There’s nothing quite like sitting down at a couch, turning on Netflix (or any other streaming service, of which there are many), and binge-watching your favorite shows new season. During the pandemic, while you may not have control of anything else, you’ll (almost) always have control of the remote to choose which universe you want to dive into. Life is good. That is until you see the dreaded news: Season 3 of Insert Random TV Show Here has been delayed another 2 weeks. With more and more live-action films being delayed because of COVID, and people spending more time at home, one solution seems likely in the future. The rise of animation. 

When you think of animation you might go to movies and shows like Scooby-Doo, Shrek, The Incredibles, or Ice Age. You probably wouldn’t consider The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, and so many others as “animated”. And that’s exactly the point. VFX is in almost every movie in recent memory, from completely digital backgrounds and scenery to entire characters like Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. The total value of the Global Animation, VFX & Video Games industry was worth 264 billion dollars back in 2019 (according to Businesswire), which is quite a bit. But keep in mind, that statistic is from 2019 before COVID happened. If everyone in the entertainment industry has had to change things around, statistics like that will most likely change. ILM, a visual effects company under Disney, has 5 locations across the world making them more prepared than say, WFS, because they have been working remotely since before COVID. According to Kenji Endo, a professional animator at BlueSky Studios said “… the biggest workflow challenge is, besides just getting everyone remote access to the studio which was a big scramble to ship the remote access machines and make sure everyone had a fast connection and everything. But the other challenges are reviews, and I think that’s the case for a lot of other studios too.” Considering the biggest problem during COVID was the transition, one would think that ILM is doing fairly well since the restrictions started. Plus, animation is one of the few things in visual entertainment that can be done remotely, with teams all across the world working together to create one product. As Kenji said, “We were really lucky in the entertainment industry that animation was something that was can be successfully done remotely.” Compare this to live-action filming on-site, where you need cameramen, lighting, and for crowd shots (a camera shot or pan of a crowd) which is virtually impossible now, even though it’s used all the time. I asked two students at WFS (Collier Zug, ’24, and Katie Bryant, ’24) their thoughts on movie production during COVID, and they both said the main priority is making sure everyone is safe. Katie posed an interesting point about high-risk people. “If there are high-risk people in the film (old people) then I think it’s probably a bad idea. Maybe for some specific movies it would be okay, but it’s risky.” While Collier said he was “Totally open” to having more VFX in his live actions films if it makes things safer. Tim Webber, a chief creative officer at Framestore said in an interview with The Guardian, “I’m definitely having conversations where people are looking at which films are easier to make if restrictions continue, or if the virus comes back again later. People are looking at bringing out films that have a greater computer-generated component so productions can keep being developed [if filming stops].”

All in all, it seems as if animation (specifically VFX) is posed to do well during these uncertain times making sure people get the entertainment they need, with putting minimal risk on the people making it.