Comment by M95D

Comment by M95D a day ago

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It's a very clear difference between a cheap animation and Ghibli. Anyone can see it.

In the first case, there's only one static image for an entire scene, scrolled and zoomed, and if they feel generous, there would be an overlay with another static image that slides over the first at a constant speed and direction. It feels dead.

In the second case, each frame is different. There's chaotic motions such as wind and there's character movement with a purpose, even in the background, there's always something happening in the animation, there's life.

paulluuk a day ago

There is a huge middle ground between "static image with another sliding static image" and "1 year of drawing per 4 second Ghibli masterpiece". From your comment is almost looks like you're suggesting that you have to choose either one or the other, but that is of course not true.

I bet that a good animator could make a really impressive 4-second scene if they were given a month, instead of a year. Possibly even if they were given a day.

So if we assume that there is not a binary "cheap animation vs masterpiece" but rather a sort of spectrum between the two, then the question is: at what point do enough people stop seeing the difference, that it makes economic sense to stay at that level, if the goal is to create as much high-quality content as possible?

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  • M95D 20 hours ago

    Yes, that the current trend in the western world. Money is all that matters. There's only lowest accepted quality. Anything above that is a waste of money, profits that are lost. Nobody wants masterpieces. There is no market for that.

    That lowest-accepted quality also declines over time, as generations after generations of people become used to rock-bottom quality. In the end, there's only slop and AI will make the cheapest slop ever. Welcome to a brave new world. We don't even need people anymore. They're too expensive.

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    • pmyteh 17 hours ago

      To be fair, we've already been through this cycle at least once with animation. The difference between early Disney or even Looney Tunes and (say) late '60s Hanna-Barbera or '80s He-Man is enormous. Since then there has been generally higher-quality animation rather than lower (though I know it varies a lot by country, genre etc.)

      It's not inevitable that it's a race to the cheapest and shittest. That's just one (fairly strong) commercial force amongst many.

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zipmapfoldright a day ago

anyone _can_ see it, but _most_ people don't (and don't care)

To be clear, I am not saying it's not valuable, only that to the vast majority, it's not.

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  • soneca a day ago

    I wonder if really great stuff are always for a minority. You have to have listened a lot of classical music to notice a great interpretation of Mozart from a good one. To realize how great was a chess move, how magical was a soccer play, how deep was the writing of a philosopher. Not only for stuff that requires previous effort, but also the subjectiveness of art. Picasso will be really moving for a minority of people. The Godfather. Even Shakespeare.

    Social media and generative AI may be good business because the capture the attention of the majority, but maybe they are not valuable to anyone.

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    • zipmapfoldright a day ago

      I think of a lot of thing in terms of distributions, and I think the how-much-people-value-quality distribution is not that much different.

      On the right side, you have the minority of connoisseurs. And on the left, there is a minority who really don't care at all. And then the middle majority who can tell bad from good, but not good from great.

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      • soneca a day ago

        Yep, and what if good things only exist because they were created by and for those who can tell good from great.

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  • whywhywhywhy a day ago

    > but _most_ people don't (and don't care)

    Perhaps it's not for everyone.

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    • fc417fc802 a day ago

      Many things you don't notice consciously unless you take the time to look but they still affect your overall perception. I suspect highly detailed animations fall into that category.

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      • whywhywhywhy 21 hours ago

        Seeing something like this or Akira on the big screen there is an analogue patina to meticulous hand drawn motion and some of the effects like the physically process glow effects of the neon lights in Akira that do give a very different feeling than a CG shot.

        Although only a few will really appreciate why it's different I definitely think the difference has a heavy effect on the vibe of a movie.

        Same with shooting on film vs digital, not that digital is worse it has it's own feeling which can be used with intent.

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  • umko21 a day ago

    I think you’re right that most people don’t notice, but without the extra effort, it would’ve ended up as just another mediocre animation. And standing out from mediocrity is what made it appealing to many people.

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  • M95D a day ago

    Who cares if it's valuable for the majority? What do you think this is? Stock market for slop?

    This is art.

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