Examples of the Solution to the Fool's Errand

After I did the reading guide on Keith Lango's blog, The Fool's Errand, I started to think about his solution. Lango preposes animators focus on their idea and getting through it rather than copying the brand Hollywood delivers. Animators working on their own don't have anywhere near the amount of resources, people, or funds. It appears to be impossible to reach the level of detail and craftsmanship that companies like Dreamworks and Pixar work at.

Even though individuals and small studios can't compete on the level of animation that giant studios have in their hands, storytelling is the ultimate tool. Two of my favorite computer animated movies are considered to have extremely low budgets.

The first one is Hoodwinked!, from directors Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech. The story is very good and the dialogue is great. On top of that, there are awesome voices. The animation is very vague at certain points and the characters are a little funny looking but it doesn't take away from the experience. And the budget is only $15 million, half of the first Toy Story's budget. The average budget now is between $150- $200 million.

The second is my absolute favorite motion capture film. Gil Kenan's Monster House. This movie has a strange but very good story as well as some awesome concepts throughout the film. The voice acting, like in Hoodwinked!, is entertaining and the dialogue is filled with one liners. I think they actually handled the motion capture well because they didn't try to match the appearnace of real humans. Instead, they used our movements alone. This was a good business move as well because it would have been unsuccessful to make them look more realistic with their budget of $75 million. To compare the cost of this motion capture film with another, look at the Polar Express budget of $165 million. Monster House is less than half the budget of Polar Express.

For me, these two movies prove the ability to get past the obstacle of a smaller budget and make a film on par with bigger productions, story-wise. Does anyone else enjoy animated films that have a smaller budget than the heavy hitters in the film industry?