The Balance of Animation and Art: Concerning Money

We all know that the point of having a job in making movies is to make money. There has to be a level of profit or you're just sacrificing your time and effort for a passion rather than a cause to a means. As I've said before, there has to be a balance. You have to put an enormous effort into making sure your true intentions to your job and to yourself are aligned, while still abiding to a business stand point. After all, we can't survive off of success alone, and the definition of being successful today means efficiently cutting cost and the level of profit over weigh the level of investment. Media arts today has many aspects of financial requirements such as filming equipment, paying actors, ed
itors, digital effects crew, costumes, make-up, hair, and a slew of other necessities. This is why I've researched the contrasts between funds that are required for CGI effects and props, backgrounds...and so on.

I have researched many cases wherein digital effects are quite time consuming and here lies the irony, the professional computer genius needs to be paid, and as long as he's working more checks will be written off. Those young brilliant people who attend college and university for a very pricey bachelor's or master's degree intend to be paid for their efforts and perfected trade. I myself am enrolled in college for my bachelor's degree in media arts and animation which is going to cost me nearly $100,000! I would hope never to return to what retail salary has to offer me ever again!

It seems live-action movies can be quite expensive. Ranging from the thousands to millions of dollars because we all know the movie has to be set in the right scene, the actors have to have the right costume and make-up, and the camera's always have to roll. We all like big explosions, fireworks, and epic stunts to blow our minds. When we see shots like these in movies, we remember them a lot longer as if the stunt actually occurred.

When I am doing research, I usually go online and view the sites that allow people to voice their opinions on forums or polls. This website

called Ask MetaFilter contains many intelligent statements concerning the overuse of CGI in movies today. One poster with an inappropriate username who will not be named states: You're also paying the equivalent of programmers to work on the artistic attributes of 24 frames per second of a 2-hour movie.

This guy doesn't look to happy...

I'm not saying this isn't a fulfilling job when you see the final product of your work but once again....

It's all about BALANCE!

This is the future, and we are all evolving and with us our technology has evolved. We are meant to use the new inventions and designs that have been created but there is a simple matter of "too much of something good can be bad".

If the talents of technology merge with a harmonious balance of physical skill such as props and make-up, you are positively capturing your audience in making them believe what they are seeing is as close to reality and fantasy at the same time. This is how we create a blockbusting film!

For instance, Pan's Labyrinth which came out around 2006 by Director and writer Guillermo Del Toro used a mixture of CGI effects with the amazing cosmetic artistry for the monsters in the film such as this character.

This is brilliant! He uses CGI to eliminate parts of the actors body so he appears impossibly skinny and eerie. Along with the facial features and those eyes that move on his palms, everything else about his costume is all real. The silicone mold that is detailed to sag like stretched skin, the shadowing which provides definition of the protruding bones, and the detail of skin and veins which is quite detail oriented has a powerful effect on viewers. The more the audience stares deeply at something in a movie, trying to see any imperfection, "That can't be real!" statements mean you've done an amazing job!

Movies that have made a killing on a tight budget!