In Which Bridgette Almost Succeeds in Keeping Things Short and Succinct, A Continuation

Today I wanted to talk a little further on the history of animation, specifically hybrid animation. By hybrid animation I mean 2D and 3D, not 2D and live action, or live action and other computer generated special effects, which, let’s face it are in 80% of movies now. I mean 3D objects in 2D environments and vice versa.

Technology has been improving and advancing rapidly ever since the very first computer animation Vertigo in 1958. It was only 25 years later that these two mediums of animation were finally combined in a short test in 1983 titled Where the Wild Things Are. The first time hybrid animation was used in a film was two years after that in Disney’s 1985 The Black Cauldron.

This surprised me, even though it shouldn’t because The Black Cauldron is such a strange movie that’s been left behind in the dusty back corners of the Disney vault that it just makes sense that it did something noteworthy and no one remembers. Although, you could debate on how noteworthy it actually is considering the actual hybrid animation is a small glowing sphere, but nevertheless it is still a 3D element in a 2D environment.

The Great Mouse Detective did something similar a year later with the cogs and wheels inside the clock. This was, believe it or not, paving the way for 3D environments in 2D films, which allows for camera movements that were not possible before, as well as things like being able to change perspectives or the lighting of a scene.

These forgotten Disney movies of the 80s are the forefathers of some of the most absolutely stunning animation that came in the 90s, both with 3D environments and 3D objects in 2D environments.

The ballroom scene in The Beauty and the Beast (1991) uses a 3D environment. The Lion King (1994) has the stampede of wildebeest created in 3D. 3D crowds are used in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and also in Mulan (1998). The Hunchback of Notre Dame was actually the film that sparked this idea of blogging about hybrid animation, because it's arguably my favorite Disney film but the 3D crowds were something it did not manage to do very well.. Tarzan (1999) used something called Deep Canvas which allowed for that utterly impossible scene where he’s skating on his bare feet across all these trees like a veritable elven god (Tarzan is a full grown adult without a beard nor access to the tools or knowledge of shaving; he's an elf. Change my mind). Deep Canvas was also used for some more forgotten Disney movies a few years later, like Atlantis and Treasure Planet.

Here is a short video on that scene from Tarzan being created.

Disney isn’t the only one of course. DreamWorks created the masterpiece The Prince of Egypt (1998). The Prince of Egypt has such a flawless blend of 2D and 3D that I don’t even know where to begin.  I also don’t think I should get away without mentioning The Iron Giant at least once, which is a huge example of a 3D object in a 2D environment.

Much like 2D animation as a whole, hybrid animation seems to be left to the past, or to shorts or independent creators.

This post isn’t as short as last week, and there’s more I could say…I had whole tangents prepared for Attack on Titan and possibly even a tangent about Massive and The Lord of the Rings, but that will probably be an entire post itself, so I’ll save it for next week.

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J. R. R. Tolkien