Sunday, September 21, 2014

Hullabaloo: The 2D Animation Savior

Most animated films today are done through CGI or computer generated imagery. Instead of being hand drawn, they are 3D modeled on a computer and animated in 3D space. It's been like this for a few years now with the last major 2D film being what? Princess and the frog? Let's be honest, who even saw that. 2D and 3D films are two different animals, and there are great examples of both the styles. But with the advancement of computers over the past 15 years or so, Most animation companies stick with 3D. This is where Hullabaloo comes in. The film is being made by Disney animation veterans, James Lopez and Rick Farmiloe. There goal is make this film bring 2D animation back to the mainstream. The movie is in a Steam-punk style, who anyone who has been on Deviantart for two seconds knows is a hybrid between Victorian style fashion, technology and architecture with futuristic technology. The film is also starring two female protagonists. The Film is being funded through Indiegogo which is a crowfunding website similar to Kickstarter where anyone can leave a donation big or small, and has received massive support and praise.
So what do I think of this? Well right now I have kind of mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I'm glad that 2D is getting more recognition, but I kinda feel that this film is kinda gimmicky and trying to hard to appeal to younger artists. One of the big things that this movie is trying to advertise is that it is changing up things by having the protagonists be woman to differ itself from the mainstream films, which I think is pretty ridiculous. Female protagonists have always been big, there are great movies with great female protagonists such as Ripley in aliens, Sarah Connor in Terminator 1 and 2 and not to mention frozen which had 2 female protagonists just like this movie. I don't like it when movies try to sound like they're being revolutionary by having something new, that has really been in movies sense the beginning. So that didn't settle too well with me reading this article. Also, I've never been a big Steam-punk fan as I think it's really overused and not really that interesting. This movie could be great and that would be awesome as I love me some 2D animation just as much as 3D. But it could also be terrible, and everyone just donated to it because it's "breaking new ground" and finally showing that women can do just as much as men in movies. Here's the thing with that, the character has to be well written or I will hate them if they are male or female. It doesn't mean that films are degrading to women just because they don't have strong female characters, it just means that the movie has bad writing. So hopefully the movie will be good, I just hope its not just trying to ride the current bandwagons of Steam-punk and strong female protagonists and forget that they still have to make a good movie.

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