Why Wish Looks Bad: Animator Explains

the animation in Disney's wish looks cheap for a specific reason but it's probably not the One You're Expecting when the trailer first premiered for wish the running joke became Disney ordered this movie on wish or that it was made by AI the internet was very quick to assume that the animation was not as good as spiderverse or even Puss and Boots even streaming shows like Arcane seem to be taking more of a stylistic risk than what is seen in wish it's easy to get caught up in the memes and the negativity and have a good laugh at a large corporation every once in a while but is the animation really that bad as an animator I feel like it's my duty to explain you that not only is the animation and wish not bad it's actually very good I'm in no way defending Disney here in fact I offer some of my own criticisms of the film towards the end of this video but I do want to defend the animation team itself because whether you like it or not this movie was not made by AI it was made by a team of Mega talented artists that all worked incredibly hard and I'll explain why we shouldn't be directing our criticism towards artists but rather towards Disney leadership there's a lot more going on with this animation style that you might expect so let's start with the positives with this movie being a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Disney animation The Producers wanted to pay homage to the many different styles of Animation that Disney themselves helped Pioneer when we talk about the animation in a movie like this what we're really referring to is the actual movement of the characters and elements themselves not the final rendered look of the film as far as that goes the animation is actually quite successful the characters are very expressive their movements are really fluid and naturalistic and they make some very creative directing choices and this is to be expected from Disney animations some of the most talented animators in the whole world work at Disney personally my favorite character animation in the whole movie was the star the co-director Chris Buck known for directing Tarzan Frozen and surf up pointed out that the star design and movement became a very natural omage to one of the most fundamental aspects of animation and the thing that every beginner animator learns to animate the bouncing ball in fact the character was supposed to be more complex being a shape shifter with dialogue but the animation team realized that the star represents Creative Energy and when the characters Wish Upon a Star they're tapping into their innermost desires and the purest form of self-expression because of this they decided to make the character of the star have a very very simple form and have no dialogue at all to me throughout all of the obvious homages and references that belong more in a Marvel movie than in a Disney Animation the character of the star is the best homage that the animators can give to Walt Disney himself Walt Disney curated a team of the most talented animators who broke new ground in discovering techniques that made their characters feel alive each of the 12 principles that these animators discovered can all be utilized when animating the bouncing ball in my opinion this is where the movie shines not in its overt references to the Seven Dwarves or singing animals but in its love of The Craft of Animation something else to note in which that is done tremendously is the magic effects on magnifico's magic abilities the effects animators opted to go for a more traditional handdrawn field to the magic effects and if I'm being honest it's some of the best animation in the whole movie because magnifico's magic effects are not simulated in the sense that they're not trying to replicate real life physics the effects animators are able to add an enormous amount of personality to these magic effects there are instances where the magic elements act as hands to grab objects and characters and it hearkens back to some of Disney's best handdrawn effects ever put on screen we utilize similar techniques when I worked on the effects team for the bad guys also quick note for those of you that have been asking I'm still working on my video about the bad guys and it will be all about the production side of Animation so let me know in the comments what questions you have for that but back to wish magnifico himself is probably the character that stands out the most in terms of pushing human movement in a direction that does feel more stylistic the character has a lot of depth he sees himself as the hero and not the villain so he's animated in kind of two different styles moving more like a traditional Disney prince when he's seen as the good guy and then striking into quick aggressive poses when he's more Sinister unfortunately I think I know why the general outcry to this movie seems to be that it was made by AI or that it looks really cheap while the animation itself is beautiful the final Rude the final look of the film actually hurts the intended effect of this movie Let Me Explain why because this movie is relying on audien's prior knowledge of animation for its emotional anchor the specific look that this movie goes for makes it feel like an animation that's intended for television you see TV animation is supposed to be made fast and cheap there's nothing wrong with that it's just a different workflow than feature animation in CG animation there's lots of things that the so-called Pixar look requires one of these things is motion blur motion blur is what you see in a camera when an object is moving too quickly for a single frame to capture it which creates a blur effect like this the way that this is accomplished in 3D animation is that the computer has to generate a lot more information before it can render the frame when it comes to making animation for television for 3D animation this is not a luxury that's always able to be afforded by the production because the team on wish was going for a story book and watercolor feel this meant that the motion blur had to be turned off by paying homage to the animation style of Snow White and Pinocchio where there's no motion blur they unintentionally created an effect that audiences today happen to associate with animation that's cheap the watercolor effect also makes everything feel evenly lit unlike some other animated films that have high contrast lighting like spiderverse or pona which has a pretty low contrast color grade to it I think for the look they're going for this is exactly the right train of thought to have but again this technique is now used a lot in 3D animation for TV a lot of times animated TV shows will light the set and the characters very evenly so they don't have to worry about changing the lighting too much for every single shot again the theme Here is doing it fast and cheap so unfortunately by committing to this watercolor aesthetic which suffers from an association with lowquality animation rather than itself being bad animation I think this movie suffers from not what's in the movie itself but rather what the audience is expected to interpret from this movie the directors have stated that they didn't want this movie to feel like a cameo Fest where the appearance of other elements of Disney animated movies overshadows the main story in my own opinion I think the fact that this is written by the chief creative officer is pretty glaringly obvious now Jennifer Lee was the director and writer of Frozen which arguably has popularize this current generation of Disney Princess films that was established with tangled it feels like Disney is trying to recapture that feeling by any means necessary it should also be noted that this movie is in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Disney and if you didn't know that going in by the end of the movie you are very aware of this fact this is a movie that was created first and foremost to celebrate the legacy of one of the most groundbreaking anim studios in the world which means however the story that they're trying to tell within the structure of that movie tends to suffer a little bit from the distractions of the audience's working knowledge of who is making the movie the biggest complaint I have about the story and the movie itself is It suffers from telling you that you should be emotionally invested in this movie rather than showing you why the movie is telling you that because this company is celebrating its 100th anniversary that you should be as excited about that Prospect as you are about this movie it seems to rely on Disney fans's excitement of the Disney animation franchise and Legacy rather than diving into who Asha is as a character as far as The Story Goes the main character States what she wants and by the end of the movie ends up getting what she wants there's a reason that screenwriters will avoid giving the character exactly what they want in favor of what they actually needed all along because what they want comes from a surface level understanding of their world and what they need comes from a deep emotional connection to those around the main character for example in the movie Shrek Shrek's want at the beginning of the story is to be left alone by the end of the movie movie Shrek has changed as a character he doesn't get what he originally wanted but rather what he didn't realize that he needed all along which was friendship love and acceptance this relationship between the main character's want versus their need is called their Arc the character of Asha States what she wants and gets what she wants and therefore has little to no character change often times the movie stops dead in its tracks to acknowledge and celebrate Disney stereotypes like talking animals or evil wizards and the main character takes the back seat in order to share the stage with these classic tropes from discreet references like a poisoned Apple in the villain's magical dungeon to more glaringly obvious nods like the talking deer being named Bambi spoiler alert in general the animation in wish is really fantastic but I think It suffers from the very thing that it tried to do first and foremost which was to use the audience's working knowledge of Animation to generate an emotional response by trying to combine Tangled with Fantasia it indicated to the audience is that the film wants you to view this movie through the lens of every other movie that has come before it and unfortunately for Disney you have to understand that animation has evolved Beyond Disney to include things like cheap TV animation again there's nothing wrong with this it's just the reality of the world we live in now as I mentioned however this movie was created specifically to celebrate the Centennial of Disney Animation the director stated that the whole reason this movie came to fruition is because Disney Executives realized that the 100th anniversary was coming up and they wanted to make a film that would celebrate that so as a 90-minute curtain call for all of Disney animation films this movie succeeds but for the story that bounces between those references and nods there's unfortunately a lot to be desired I really wanted to make this video to address headon the critique that Disney is making bad animation because it's very clear that their crew put their heart and soul into creating the best movie possible however it's clear that Disney Executives were more concerned about turning this animation into its Avengers rather than a solid fairy tale that will be remembered far past the Centennial okay there's been enough criticism about this movie let's try to end on a positive note let's think about what this represents for animation as a medium because for all intents and purposes at the end of the day with wish is an original movie you know the thing that audiences have been claiming that they want all along it's not a reboot it's not a remake and it's not a sequel despite having cameos from almost every Disney animated movie and what's more they took an additional Risk by creating a painterly treatment for this movie now sometimes these risks don't pay off but to be honest I would rather see movies take an artistic risk than turning out yet another tent pole movie in the same style year after year but the fact that the biggest Animation Studio in the world is finally taking notice of Artistic Styles Beyond on photo realism means that we've entered a new era of Animation what started for Disney with its original shorts paper man and feast which by the way are amazing and way ahead of their time has now become a full-blown feature animated film with an artistic style taking priority over photo realism of course they're not the first to do this but I feel like we as fans of Animation should celebrate what wish represents which is that our love and our passion for animation whether it's anime experimental or just spiderverse has built up enough momentum that the largest animation studio on the planet finally acknowledge that maybe these other forms of Animation are valid for the past 100 years Disney made its audiences fall in love with the art form of animation and inspired filmmakers and animators across the world now it feels like the tables have turned and those same filmmakers and animators are the ones inspiring Disney to raise the bar for animation My Wish for all of you is to walk away from this movie feeling confident that Disney is no longer the only company that can create incredible animation there are so many other Studios popping up creating beautiful pieces of Art and I truly believe that 3D animation and just animation in general is on the precipice of a major Revolution we should give Disney its flowers for revolutionizing animation over the past 100 years and we should also be excited about the next Disney to rock animation for the next 100 Years hopefully new and exciting mediums like virtual reality can foster a new generation of Animation in fact I started my own independent Animation Studio specifically for virtual reality because I believe that VR has the potential to be the next Frontier for storytelling and animation my first anim VR film will be titled new Venice and I'm actually documenting the making of it here on this channel so if you're interested and you want to support me in this project you can learn more about it on my page and if you agree with anything I've said in this video I would also appreciate you tapping the like button thanks for watching

Channel: No The Robot

Views: 285,696

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Id: oT5yzciQCJ4

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 03 2023