Does animation really need to be defined? Why is it that people constantly feel this need to put limits on things, so that they can categorize and understand them? Last year we had a whole symposium here at USC, centered around the task of redefining animation.
I can understand the need for a definition as far as artists are concerned. It has been a long struggle to get animation taken seriously as an art form, and this effect things like funding for programs and for artists. But sometimes I think people get to caught up in specifics of what justifies a certain form or not.
One example included a debate in class centered around the difference between something being called a photo, or a film. The questioned posed was that if you film a stagnant room, and you present that beside a photo of the same scene, does it make it a film just because it was shot on film? Many went back and forth, with some saying some sort of movement needs to happen for it to be a film, etc.
A similar debate was also posed for animation. One person felt that a still could be animation in that the action is happening inside their mind when you look at the still- in a sense it has an animate quality. Others argued that one needed to produce movement between frames, and therefore a single picture could not be animation. The way I feel is somewhere in-between and is from an approach of time and intent.
I do believe there to be a difference between the still in counterpoint to film/animation that its deliberately lending time and/or movement to an object. For instance, a painting inherits is dynamism in that it is still. A choice has been made for the object to be still, and a viewer can analyze this still and look at all its aspects and create a multitude of ways to view it or themes to derive from it. It is animate in this sense, but this aesthetic is different from something that is deliberately given time or movement. The experience of viewing this is different because what you see will change- it will change in that it now has the aspect of time added to it. I do think movement is a very important quality in animation, but I think it is time that separates it from still art. Not to say that time cannot be found in other things, such as film, but again, animation is a hybrid of many mediums.
To address the difference between live action and animation in a sense requires a different set of attributes. I will start this argument by posting a rough and partial definition of animation that I came up with for this class discussion:
Animation uses the audio/visual language of cinema in way similar to how a poem uses words. It condenses meaning and communicates abstract ideas, such as emotion and experience. It uses line, shape, color and symbols in motion, in combination with sound or lack of sound, to represent ideas that stimulate an emotional response, packaged in such a way that others can experience them. It is personal and collective, based upon ideas we experience in the world and in our minds.
Although this covers more aspects of areas in animation than I want to discuss at this moment, I will address the part about animation being similar to a poem. In live action, we are able to capture an image of reality that closely relates to what we see in our everyday lives. In animation, we are able to abstract these items and concepts into a form that could not happen in the waking world. Through aesthetic choices, we are able to condense meaning and enhance it. For example, through using certain color schemes and rendering more iconic characters, one can break through the barriers of what we perceive reality to be and in a sense open our minds to digest ideas in a different way. By allowing us to delve into a more abstracted subconscious world, I believe we are able to be more open to process concepts and emotions without the stigma attached to them in a world of reality. In a sense, the fact that film is framed and presented in a manner not integrated in the real world, it does this already. I think animation can take it a step further, by its ability to eliminate some prejudices people ingrain in reality and present an different perspective.
Also, you can argue that many mediums accomplish this task, certainly painting and music do.
So, I guess I can conclude back with the beginning point. Yes, I did just go through this whole spiel to define what animation is, but I do not agreed with the fact that it has to be so specifically defined. Since it shares so many qualities with different fields, I can only see it being compared with the other mediums to be described. Ultimately, it does not exist in a vacuum, and contains a huge power to portray experience and ideas to others.
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