To anyone who knows the enchantment of animation, many of the people in this new documentary are superheroes. Among the generous abundance of studio clips and nearly a dozen on-camera interviews, all have something of value to add: animation artists, historians, and celebrities, including Mulan’s Ming-Na Wen, who narrates.

But in chronicling the saga of hand-drawn/traditional/2-D animation and computer-generated graphics, the impact is most keenly expressed through those who lived through it. There is no shortage of conjecture and conflict online that compare the two techniques. This film offers artists who were on the beach when the various waves hit. They experienced successes, setbacks, and endless rhetoric about why the change was happening.

It is enormously fascinating as the interviewees share their thought processes as they experienced moments of awe, panic, elation, suspicion, triumph, and life alteration. Is this the future? Yes. Is hand-drawn really dead? No. Are there lots of things going on behind the scenes? Duh! Everyone on camera shares a passion for the art form, no matter what shape it took or did not take.

Pencils vs. Pixels is ultimately a story of the value of balance and coexistence, with individuals and techniques. There will always be claims that something is going away, replaceable, out of date, up to date, and so on. No one truly possesses such prescience. Time makes the true decision. Change and progress are inevitable, but not necessarily at the expense of what came before. The mistake is losing sight of what makes any form of entertainment successful in the first place.

Presenting a subject understandably and compellingly for viewers of varying levels of historical and technical knowledge is a challenge. Even though the title is Pencils vs. Pixels, the film makes its points in a brisk, effective manner, without pounding in any particular adherence to one point of view. That’s a lot of tightrope walking. It takes real heroes.

Pencils vs. Pixels will be available to purchase on digital platforms (Google Play, Apple etc.) starting Tuesday November 7th.

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Greg Ehrbar

Greg Ehrbar is a freelance writer/producer for television, advertising, books, theme parks and stage. Greg has worked on content for such studios as Disney, Warner and Universal, with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. His numerous books include Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney (with Tim Hollis). Visit gregehrbar.com for more.

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