Chris Landreth, Ryan, and Bingo

Obviously, I'm a new media affeciando, otherwise I wouldn't be in this class at all, but one thing I just can't get down with is digital animation. I've really tried to love it, and I DO love its application as CGI and special effects in live action films, but as a medium in its own right, I just find its aesthetics to be unsubtle, soulless, and cloying. This especially troubles me as someone from the bay area, where Pixar is a huge and extremely innovative creative industry, as well as one I could definitely see myself being a part of. The methods of animation that Chris Landreth used in "Ryan" were extremely creative and effective in conveying his themes of psychic scars and disentigration. The plays on perspective and 3d effects he used would be difficult if not impossible to do with traditional animation techniques. But when he shows his style side by side with Ryan Larkin's gorgeous, psychadelic, hand painted animations, it just drives home what I perceive to be digital animation's shortcomings. One ray of hope was in the huge refinements in style and technology that separated "Bingo" from more recent "Ryan." Today's digital animation is light years beyond both of these in terms of technologies of representation. Like all new media, this is a medium still in its infancy, and I'm sure future developments will be mind blowingly exciting. Nevertheless, I have a feeling I'll still be the old fogey at the latest critically acclaimed Pixar extravaganza muttering about Felix the Cat while everyone else goes "what the hell is she talking about?"