Summarised 2d Industry Research

Industry

‘The amount of animation produced in the UK has almost halved.’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8225954.stm

This link is to a BBC News video which puts the animation industry, particularly in the UK, into the spotlight. It highlights that while animation in the UK is popular, it is impractical to produce animated features in England, whether they be films or T.V. series’, as the rest of the EU provides Tax Rebates to cover production costs, whereas the UK don’t.

‘US and Canada are home to dedicated children’s and animation networks that account for a large proportion of animation hours viewed.’ –P270

‘Whereas most countries are dominated by children’s animation properties, this is not true in Japan. Animation here extends to every age group and subject matter, including nonfiction, with styles and content ranging from cute and sugary sweet to violent at a level not seen in any other country’ –P272

‘The United Kingdom is strong in the production and consumption of television and home videos for the preschool market, such as Bob the Builder or Postman Pat.’ –P276

Raugust,K (2004), The Animation Business Handbook, St Martin’s Press, New York.

These quotes outline the main audiences at which animations from the countries are aimed at. This shows that the US and Canada aim their animations primarily at children, and the UK aim their animations at pre-school children. Japan, however, while producing animations aimed at children, they also produce a lot of successful animations aimed at a wider audience, such as more violent productions for teens and young men.

In the questionnaire we produced for Peter Dodd, question 2 was ‘Is the 2D industry growing’. He answered by saying that the industry is growing at the moment, but as a whole, it is unstable, it is continuously rising and falling.

An observation that my partner and I have made is that while 2D animation isn’t exactly popular within feature length films, it is still commonly used in other areas, such as advertising(‘Tony the Tiger’ for ‘Frosties’,), T.V Shows, (Ben 10, Pokemon), video games and their cutscenes (inFamous, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops). One medium which uses 2D animation extensively is the ‘App’ market, applications for mobile phones such as the iPhone, a large percentage of the downloadable games and applications are in a 2D visual style, and therefore 2D animators would have been hired to produce these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWrfWEmHs1Y

Tony the Tiger commercial

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/ben10/index.html

Official Ben10 website

http://www.pokemon.com/us/

Official Pokemon website

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8bj4AUly4I

Cutscene from inFamous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jknofynJ5dw

Cutscene from Epic Mickey. Watch from 8:00

Aaron Hodder