(Under) The Sea Of Animation

  Recently I watched Into The Unknown: Making of Frozen II on Disney+. It is a six-episode documentary series showcasing the process it took to make Frozen II. Now, I unironically love Frozen. Of course I had a phase where I found it quite annoying like so many others do, but it's really grown on me in recent years. I listened to Let It Go for the first time in forever (lol) and to my surprise, got really emotional over it. But anyway, the docuseries follows directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck as well as an entire team of very talented people as they race to finish the very high-expected sequel to 2013's Frozen. If it interests you enough to watch through the series, be my guest, but I will sum up what stood out to me the most and what my takeaway was from watching it. When you watch an animated movie like this, or any movie for that matter, the directors, writers, producers, and cast are usually who stand out to you the most. They are the ones who do interviews, promos, and...

  I feel like the first movie I should be talking about specifically had to be Disney's Treasure Planet, which is my absolute favorite animated movie ever. For those who don't know, Treasure Planet is an adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island , now with a science fiction twist. The movie came out in theaters on November 27th, 2002 and as great of a movie it is, it did not earn as much in the box office or gain enough attention as expected. Jim Hawkins is the main protagonist of the story and he goes on a voyage to Treasure Planet in search of said treasure. He encounters pirates, robots, a mutiny, and basically has the adventure of a lifetime the entire time. The film is a beautiful blend of sci-fi and an 18th century style. They sail through space on Spanish galleons, their roofs are metal-plated, and so on. It's just such a beautiful movie. Each character stands out on their own and has their own personalities, quirks, and flaws. The story, while it stra...

 Even though the majority of animation studios have been using computer-generated and 3D to make their movies in recent years, I still love and honestly prefer the look of the traditional 2D hand-drawn animation style. There was something a lot more magical about it and the way an animator could draw a character to life. Computers and 3D models are great, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't give the same type of feeling that traditional animation does.  For traditional animation, it's the artist drawing everything that gets me. If you've seen a video of a rough animation (no colors, no background, just the pencil sketches), you could see the beauty of it, as if the character is actually moving on a piece of paper. It's also really hard to get something moving naturally as if it were in a three-dimensional space on paper. Good animators have done it though, and they do it really well. The study and do research, and even add their own personal flair that makes wh...