Movies - TV
The Clever Animation Trick That Set Futurama Apart From The Simpsons
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
"The Simpsons" and "Futurama" both have iconic animation. However, "Futurama" uses a unique style that distinguishes its animation from the classic animation of "The Simpsons."
For a long time, "The Simpsons" used the old-fashioned, hand-drawn, ink-and-paint style of cel animation. It was long held up as the last bastion of high-quality TV cel animation.
"Futurama" had more varied techniques, rendering images in CGI that were colored and textured to look like a 2D drawing, once called 2½-D. The characters were still hand-drawn.
The hybridity made "Futurama" distinct. Producer Claudia Katz said, "We really had to deliver on the sci-fi elements and the only way to do that was with a 2D-3D hybrid animation."
Peter Avanzino, head of Rough Draft Studios, said the original "Futurama" mandate was to use CGI for spacecraft only, but it was dropped and CGI was approved for much more.
Avanzino explained, "By [episode 2], we had this big reaper machine come in and actually pick Bender up. [...] We were constantly figuring out what else we could do with it."
"The Simpsons" eventually used digital techniques, but the unique, smooth 2½-D animation was reserved for "Futurama," and it became the show’s central aesthetic.
Avanzino said about using CGI, "There's a small section of things that it helps with but it's bigger than you think, and I really like how we've expanded what we can use it for."