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Barbara Robertson: Computer Animation/Visual Effects Jury Member

You are mainly writing on special effects in film. Compter animated films seem to be perfect now. Where is there still room for further developments?

Robertson: They are wonderful, aren't they? But if you look at the evolution of these films, you'll notice that each film is more visually complex than the last and yet the filmmakers are far from being able to simulate reality. (Not that they always want to, but as Alvy Ray Smith used to say in so many words, reality is a convenient measure of complexity.) So, yes, there is much room for further developments in the kinds of images that can be created and in the ease of creating them. The technology and artistry will continue to develop until it's possible to create an entire 'live action' film digitally and it will be impossible to tell whether anything (or anyone) was shot through the camera or not. Of course, if you can do that you can also create surreal, unreal, and hyper real images, too.

Where has the art in all these films gone? What role plays the software. Is software making 'art'?

Robertson: I don't think the art has gone anywhere. I think that some films are created to be commercial successes and some films are created to be artistic successes. Occasionally, wonderfully, the two manage to exist in the same film, but usually one goal or the other takes priority. I don't think that's changed much since filmmaking first became commercially viable.

I think the software makes it possible for artists to add complexity if they choose to do that. No, the software doesn't make art. Artists make art. (The artist might be a programmer, however.)

If you consider the 3D animated films that were released recently, you can see that already in this new medium there are several artistic styles -- from the cartoony Jimmy Neutron to the hyperreal Final Fantasy. Ice Age looks different than Shrek, which is different from Monsters, Inc. And the new film Spirit from DreamWorks is a blend of 2D and 3D graphics.

You have been on the Computer Animation/Visual Effects Jury of Prix Ars Electronica since 1998. In the meantime the category has be re-formulated two times: in 1999 the category has been split in 'computer animation' and 'visual effects'. The current blurring of the lines between these two disciplines has led to the re-unification last year. What do you think about this ambivalent situation? Rick Sayre has written in his Jury Statement that 'the jury is considering them together as part of something we don't know how to label. 'Computer Film' and 'Digital Film' are reference to a dying media. 'Computer-Potentiated Linear-Time Visual Media' ' would be more correct, but rather unpleasant. What do you think about these blurring lines?

Robertson: Hmmm. CPLTVM is definitely a mouthful and I agree that it's difficult to come up with labels - especially for Prix Ars where we consider only the digital effects part of visual effects. I don't think that people who work in effects studios think they're creating a computer animated film when they add effects to a movie - at least not yet. But the edges of the two worlds are, as Rick says, getting quite blurred. You could think of Final Fantasy as blurring the line between visual effects and computer animation. And when you look at StarWars Episode II this year, you might wonder how much of it was created with the help of computer graphics and how much was filmed through a camera. I think that for the most part right now, though, in commercial films visual effects are still created to blend with and serve images that were filmed through a camera. Computer animation, on the other hand, creates and lives in its own world. Does it matter? Can you compare the invisible digital effects in Pearl Harbor to the animation in Monsters, Inc.? Yes, I think so, each within its own medium, for its own intent.

Apart from that question, I'm finding that the blend of 2D animation, 3D animation and live action into one digital, um, linear-time visual media, is starting to result in some interesting artistic styles. And with everyone is talking pushing toward 'digital cinema,' who knows what happens next?

Of course, that's just in the linear-time world. there's also much happening with 'film' in the interactive worlds as well. I think that when we can't easily put things into little boxes, can't easily label them, it's a sign that something creative is happening

Which criteria must fulfill a work worth of the Golden Nica in your eyes?

Robertson: First, it must rise above other entries in its class in some way, perhaps in many ways to come close. And then to rise above all the rest, it must have something unique to offer, something that goes beyond the expected.

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