Will animated films ever get the credit it deserves?

[Watashi]

I feel like we have this conversation every year, but I recently read a list of the best vocal performances in an animated film and it brought up the question I always ask myself: will an animated performance ever get nominated for a major award? It was about 15 years ago when there was a small push for Andy Serkis to recognized for his work for Gollum, but nothing came out of that. Then a year later, a few people were campaigning for Ellen DeGeneres to get nominated for Finding Dory. Most people predicted that within the next decade we would see more animated films being pushed for larger categories outside the boxed-in Best Animated Feature that was created to prevent these films to take away awards from "real" films.

So why in 2016 are animated films still seen as sitting at the kid's table? They are all eating the same food. Maybe it's because outside of Disney's recent surge of a second renaissance, most of the aren't really good or haven't evolved from the pop-culture/body humor infested mainstream fare that Shrek popularized. Hell, it's 2016 and we're still getting goddamn Ice Age movies. A franchise that started back in 2002. Most of the great animation nowadays isn't coming from the big studios, but more smaller and less family-friendly like Laika, Ghibli, or even Hertzfeldt.

Do animated films just need to get better? I wasn't a big fan of Zootopia, but the film is a technical marvel. In a fair world, people would be praising the art direction like Oscar voters would be at the latest Tim Burton film? Is there a real difference between the two? Both came from a long creative process and were drawn and storyboarded. They were both brought to life, but instead of building sets, they were built on a computer. I don't see why award enthusiasts can't be impressed with both.

Speaking of Oscars, why does it seem outside of score nomination, the only nomination an animated film can muster is screenplay, but never direction? Or acting, cinematography, etc? Is it because voters are attracted to the physical? They vote on what they can see? How much weight was lost. How much crying was done. How much anger is shown? Can't this not be displayed purely through vocals? Isn't that more impressive to get across over an on-screen performance?

It's late. I'm somewhat drunk. I'm tired. Goodnight. Rant over.

[Skitch]

*hugs*

[number8]

I think it's the same problem (and solution) as the diversity issue. They had a stagnant old guard that simply did not understand what animation acting or mo-cap technology are. So the only hope would be to have a younger generation of Academy members that hopefully more emotionally invested in animated movies and grew up hailing the likes of Andy Serkis as "real" actors. Still a longshot, but I can't think of the attitude changing without that overhaul.

[Irish]

Will an animated performance ever get nominated for a major award?

Probably not in the short term.

Serkis works the bleeding edge. When you do that, nobody knows how to categorize you. It would help if there were 20-30 other recognizable names doing what he does because then people would have a basis for comparison. But there aren't.

The side-effect of being good at mo-cap work is that nobody recognizes you from performance to performance. Oscar Isaac can wear 20 pounds of prosthetics to become "Apocalypse" but if you squint hard enough you can still see it's him. You can't do that with Gollum, Caesar, or Captain Haddock. That hurts Serkis' overall profile, both with the public and in the wider industry.

I think there's a lot of misperception around voice work. Specifically, with someone like Ellen DeGeneres, if we dig her performance, how do we tell what we like about it? A lot of traditional acting is based on physicality. That doesn't exist in animation. If we like her as Dory, how much of that is her and how much of it is the animators?

So why in 2016 are animated films still seen as sitting at the kid's table?

Because they put themselves there.

This is a medium that was dominated by a single studio for most of the 20th century, and at the same time whored itself every Saturday morning to turn a buck on sugary cereals and plastic toys.

Because animation so often featured simple stories and uncomplicated characters, nobody took it seriously. People still don't. The perception is it's "for kids." Print sci-fi, comic books, Westerns, and video-games share the same problem.

It doesn't help when the industry itself doesn't do anything to change this perception.

Do animated films just need to get better?

Personally, I would love to see American animation that featured adult characters and adult themes. Even an attempt to get close to that, like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within or Titan: AE.

But I don't think that will happen because a single style and a single viewpoint has dominated the medium for too many years. Imagine an animated adaptation of Bitch Planet or Sex Criminals. Now imagine marketing those titles when everybody and their mother thinks "animation" automatically equals "children."

Compare and contrast: the reductionist idea that "comic book" means "superhero" in the public mind. Or the relative lack of Best Picture nominations for Westerns, despite their overall popularity and the massive amount of material produced during their era.

To change any of this, it means re-educating the public. That means advertising spends, which they won't do because the risk is too high.

Speaking of Oscars, why does it seem outside of score nomination, the only nomination an animated film can muster is screenplay, but never direction? Or acting, cinematography, etc?

Because all of these people are in different branches of the Academy and you can only nominate within your own branch (but everybody gets to nominate for Best Picture).

On top of that, the Director's branch isn't likely to vote for somebody who isn't in their Guild (eg: Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing). They also won't vote for people who worked with non-union crews (eg: Martin Scorsese, in the late 1980s).

This gets tricky with animation, because someone could spend their entire career in the Animator's Guild and never be part of the Director's Guild. Categories around acting, music, and writing share guilds across mediums, where others don't.

Then there's professional snobbery, or at least ignorance. I can't see a live action cinematographer, who works with film stock and light, voting for an animated film because (1) it's a totally different medium and discipline and they don't understand it and (2) it isn't "real," and that makes it somehow invalid.

[number8]

There is actually a DGA bylaw that says you cannot become a member through animation.

The DGA Awards goes even further and specifically bars animated films from being submitted, even if it's directed by a Guild member. For example, Charlie Kaufman is a DGA member, but Anomalisa was disqualified from being entered.

[Skitch]

Grrrrr......thats bullshit.