature from Disney's new in-house CGI unit, Secret Lab. CGI animals against live-action backgrounds.
For the Birds, directed by Ralph Eggleston. Short film first using "Geppetto" system of character control; wins Oscar for best animated short.
2001 Shrek, second completely CGI feature from PDl/DreamWorks; also employs Geppetto system. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, first CGI feature with realistic humans, released by Sony/Columbia. Monsters, Inc. fourth Pixar feature, released by Disney (Color Plate 27.12).
Production in the mid-1980s, it spread to the consumer market through the audio compact disc. Then multiplexes and megaplexes upgraded to digital multichannel systems, encouraging filmmakers to use evocative surround effects and greater dynamic ranges, from a whisper to a bone-shaking explosion.
TRON (1982) showed that computers could generate rudimentary imagery, but detailed figures and locales remained hard to render. So for several years filmmakers clung to miniatures, matte shots, and other camera-based optical effects. As computer memory and speed increased, however, more effects were handled digitally. Digital dinosaurs replaced many of the miniatures and puppets initially planned for Jurassic Park (1993). The Gotham City set devised for the animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) was revised for the live-action Batman Forever (1995). By the late 1990s, filmmakers were routinely using software to clean up shots or to generate imagery, as when a small group of people was multiplied into a huge crowd in the football stadium of Forrest Gump. For 0 Brother Where Art Thou? (2000), cinematographer Roger Deakins painstakingly “repainted” every shot to resemble 1930s tinted postcards, turning green foliage into brilliant yellow and bathing the characters in tobacco-brown light (Color Plate 27.11).
Digital technology also reshaped animation (see box), but its implications for live-action film were equally radical. Throughout the 1990s, commentators began to suggest that film—photographic, celluloid-based cinema—was dying. Actors would be replaced by cyberstars, and a director could translate his or her vision directly into sound and images. The most famous director to be identified with this view was, not surprisingly, George Lucas (see “Notes and Queries” at the end of this chapter). In this view, cinema would become less like photography and more like painting or literature—a pure act of imaginative creation.
Once films were produced digitally, they could be distributed in the same way. Digital satellite and cable systems produced acceptable quality for home monitors, and in the late 1990s several theaters experimented with digital projection. The Majors would benefit most from the cost-savings of digital exhibition, so they began planning to help exhibitors pay for installing the new projection systems. At the same time, studios dreamed of “video on demand.” Thousands of digitized movies awaited a simple dial-up, to be delivered through phone or cable lines, probably with help of the Internet. Bypassing the movie theater and the rental store, video on demand would ensure maximum profit to the content provider.
As a new century dawned, the U. S. film industry faced many difficulties. The multiplex building spree of the 1990s collapsed, forcing eleven theater circuits to file for bankruptcy. Film piracy exploded, thanks to digital copying and Internet access. Box-office revenues swelled due to increased ticket prices—not to larger audiences; in real terms, theaters were earning less from ticket sales than they had in the 1980s. In the meantime, the costs of filmmaking and marketing were rising faster than income.
Nonetheless, theatrical motion pictures remained central ingredients in the media mix. Films spawned television series, videogames, comic books, and straight-to-video releases. Old films could be released on DVD, in some cases repeatedly, adding new special features each time. The press tracked top-grossing films as if they were sports teams, and the Academy Awards ceremony remained an international ritual. Fan magazines, infotainment television, and websites catered to an apparently insatiable appetite for gossip about moviemaking. The industry might have been riddled with economic problems, but film was securely at the center of America’s, and the world’s, popular culture.
World History
