ON SEEING THE BRICK:
The author of this articles believes “that animation as a film language and film art is a more sophisticated and flexible medium than live-action film, and thus offers a greater opportunity for film-makers to be more imaginative and less conservative” (p.6). Shortly after this statement the author quotes the animator Alexandre Alexeieff, who states that, “contrary to live-action cinema, Animation draws the elements of its future works from a raw material made exclusively of human ideas, those ideas that different animators have about things, living beings and their forms, movements and meanings. They represent these ideas through images they make with their own hands. In the casual concatenation of their images – a concatenation they conceive themselves – nothing can be left to chance. For this reason, creation requires an exceedingly long time which is out of proportion to live-action cinema. But the repertoire of human ideas is inexhaustible” (p.7). And while I understand the view where this information is coming from, I am not completely sold on the idea.
The world that we live in is surrounded by human ideas, the chair I am sitting on right now is a human idea. It may not be MY idea, but how I decide to use it, where I decide to place it, etc., in a live-action film will certainly have some effect. Manipulating the world around one to share a vision via a live-action film can be very imaginative and quite provocative. I believe that placing Animation vs. Live-action film (cinema) to say which is more undisguised can prove to be a mistake, for they are different ways in which to express what the mind makes of all this called Life. I have watched many films that left me wanting to become an actress because of how real it was, because of how it speaks. The person(s) controlling the live-action film also have to take the time to create what they want their product to convey. The big difference here is the process which the two undergo, but I don’t believe that such should be the reason to say which is more imaginative. They each have their limitations, and when grading for creativity this shouldn’t be overlooked.