When UCLA student Matt Silas begins his first day of work today
at technologically groundbreaking Pixar Animation Studios,
he’ll still be dreaming of the time when Mickey Mouse shook
the animation world.
“It’s such a bummer that I wasn’t born in 1925
because I missed the golden age of animation,” the
30-year-old graduate student said. “My passion for film
really began in animation.”
When Silas was 12 years old, his love of cartoons intensified
after watching a Disney TV special explaining the animation
process.
Inspired to make a few cartoons of his own, he built an
animation studio in his basement and spent the greater part of his
formative years ““ until he was 17 ““ drawing away.
Now he’s becoming part of what may become a second golden
age for the medium.
“The one thing about doing animation in your basement is
that it’s a lonely thing,” Silas said.
“(But) at Pixar, there are a lot of interesting
opportunities because my colleagues are such brilliant people, and
I’ll have access to that talent pool.”
Pixar, responsible for box-office hits such as “Toy
Story” and “The Incredibles,” has created the
face of modern animation technique and success. But it was Walt
Disney and his mouse who first paved the way for animated film in
the popular market.
Disney cemented his control over the future of cartoons with the
release of “Snow White” in 1937, the first American
feature-length animated film.
According to UCLA Assistant Animation Workshop Professor Celia
Mercer, Disney’s success reinforced, if not established, the
attitude that cartoons were just for children.
“The whole Disney machine catered to families, and it was
at the forefront of animation, so it became the standard,”
Mercer said.
In recent years, Pixar’s blockbusters have become the new
standard for family entertainment, but Mercer hopes the studio will
widen its target demographic.
“Pixar is for everyone right now. So it’s not about
expanding its audience, but picking certain projects that serve a
slice of that audience,” Mercer said. “(The studio) is
so caring about its storytelling that if it wanted to do more adult
stories, I know it would be a great quality film.”
Animated films for more mature audiences have slowly been
filtering into American cinema.
Richard Linklater’s sci-fi thriller “A Scanner
Darkly,” starring Keanu Reeves, used rotoscoping, a technique
in which animators outline each film frame using a computer, and
backgrounds are later put in digitally.
Starting in 2003, Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill
Bill” movies featured scenes in the style of Japanese anime,
and the indulgent use of green screens throughout last year’s
“Sin City” allowed animators to create the film’s
highly stylized backgrounds and visual effects.
As the newest technical director and layout artist at Pixar,
Silas plans to use state-of-the-art computer graphics technologies
to expand the possibilities of his own filmmaking career.
“The stories that I wanted to tell were bigger than the
ones I could draw,” Silas said. “Animation is creating
things that simply cannot be done through live action.”
According to Silas, even films such as the recent “My
Super Ex-Girlfriend” may be considered animated films due to
their extensive use of visual effects.
However, some animators believe that overuse of animation in
current films is dangerous.
“It’s like having a powerful tank: It serves a great
purpose but sometimes it can just be too powerful to do the
job,” said James Suhr, an animation graduate student.
“Don’t send in a tank to kill a fly. It’s OK if
the animation is a silent partner that goes
unrecognized.”
Many films undetectably use animation to digitally retouch
backgrounds or create detailed, large-scale sequences for war
battles or landscapes.
“It’s rare that films don’t use animation or
some form of special effects,” Mercer said. “The line
is blurred now.”
While working at Pixar, Silas will also be working on his
live-action thesis film, “Jordan Valley.”
The two forms of filmmaking, he said, are equally rewarding.
“Animation and live action are two fantastic mediums, but
the same principles ultimately apply to both,” Silas said.
“It all boils down to visual storytelling.”