A Quote by John Lasseter

Animation, for me, is a wonderful art form. I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making animation. Maybe they felt that the audiences around the world only wanted to watch computer animation. I didn't understand that, because I don't think ever in the history of cinema did the medium of a film make that film entertaining or not. What I've always felt is, what audiences like to watch are really good movies.
I've always loved animation it's the reason why I do what I do for a living - the films of Walt Disney. This art form is so spectacular and beautiful. And I never quite understood the feeling amongst animation studios that audiences today only wanted to see computer animation. It's never about the medium that a film is made in, it's about the story. It's about how good the movie is.
It [moviemaking] is about entertaining audiences with great characters and great stories, you want to make people laugh, you want to make people cry, you want to have great music that is memorable. You want a movie that, as soon as it's over, you want to watch it again, just like that. That's what it is, whether it's live-action, animation, hand drawn, computer, special effects, puppet animation, it doesn't matter. That's the goal of a filmmaker.
Yeah, once we decided to use that replacement animation, and the seams are a function of that animation, and other movies paint those out, we decided we wanted to keep the presence of the animation and the type of animation that it was rather than make it look polished. It created a kind of vulnerability, I think.
You look at Japan and Hayao Miyazaki's films are the biggest films ever made in Japan; domestically there and they play to critical acclaim around the world. He won't put more then 5 or 10 percent computer imagery in his movies. It's disappointing to me. It's a silly choice that some studios made to move out of animation. It's part of the unfortuneate preconception that I think the public has going into see animation.
Nooo! Leave that to George Lucas, he' s really mastered the CGI acting. That scares me! I hate it! Everybody is so pleased and excited by it. Animation is animation. Animation is great. But it's when you're now taking what should be films full of people, living thinking, breathing, flawed creatures and you're controlling every moment of that, it's just death to me. It's death to cinema, I can't watch those Star Wars films, they're dead things.
I really love animation as a storytelling medium, whether it's traditional, cel animation, or CG, or stop motion, which is more our studio's area of focus. But I find that the creatives behind any kind of animation are typically very similar, and so regardless of what aesthetic they use to realize their vision, I'm usually pretty into it.
For me, one of the great tragedies is the conclusion studios have drawn about traditional animation. I believe that 2D animation could be just as vital as it ever was. I think the problem has been with the stories.
I try to make a really good spy movie, so the animation has to be good. 'Bot Seeks Bot' was one of my lighter and more playful ones, so it can survive not being visually told as well. I did have some issues with the quality of the inking on some of the animation, but a lot of that will only ever bother me.
I so love the animation process. Interesting, everything that I do in animation, the kind of crafting and skills of storytelling, totally work within the structure of the Disney nature films. In a weird way, I like to think that animation is like painting, and Disney nature is like sculpting. Animation you start with a blank canvas and you paint. With Disney nature, you start with a big block of imagery and you hone it down into your final story. Somewhere you end up with something kind of pretty to watch.
You're going to get different kinds of animation for different kinds of audiences. Traditionally, adult animation has been for the young male audience. There's no reason why that should be.
I grew up watching classic animation, and I have always felt that the roots of animation is in fantasy and taking it in places that you can't go, any other way.
First of all, computer animation is certainly a tremendous and viable medium today. But the warmth and personality derived from 2-D animation, in my opinion, cannot be surpassed. Certain stories lend themselves well to 3-D animation and I won't labor this with naming them, but in my bones, I still respond more emotionally to the artists feel in 2-D. You feel the 'actor' in the animator more personally...it's hard to explain.
I used to watch every episode of 'Justice League,' I went to all the movies, I had the Superman lunchbox. I was enamored with animation in general and always wanted to somehow be a part of it.
I do have huge pressure in terms of making my animation, because a lot of audiences and producers are expecting me to make films with a lot of action. They all know that I'm very good at action scenes, but I tend to not use many, so they're all frustrated with me. But I do that intentionally. Yes, if I do a movie with a bunch of action, it's going to be a lot more successful than the types of movies I'm making right now. The producers often say, "Instead of using all these philosophical phrases, why don't you change this into an action scene?" But I intend to continue to make these movies.
It just seems like the whole, overall animation world is trying to go where maybe animation doesn't belong.
I was always really fascinated with animation, but just in a way all kids are with watching Disney movies and all that, but I had no idea how animation was done.
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