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Hand Drawing Animation Winning Critics Over

It seems that CGI (computer-generated imagery) is losing its touch. The Academy`s animation branch ignored such CGI box office heavies as `Madagascar` and `Robots` this year, favoring Hayao Miyazaki`s hand-drawn `Howl`s Moving Castle`, Nick Park and Steve Box`s clay-animated `Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit`, and Tim Burton and Mike Johnson`s stop-motion `Tim Burton`s Corpse Bride`. It seems there is a trend this year to recognize hand-made animation art.

A three-time Oscar winner for his short films, Aardman Animations director Park earned his first feature Oscar nomination with `Wallace`. `I admire a lot of the computer-animated films this year,` he said. `I found it very interesting that the Academy (didn`t) choose the more commercially successful (animated films) this year.`

The Oscar-nominated cartoons this year all share a handmade quality and distinct directorial vision, they challenge the medium, unlike this year`s computer-animated films, Kroyer said. Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, owner and CEO of animator representation firm the Gotham Group, noted that despite the dominance of computer animation in the popular imagination, computer animators are great defenders of handmade animation because they are familiar with the effort that goes into making them. On March 5th, the movie viewing public will see if the direction the animation world is what`s they can expect in years to come. The governor of the Academy`s animation branch, Bill Kroyer, said the group isn`t swayed by the popular vote at the box office. The branch is choosing the art and animation because it extends the medium from the animator`s perspective.