Of course, though, 2D still faces the obstacle of a pencil which can only be made so sharp — it’s not the 2Dness that restricts it but a technical limitation of its primary tool. It can’t, as Barnes points out, show a slight shift of an eyebrow the way Landreth or even Pixar in Geri’s Game could.

“I see 2D, not so much as dying as going through a fallow period,” says Barnes, “There may be a period of quietness while everyone is rushing after CG-3D but then there would be a point of readiness in the marketplace for re-exploring all the possibilities. In that time, 2D would not just be pencil and paper. In the next few years, I foresee all sorts of interfaces and my thought is that 2D could be saved by the very CG technology which is replacing it now.”

“It would still be truly 2D but with styluses on tablets and perhaps digital paper that could still be flipped. And if 2D previously couldn’t get subtleties in an eyebrow expression, now we could zoom in on the drawing, make a subtle move and then zoom back out again. So now, all of a sudden, you’d be drawing with that sharper pencil.”

Shrek got stuck sitting on the fence — sort of cartoon, sort of realistic, but not quite enough of either. Courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.

And then you could choose 2D or CG-3D, each for its own best properties, depending on the project.

“Or it will be a melding of the best of both,” says Barnes, “Capitalizing on the strengths of each.”

So maybe the most interesting future scenario for animation lies in the willingness to consider the possibility of new contexts that allow new reference points. We still may be dealing with apples and oranges but what happens if we do a little slice and dice? Fruit salad would be a pretty tasty outcome, one that could mean more creative possibilities for everyone.

Well, this has been quite an unexpected ride. What started, in my mind anyway, as a single article on realism in animation just kept growing, with each article opening new facets of a subject well worth exploring. Next time, though, we’ll likely come at the idea of making things real from a distinctly different angle. See you then.

Ellen Besen studied animation at Sheridan in the early 1970s. Since then she has directed award-winning films both independently and for the NFB, worked as a film programmer and journalist, taught storytelling and animation filmmaking at Sheridan and given story workshops at many institutions and festivals, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She is the director of The Zachary Schwartz Institute for Animation Filmmaking, an online school that specializes in storytelling and writing for animation.