People complain about the "weird" look the characters sometimes have. It's a burnout for your animation crew to produce overly realistic scenes while on a TV animation schedule. Kids don't necessarily prefer it, and they are the intended audience. Why not, you ask? There have been very few realistic CGI TV shows that have been produced on time, so there's some history to think about. This points to producers' preference for realism in CG television, and although the technology might arguably be available, it is not always practical to produce realistic CG TV animation at this time. The Producer's insistence on extreme realism, rather than a stylization of the characters and sets. Stylized sets and characters were hallmarks of the late series Voltron: The Third Dimension, on which Josh Prikryl was a supervising animator. Here are four areas of how some TV animation producers have gotten into trouble with CGI animation for TV and ended up in or close to that cartoon graveyard. Having supervised two all CG animated TV series that were both completed on time (52 half-hour episodes), I would like to share with you my opinions some of what I believe works for CGI television production and what does not. I have 10 years of production experience in the animation industry, and have signature approved close to 20,000 scenes as an animation supervisor. It was also my first experience working overseas, at DCDC, in Hong Kong. We completed 26 episodes of this all CG animated TV series on time and on budget. Most recently I was CG animation director on Butt-Ugly Martians, which is currently airing, or is soon to air, in most territories worldwide. This gives you an idea about how small the CGI for television animation community is. I have worked on most of the "all CG" animated TV shows that ever saw airtime and were produced in the United States. If CGI is to thrive as a commercial viability for television over the next few years, we must try to ensure that it will be as predictable as 2D animation production. In general a feeling of overall predictability has eluded the producers who need to have control over what should be no more complicated than the 2D animation process. A number (but not all) of CGI series have been delivered late, gone over budget and been difficult to control creatively. CGI is now sometimes seen as an undependable and dangerous investment. Producers of TV animation, who only a few years ago were thrilled at the possibilities of CG production, now want to avoid what has become a cliché. The term 'tra-digital' comes to mind when I think of CGI productions that use 2D methodology and planning. It is mostly a 2D art form, but recently we've seen both some exciting, and not so exciting, forays into CGI animation for TV. TV animation is sometimes thought of as being the ultimate in disposable entertainment. © 2001 Universal Worldwide Television, Inc., Just Group PLC, Mike Young Productions, Inc., DCDC Limited While those decisions sometimes come from Editorial, it’s often the cartoonists making a decision themselves to pull a strip– or not even finish a strip– that might be too naughty for newspapers.Butt-Ugly Martians: an all-CG show delivered on time and on budget. But sometimes a comic is funny or on point, and just might be a little too risqué for a broad readership, or might be a potential lightning rod for controversy. Sometimes it’s too complicated or confusing to make a good four-panel strip. Reasons? Well, sometimes something is hilarious in your head, and then you look at in on paper, and realized it doesn’t work as well as you’d hoped. One of the questions fans ask us most is if they can see some of the comics that didn’t make it– and why those comics don’t make it to print. Well, here at King Features, the cartoon graveyard is vast: for every idea that sees print, most cartoonists have at least two others that don’t make it to the big time. Paul Simon immortalized the strife of every great cartoonist in the song “You Can Call Me Al,” when he said “Don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.”
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