Animation’s tech tradition

Computer-generated imagery dominates the current animation universe, driving the critical and commercial success of features such as DreamWorks’ “Shrek” comedies and the Disney/Pixar Oscar-winners “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles,” but even in the pre-CGI age, technology always played a major role in animation’s development.

“Animation and technology have gone hand in hand,” says veteran animator Eric Goldberg, who created the big blue Genie of Disney’s 1992 hit “Aladdin.” “A lot of people were inventors in the early days of animation. Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope -- a device that allows you to trace frame for frame a live-action movie film -- and patented it. Walt Disney and his crew created the multi-plane camera to give depth to animation.”

Goldberg will be one of several animators participating in “The Animated Performance: Art Meets Technology,” Friday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Presented by the academy’s Science and Technology Council, the evening will feature discussions on the evolution of animation and how technology has affected the craft. Oscar-nominated animator Bill Kroyer will host a dialogue on technological tools of 2-D and 3-D animation. There will also be clips of both well-known and obscure character animation.

Among the special guests are Academy Award-winners Brad Bird of “The Incredibles” and Jan Pinkava (“Geri’s Game”) and fellow animators Tom Sito, and Richie Baneham and Steve Hornby, the team that animated Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

The evening will also include a discussion of 2-D and 3-D animation, a panel of animators taking questions and talking about their experiences, says Tad Marburg, chairman of public programs for the Science and Technology Council. Goldberg, who still draws in traditional 2-D animation, has long embraced the computer in his work. “There were two big revolutions in animation,” he says. “One was the ability to have instant pencil tests,” he says, referring to the initial drawings in pencil of characters and scenes.

“Videotaped pencil tests came in the late ‘70s, so for the first time, animators could actually shoot their tests and see them instantly. Otherwise, they would have to have them shot on film, sent off to the lab and then see them the next day or two days after. This device gave us the opportunity to see it instantly and make corrections instantly.”

Now, he adds, those systems have been upgraded to computer systems that allow animators to record tests on their own hard drives. “There are 2-D systems available for home use so you can make an entire film in your own house.”

Technology such as CAPS, the Computer Assisted Paint System, has helped create high-quality feature animation work on several Disney animated films, such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.”

The system, created for Disney with the help of Pixar, was one of the first computer paint programs to do high-quality feature animations work, says Goldberg. “So you got all the new generation of Disney movies with this unbelievable high production value.”

Goldberg says that Walt Disney would have been delighted with CAPS’ ability to shoot and handle effects in multiple planes. In the old days, “when you were shooting a scene on the multi-plane camera, if you blew a frame that was it. You would have to start back at the beginning and re-shoot, but if you have a frame stored in the computer you just replace the frame.”

As much as he has relied on the computer, Goldberg has no plans to abandon 2-D animation and insists that hand-drawn animation -- although out of favor at studios -- will never replace 2-D. “I have done an awful lot of work in the past few years, almost all traditionally hand drawn,” he says, who adds that he isn’t turning his nose up at CG animation.

“I haven’t stopped animating or stopped drawing. If anyone says the medium is dead, all they have to do is look at the papers all over my studio,” he says. “There is a very passionate group of people who are not going to let the medium die.”

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‘The Animated Performance: Art Meets Technology’

Where: Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Price: $3 to $5

Contact: (310) 247-3600 or go to www.oscars.org.