There are those who might argue that animation is a genre, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. This particular issue was brought to light at the 2015 Academy Awards when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson referred to animation as a genre while presenting the Oscar for best animated feature. This reflects a general opinion that many people have of animation. However, this misconception, while it has floundered in recent years, is still generally held, as it is the result of a lack of awareness in the difference between genre and medium. The reason this subject was chosen for the dissertation is because it would be interesting to examine the differences between genre and medium and highlight what led to that perception. This dissertation aims to observe genre conventions and compare them to their live action counterparts. Furthermore, the question posed will be why this is the case by examining trends throughout the years in animation and certain works that helped bring forward that perception. The emphasis will be mostly done through an American lens, as other countries such as Japan and France are more accepting of animation. It will also be interesting to reflect on animation history and what kind of reaction certain projects and eras of animation got. What’s more, to observe when the public’s view on animation changed, as well as a comparison between the creation of live action film compared to animation, by observing directors who have worked with both and comparing their work. It might also be worth observing other factors outside that event such as streaming services and various genre sections in home media shops.
Part 2 – The Perception of animation
The general perception of animation can be traced back to the 1900s and although there were a couple of individuals such as James Stuart Blackton and Emile Cohl who did animated shorts, they weren’t really made for general viewing, so it’s hard to gauge the reaction they received. American comic artist Windsor Mccay however, showed his animated shorts as a part of his vaudeville acts, such as his short of his own comic, Little Nemo. His most well-known short is Gertie the Dinosaur.
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short that was shown as one of his vaudeville acts. It was highly praised and according to the New York Evening Journal, it was regarded as the “greatest act in the history of motion picture cartoonists”. This showed that animation could be appreciated by a general audience.
Animation was shown to mainstream audiences through cinemas. Due to the success of Disney Animation Studios, they were able to get enough money to create animated theatrical shorts that would be shown at the start of films. The popularity of the Mickey Mouse cartoons and short films that Disney produced led them to create their first feature length film and the first film completely animated in cels, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an adaption of the fairytale of the same name. This led to a trend in the company where they create animated films based on story books and fairy tales, which they continued to do so from their next film, 1940’s Pinocchio, even until this year with the live action remake of their own adaption of the Little Mermaid. These films showcase the Disney style, with a more realistic weight-y movement style of animation with some light rotoscoping and featuring musical numbers with comedic relief moments. This proved quite popular with audiences at the time, with the film earning $418 million at the box office. With animated features now being a possibility, theatrical shorts were still being made, such as Warner Bro’s Looney Tunes shorts or MGM’s Puss Gets the Boot, the first Tom & Jerry short, which would both start its own popular franchises. They would slowly fizzle out in later decades with diminishing budgets, though animation studios today do still occasionally show animated shorts in front of their films.
The general perception of animation mainly changed with the creation of the “Saturday Morning Cartoon”, a term that originated in the 60s to describe animated television programs that appealed exclusively to children that aired from 8.am to 1.pm. This trend continued up until the mid 2000s. The most popular shows of the 60s were low budgeted productions created by companies such as Hanna Barbera and Filmation, with some of the popular genres being superhero shows such as adaptations of comics like Spider-Man and original heroes like Space Ghost, as well as musical shows that featured music numbers. They were either based on pre-existing bands such as the Beatles and the Monkees or animated bands such as the Archies and Josie and the Pussycats. The budget was the main reason for the demographic change, as it was thought that children wouldn’t mind the cheaper animation. During the 80s, companies produced shows with the idea of selling toys alongside them, so companies like Sunbow Entertainment and Filmation would collaborate with toy companies such as Mattel and Hasbro to produce shows based on their toy lines. These shows could apply to a whole range of genres such as an action-adventure series with the likes of G.I Joe, Transformers and He-Man, to more female oriented shows such as My Little Pony and Gem and the Holograms. In the late 80s and 90s, cartoons began to see more creator driven animated series, the first big show to be seen as an innovator to this would be Mighty Mouse: the New Adventures. While a reboot on an existing property, the hands of its creator, Ralph Bakshi and his various collaborators could be seen in its animation and style of humor. This would lead to various artists that worked on the series to further develop it’s style in their own projects. The channel Nickelodeon had started airing original programing in the early 90s with the Nicktoons programming block, with its three new shows being Rugrats, Doug, and Ren and Stimpy, which were all unique to one another in terms of style and tone, due to their creator driven nature of the shows. Cartoon Network was a similar case as it was originally a channel to show classic Warner Bros and Hanna Barbera cartoons, but in the mid 90s, they started their own creator driven cartoons with the Cartoon Cartoons block, showing shows like Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and Cow and Chicken. Some of these cartoons had some controversy with the use of innuendo and gross humor. This would lead a number of parents and television groups to cause an uproar about the more vulgar aspects of these cartoons, something that wouldn’t have happened with cartoons of the previous decades. While these issues with the content in cartoons are related to adult subjects, there is still a divide between these cartoons and contemporary animated shows intended for adults, which grew in popularity with the release of the Simpsons in 1989. While it took a number of years for these cartoons to become the mainstream after a few failed attempts to replicate the success of the Simpsons, the TV channel MTV showcased a number of animated series intended for an older teen demographic with Beavis and Butthead being the most famous. This led to shows like South Park and Family Guy gaining large fanbases and other channels producing their own animated shows for older audiences. The Cartoon Network had their own programming block dedicated to them entitled “Adult Swim” which gained its own audience separate from the original channel.
There are a number of animated properties that became cultural phenomenon when it becomes recognizable to even non animation fans. Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, SpongeBob SquarePants, Adventure Time and Rick & Morty, as well as movies like Toy Story and Shrek are just a few names that come to mind that broke through to the non animation mainstream zeitgeist and have gained acclaim from people who don’t usually watch animation. These programs had an instant appeal to the average audience, whether it be through their characters, character designs, writing, or the quality of their productions. However, because of the average person’s lack of knowledge of animation, these shows/movies might be their only reference points for animation, hence they view animation as that one thing. These shows and movies were popular and influential so there have been a number of productions that followed a similar tone and style, for example, after Rick & Morty was broadcast, Netflix released a number of animated shows that had a similar style of writing and aesthetics.
By looking through the past century and seeing the evolution of animation, you can also see upticks and down turns when it comes to the average audience’s engagement with animation. First seen as something that could be enjoyed by anyone through cinemas, but upon entering the era where televisions became common in households, it suddenly became targeted only towards children, mostly due to budgetary reasons, but since the 90s and up until the present, it’s slowly being seen as something for anyone again, mostly due to how much is being produced with various genres and age groups in mind. With the internet and streaming services as well, new and old animation are easier to find than ever.
Part 3 – Animated movies and their live action counterparts
The animation medium covers a lot of genres. The most popular genres for animated movies are fantasy, comedy and musicals that were popularized by Disney. However, there are examples of animated films that don’t fall under those genres or at least, isn’t the main genre. These are films that cover these genres, as well as a comparative live action film equivalent that is listed to show the differences and similarities between the 2 mediums and how they present certain genre tropes in each medium.
Team America World Police was directed Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the duo that created South Park. It was created through the use of puppets (designed by the Chiodo Brothers of Killer Clowns from Outer Space) for characters and miniatures for the locations. The look of the film was inspired by the shows of Gerry Anderson, the creator of Thunderbirds, who is known for his use of detailed, almost caricatured looking marionettes. Anderson coined the term “Supermarionation”, a term that Parker and Stone parodied by calling their filming process “Supercrappymation”, by intentionally making the movie look cheaper for humour (all the strings being visible on the puppets for example). It is a parody of action movies released at the time. The main reference points were the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films, a studio started by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson that is most known for producing action blockbusters. You can see Team America’s influences in the filmmakers that Bruckheimer has worked with such as Tony Scott (Top Gun, Man on Fire) and more specifically, Micheal Bay (Bad Boys, The Rock). The film is a comedic send up on both the over-the-top violence and collateral destruction that appears in big budget action movies at the time and the patriotism and jingoism seen in American society and cinema post 9/11, both of which is seen through the action and dialogue of the main characters of Team America and have been noted in Bay’s filmography. A film that was praised and criticized for the former was Bay’s Bad Boys 2, released the year previously and while the release of Pearl Harbor predated 9/11, it was a part of a wave of American war epics popularized by Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan that could be seen as a start to a more patriotic viewpoint in America cinema compared to more cynical viewpoints seen in films like Apocalypse Now. The film even has a song called “End of an Act” which has “Pearl Harbor sucked” in the chorus in reference to the Bay directed movie. There is also a scene that parodies John Woo’s Face Off in the film.
When it comes to horror in animation, they usually go for something that is meant to disturb the audience through mostly visuals alone, rather than through storyline and theme. While this is not 100% the case, especially when it comes to more indie animated projects, mainstream animation shows horror through the visuals whether it be from uncanny character designs or animation changes that would confuse and perturb the viewer (the animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog is a good example of this, having entire characters that are animated in CGI and Claymation to shock the viewer). The Japanese animated film Perfect Blue would be an example of an animated psychological horror film. While it is based off a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, the director Satoshi Kon never read the source material. You can call Perfect Blue a psychological murder mystery and can see influence from the films of Hitchcock, as well as Brian De Palma. Giallo films, particularly the films of Dario Argento, are murder mystery films known for their stylized aesthetics and the story that plays with narrative cohesion through the use of extreme tone shifts and set pieces that go against the story’s previously established direction. This is especially seen in the first 2 entries of Argento’s Mother of Tears trilogy, Suspiria and Inferno. Perfect Blue’s use of this lack of narrative sense is implied through the use of the psychology of the main character, a pop idol turned actress who through a number of problems in her professional and private life, causes her sense of reality to slip. Becoming an actress makes her see a ghostly double of herself in her idol outfit. The theme of meshing reality with fantasy is apparent through all of Kon’s work, though it is used in a more subtle way than any of Argento’s films, due to the narrative choices made in Kon’s films, while Argento’s use of warping reality in his films is used more to disorientate and disturb the viewer.
Ralph Bakshi was a pioneer of adult animation in the 70s. He is known for his movies that have both urban settings and fantasy settings, for the latter he is most known for his adaptation of Lord of the Rings prior to the Peter Jackson films, but his earlier films are the former, including Fritz the Cat (an adaptation of the underground comic created by Robert Crumb) and Heavy Traffic. These films are set in 1970s New York and comment on the societal problems and culture at the time, mostly on the crime that happened during that era. A comparison that you can see with his more grounded movies would be the earlier crime movies of Martin Scorsese such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, but the other film makers comparisons can be made with are Abel Ferrera (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant) and William Lustig (Maniac, the Maniac Cop series). These directors incorporated a lot of guerrilla film making into their earlier projects, with having on location shots of bustling street shots of New York. One would think this would be impossible to achieve through just animation, but Bakshi incorporates this by mixing live action footage and animation together, with the live action footage being used as backgrounds. Another way he incorporates this is through the use of audio, as Bakshi incorporates conversations that he recorded into his films. This gives his films although feature exaggerated characters and bizarre designs, feel very down to earth. For example, in Fritz the Cat, there is a scene of 3 bear characters in a synagogue having a conversation and the audio is of Bakshi’s father and uncles talking with each other.
It should be noted that there are a lot of animated adaptions of various live action properties dating back to the 70s, ranging from sitcoms to adventure serials though at that time, these usually didn’t have the original staff involved. There was a trend in the 2000s where various action movies would get animated spinoffs, that would keep the tone of the original film and tell a story within the same universe as the film, with the original staff from the original work either producing or even writing for them. Many of these would get their own DVD releases and be released alongside either the home video release of the original film or the release of a sequel in the cinemas. One of the more notable ones would be the Animatrix, an anthology film based around the Matrix franchise with each part being directed by a notable anime director, such as Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop), Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll) and Takeshi Koike (Redline) showcasing their unique styles in the world of the Matrix. Another one would be The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, a short film based on the Riddick series, released as a direct sequel to the sci-fi horror film, Pitch Black, and a prequel to the Chronicles of Riddick. It was directed by Peter Chung, the creator of the MTV series, Aeon Flux, bringing along his unique character design and shot compositions. The actors of the surviving characters of Pitch Black come back to voice their animated equivalents. The film adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, directed by Zach Synder, was a mostly faithful adaptation of the comic, but it was missing a side story in the form of a comic within the story called Tales of the Black Freighter. There was an animated adaptation of the story made and it was originally going to be in the theatrical release of the movie but was removed due to the overly long runtime for cinemas. It was later released on home media separately, but it was edited into the live action film and released as the Ultimate Cut.
Part 4 – How both are made
Animation has been used extensively in Hollywood blockbusters since the mid-90s, after the massive success of Jurassic Park, with it’s use of animatronics, stop motion and most famously, computer generated animation, which were all used to create the dinosaurs in the film. Most people wouldn’t really consider a film like that as animation though due to the CG been aesthetically consistent with the rest of the film, with the effects looking more realistic than you would see in a fully animated movie. A film that has gained some confusion over whether or it could be considered animation would the live action remake of Disney’s Lion King. Everything seen in the film is rendered in CGI from the characters to locations and renders them with hyper-realistic visuals, which is different from other animated films that go for more stylized visuals. It became the number 1 highest grossing animated movie worldwide. The reason this was seen as contentious was due to fans of the original asking if a remake was even necessary, due to the realistic animal characters in the remake having no facial expressions that capture the emotion tone of the story, featuring characters that had a ton of expressions in the original. However, the marketing of the film was seeing these characters you recognize looking like they’re from the real world.
Tim Burton is possibly the most famous example of a director who has worked with both live action and animation. Despite how different the production of animation and live action are, you can tell if a movie is a Tim Burton production due to having a consistent aesthetic between films. Tim Burton specialized in stop motion animation (though he did provide character designs for Brad Bird’s animated short, Family Dog), directing 2 stop motion feature films and producing one. He also incorporates it in some of his live action films (the Large Marge jump scare in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, the worm in Beetlejuice). He produced and wrote Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Sellick. While he was busy with directing Batman Returns, he gave the directing duties to Sellick, an old friend of his that showed him the concepts of Nightmare. In the book, Burton on Burton, he had worries about Sellick’s vison clashing with his own, due to him being an artist with his own style too, but the production went smoothly and showed that Burton’s style could easily be transferred into a different medium. The first animated movie that he directed himself was Corpse Bride. Corpse Bride was an evolution of the style seen in Nightmare Before Christmas, mainly due to Burton taking over the directing duties.
Motion capture is a tool that is used for animating the exact movements of actors and putting and saving those movements onto a computer so that a CG model could replicate the actions of the actor. It’s almost as if it’s the modern equivalent to rotoscoping. It is used for everything from big budget blockbusters to video game cutscenes. Robert Zemeckis is a director that has worked with live action and animation since he directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Zemeckis is a huge contributor to motion capture technology. His film production company, Imagemovers, has produced a number of movies that include a high number of motion capture characters (Welcome to Marwen features characters who are fully animated fashion dolls) and some that are fully animated with motion capture. The first fully motion capture movie that the company produced and Zemeckis directed was Polar Express, which was listed by the Guiness Book of World Records as the first fully digital capture film. Later Imagemovers, in collaboration with Disney as a joint venture, started Imagemovers Digital, a production company that exclusively produces projects that were made with motion capture technology. They only produced 2 films, adaptations of A Christmas Carol and Mars Needs Moms.
There are effects artists and animators that go onto to become directors, using the skills that they’ve honed over the years to shape the look and visuals of their own directorial look. Phil Tibbet is a stop motion animator inspired by Ray Harryhausen, who is most known for his work with director Paul Verhoeven on his gory sci-fi action movies, Robocop and Starship Troopers. He specializes in bizarre alien creatures and mechanical/bio mechanical characters. You can see this in his stop motion feature film, Mad God, a dialogue-less horror film that features a lot of the subject matter that he has worked with before and mixing it with a grimy, chaotic aesthetic in a non-linear story. Takashi Yamazaki is a director and CGI animator and supervisor. He started off his directorial career with live action films such as the Always: Sunset on Third Street series, but he began directing fully animated movies, starting off with Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki. He also directed various manga adaptations such as Doraemon, Parasyte and Lupin III. His latest film is 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, which he both directed and supervised the special effects for.
Part 5 – Critic and audience reaction
In 1991, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was released and was nominated at the Academy Awards for best picture, the first animated feature to do so and the only one until 2009’s Up. 11 years later, in 2002, the Academy Award for Best Animated feature was introduced, with Shrek being the winner. Previously, the only animated features that would win awards would be eligible for categories such as “Special Achievement” awards, which were given to films that advanced certain technologies and film techniques, such as the hybrid of animation and live action in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or the advancement of CGI animation in Toy Story. While it is good that these features got recognition for these, it was less about the film itself and more about the advancement of those certain technologies. These awards were given by people who weren’t into animation itself and more see them through an effects lens. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was different as it focused completely on animation. However, these awards received criticism too from industry figures and animation fans. The awards have been criticized over the years for showing favoritism towards Disney, with many of the films distributed by them being the winners of a vast number of awards. While this isn’t always the case, as Shrek was the first winner of the award and films like Spirited Away, Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit and Rango being the winners in the years they were released, Disney produced films, as well as the films made under the Pixar label, which were the majority of the list’s winners. This led to many people believing that either A. they were brought out by Disney to win these awards, rigging the results or B. since anyone in the Academy could vote in any category and a majority of people who aren’t into animation have most likely only seen a Disney/Pixar film that year, that Disney was winning these awards for brand recognition only. A prime example of this was the marketing of Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to Wreck-It-Ralph. While being released on physical media, it was being promoted with a label that claimed it to be the “2019 Academy Award Winner: Best Animated Feature”.
However, the film that won the Animated Feature Award was Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. This could lead to people thinking that there is a bias in the film community towards Disney or that the only animated films that they have watched are Disney. There could also be a sense of stagnation in the film community, that the only animated movies that are worth watching are the ones that are made by Disney and Pixar or the ones that emulate their style.
Movie reviewers also view animation differently from live action in the way that they review each of them. There are even movie reviewers that don’t touch animation. Roger Ebert is arguably the most famous movie reviewer who ever lived. You could tell through Ebert’s reviews that he enjoys animation and had some knowledge about certain animation subgroups such as the early anime fandom. As you can see in his review of the original Ghost in the Shell, where he acknowledges how anime was mostly seen through college film communities which were shared through tapes. I believe that these critics who aren’t really into animation as a medium usually lack context for whatever they’re reviewing. Many of the 2d animated features that were released in the 2000s were often criticized for being outdated due to the boom of CGI animated features in the late 90s/early 2000s. The critics along with audiences see CGI as an evolution to 2d animation, instead of seeing it as a different way of showcasing the medium of animation. This view of seeing 2d animation as outdated were most likely due to the fact that many 2d features released in the 2000s were box office bombs like Dreamwork’s Sinbad, Disney’s Treasure Planet, Sony’s Eight Crazy Nights and Don Bluth’s Titan AE (the most successful 2d animated features during this time were based on animated TV shows like Simpsons, SpongeBob and South Park). While Disney’s last 2 2d animated features did decently at the box office (Princess & the Frog and Winnie the Pooh), this is still the case as the last big 2d animated features released to cinemas in recent memory were based on the shows, Teen Titans Go and Bob’s Burgers.
Part 6 – Epilogue
Is animation a genre? Throughout this dissertation, there have been a number of examples of why this isn’t the case, by looking at animation through an aesthetic, technical and tone standpoint, as well as looking at the artists that work with animation. The differences between the creation and thought process of animation and live action, while having a number of similarities and even some overlap with incorporating both mediums, would still come out very differently if a project were to be to made with either medium.
The audiences preferences of animation are vast in terms of what they want. Just by looking at what animation can do compared to live action, whether it be through the genres of comedy, action, musical, etc., shows that animation has it’s own appeal compared to other artistic mediums.