In the early 1990s, when live-action visual effects were transitioning from traditional techniques to the digital universe, so-called traditional animation was celebrating a renaissance of popularity not seen since the 1940s. While visual effects artists were discarding their wire armatures and Sculptee (sculpting clay) in favor of Wacom digital drawing tablets, Beauty & the Beast, Lion King, and The Simpsons were all the rage with audiences.
But that was then, and this is now. While television animation continues to thrive, the overabundance of cable channels has diluted advertising revenues, and the popularity of traditionally animated, theatrical feature films is now on a downswing.
Since the Disney Broadway musical-as-animated-film formula is now passé, studios are searching for a new formula to win audiences. Thus, in recent months, Titan A.E., The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis, Monkeybone, Final Fantasy, and Osmosis Jones all tried to explore different genres and more adult themes, yet they generally failed to connect with the public.
At the same time, though, major 3D CG films like Shrek, Stuart Little, both Toy Stories, and likely, Monsters Inc. have seen significant box-office success, leading many Hollywood executives to conclude that 3D films are more lucrative than 2D films. Even the relative similarity in costs and the high-profile disappointment of Final Fantasy failed to dim this enthusiasm for 3D animated feature films as the solution to box-office doldrums.
Like their visual effects counterparts 10 years ago, the venerable animation units at Walt Disney, Warner Bros., and Dreamworks are now being told that if they don't transition to 3D, they will be replaced. Artists with 25- to 30-year careers are therefore seeing their first pink slips.
2D animated commercials have also taken a big hit, and those small commercial studios that manage to survive do so mainly by landing film title sequences and interactive games work.
Add to this the uncertainty of the international situation, the layoffs in the visual effects industry generally, the burst bubble where tech stocks are concerned, and the residual funk from the WGA/SAG strike scare, and it made 2001 a bad year for those of us working in Toon Town.
Indeed, our guild — the Hollywood Animation Union, local 839 — has seen a drop of 1,000 jobs from 90% employment in 1998. Declining opportunities at union studios has also resulted in a migration of artists to lower paying, non-union studios with losses of long-term medical insurance, pension benefits, and living standards.
While live-action union activists understandably cry out about Hollywood work migrating to Canada, animation studios have been dealing with this problem for years, seeing projects sent out as far afield as Texas, Chicago, Honolulu, Sydney, and New Zealand in search of lower labor costs. Ironically, in most of these studios, the backbone of experience is Hollywood talent, forced to pull up roots to follow the work.
The good news is that hits like Shrek and the continued strength of series like The Simpsons and Family Guy demonstrate the earning power of quality animation. In the revulsion from realistic screen violence caused by the current political climate, the powers that be may turn to animation as the solution for more family-friendly films.
Before 1990, maybe one or two animated films were released annually, and no animated series were in primetime. Today, the average is seven to eight feature-length animated films a year, and 10 primetime series, as well as daytime children's programming. 2001 was also notable for being the first qualifying year for the feature animation Oscar, which is a long overdue acknowledgement of animation's great contribution to cinema.
The challenge in coming years will be to complete the convergence of the pencil and digital arts without excluding newcomers or trampling the careers of longtime veterans and to encourage new, more varied animated projects.
