Paperman

 

Paperman is an oscar nominated animation by John Kahrs which combines all that is technically and visually awesome about CGI with the sublime and often splendid subtitles of traditional hand-drawn 2D animations. The result is beautiful. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTLySbGoMX0&feature=player_embedded

The reason that it is making such a splash is that the artists working on the seven-minute film developed new technology which combines computer-generated art with hand-drawn, but paperless 2D animation (the drawings were made on digital tablets). John Kahr believes that the combination of the two really adds something:

“There’s a lot of soul in the eyes of our characters and that’s because of the decisions that the artist(s) made. The eyes are really only black discs, but they’re drawn so carefully and cleverly that the characters look alive. You’re drawn to them. And I think that’s the difference. As much as I love computer animation, I still feel there’s a place for the hand of the artist.”

The rest of his interview with AICD can be seen here:

http://www.aicad.org/john-kahrs-animator/