Themes of Old & New Media

Original Twitter conversation

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For the class theme, I petition that we can look at the Western deterioration of 2D art and animation in feature films. It has been a couple of years since a movie was made in a 2D style, and for the more recent ones that we have had, they haven’t been rated that well. Following this article on the hiatus of Studio Ghibli, we can definitely research reasons as to why Western film production companies, such as Disney and Pixar, have begun to shy away from 2D animation in favor of 3D animation. There is concrete proof that people still heavily enjoy 2D animation, because television series, such as Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, amassed huge followings over the course of their time. Even in the world of electronic gaming, 2D animation is making a comeback, examples being Undertale and Skullgirls.  One rhetorical argument for the usage of 2D art and animation in film is the visual appeal that can’t necessarily be captured the same way in 3D animation. This can be made local by polling people on their feelings towards 2D and 3D art and animations. I imagine that this would be an interesting theme to work with because it involves analyzing creative works and the reasons for or against those works in different mediums of media.

7 comments on “Themes of Old & New Media

  1. To help support this argument, I would like to point out that there are explicitly two TV animation firms in the Atlanta area, Floyd Country Productions (Creators of Archer who have connections to KSU’s Professor Brasco and Chamberlain) and Bento Box (Creators of Bob’s Burgers.) We also have Turner Broadcasting and an upcoming anime convention.

  2. I was really hoping someone would expand on this one! I think it’s a topic that has a ton of potential, considering a large majority of the class’s interests are media/design/art related.

    It’s apparent that Western animation holds 3D style high above all other animation styles [not always, but recently that’s how it seems] – but lately, within the past 5 years, I’ve noticed that even Eastern animation has even been dipping more into 3D. For example: Sailor Moon Crystal is a relatively recent revamp that, in the first 2 seasons, used 3D animation for the transformation scenes.

    If I’m honest, I thought it looked horrendous. I was literally cringing the entire time while watching those transformation sequences. And when I compared them to the old 2D animated scenes, it just made it even worse. It’s difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that people think that this was…acceptable? Maybe it’s nostalgia that’s keeping me so attached to 2D, but it’s interesting to see what everyone else’s opinion of this is either way.

    Here’s a video showing the comparison, if you or anyone else is interested [volume might be obnoxiously loud, so it might be better to mute it]:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zF7k6usi5E

  3. I think that this would be a awesome topic for the class to focus on, and ghibli is a good place to start because it feels as if they have a place in everyone’s hearts so it could be something for us to really use as a jumping point. I Actually have to agree with Brittany as well, the “3D vs 2D” is even taking over internationally. Not saying the two cant be mixed but its not often that it goes well.
    This topic would be actually really interesting to gather info on here on the campus and community as well because it does incorporate gaming and TV, and living so lose to atlanta it would be interesting to see results.
    On a side note, it would also be a strong peice to add to most of our portfolios because of the topic itself.

  4. For the past few decades, each new movie or game system has tried to be the newest, most high definition advancement in graphics technology. Now that we have reached a point where 3d animation is so high definition it is nearly indistinguishable from reality, we as consumers are starting to focus more on storyline and substance rather than flashy surface level aesthetics. I think this sets up a great opportunity for a comeback of 2d animation styles.

    Personally, I have seen a resurgence in interest of 2d animation within our generation. So many young people are finding out about 2d styles like Japanese anime, and plenty of 2d films are available on common platforms such as Netflix. Midtown Arts Cinema in Atlanta actually has a Studio Ghibli monthly residency where they play 2 Studio Ghibli films each month.

    There definitely seems to be a widespread migration from big movie theaters to online outlets like Netflix & Amazon, which provides more options and diversity for the media that is available to consumers. Because of this hopefully there will be more opportunity for 2d film makes to be successful in a world where all the funding goes to mega-HD 3d films.

    1. I think That in our generation especially, that there is a resurgence not only because what was mentioned above, but there has also been a nostalgia boom and people are starting to move back to “old school” animation, and its more than often 2dD animation.

  5. I will be honest in saying that I know nothing of animation. With that said, seeing the passion it brings out of most of the students it makes me interested in doing some research on all of this information everyone has handed to me through this conversation. Erin pointed out two places in Atlanta that we could look into, which I think gives an upper hand on this topic. He also addressed a convention that could really benefit us while working on a project like this. For the other topics I can’t say that we have this many locations and organizations that we could work with for this process like we do this one which could set us behind. Overall this seems like the best topic for our class and for those of us who know nothing about that side of the industry.

  6. I think that this topic is a pretty good choice as well. We can talk with the two Atlanta animation studios (Floyd & Bento Box) and we also have both Professors Brasco and Chamberlain as Erin said. Brasco is currently working on getting an Animation minor up and running here at KSU, but it’s a shame that will most likely take a while. But maybe we can find a way to talk to some of the students in the Animation classes on their opinions of the direction of animation in terms of 2D vs 3D styles.

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