Tuesdays, ANIMATED INSIGHTS BY SHANNON MUIR takes you inside Shannon’s latest reflections on writing, animation, and life in general. To catch up on all posts, check out the Animated Insights portion of the website! This installment shares her thoughts about animation and the consumer products tie-in.
As the holiday season approaches, you may be finding yourself in the toy, housewares or clothing aisles of a store. There’s no denying that in any of these places – and probably others as well – images of characters from animated films and television abound. In many cases, the consumer products aspect is tied to the continued ability for the show to be produced as budgets rise; in a film’s case, it may even be factored into part of how it is hoped to reap back production cost, particularly from smaller studios.
Some may say that the animation exist simply to sell the consumer products. Frankly, I’ve heard those arguments since my own childhood. While possibly true in some cases, I’d say that more often than not people do care about the story and the animation in its own right and consumer products is a necessity to be able to create what people want to see. However, I’ll also agree it does present quite a dilemma.
I just don’t personally like hearing comments that all animation is bad simply because product is involved. See the shades of color; it’s not all black-and-white.
Until next week!