the whole world

Necklace (shop!): Sheinside
Sweater: LOFT, Skirt: Ruche

Do you remember that rather fabulous teaser trailer for The Boxtrolls that gave an inside peek at the making of stop-motion animation? 

That's the first thing I thought of when I got this globe necklace from Sheinside, (And also, that it's adorable and only $6!). 

I remember seeing that trailer for the first time and being absolutely fascinated and awestruck by the intricacies of such an endeavor. Even after seeing (and loving) the strange, charming, dark, stunning, steampunk, oddball movie in all its glory I couldn't wrap my mind around the hundreds of hands and hours it must have taken to create such a masterpiece. 

I grew up watching claymation Christmas movies and adoring hand-drawn animated movies and videogames. There is something really overwhelming about envisioning the actual artists behind those stories. Especially because of the advancements that have been made in filmmaking and animation, and the overall modern preference for digital artistry. I'm not saying that CGI isn't art, but I am saying I would rather have seen a hand-drawn Frozen. 

I know it's not realistic to demand hand-drawn everything, because the creation of digital animation is rather wondrous. There's no denying it. It saves a lot of times and produces much more detailed results, I'm sure. And it still requires artists. And in reality it would probably take 20 years to develop a hand-drawn movie at the artistic level of these concept images. 

Even so, I think people have come to the erroneous conclusion that people don't like 2D movies anymore simply because they aren't made as often. Princess and The Frog, Disney's last hand-drawn animation, didn't do as well as Tangled, so that must mean people are just done with hand-drawn things. Horrible flawed logic. No, no. 

I think there are a few reasons why Tangled performed better at the box office, and I'm very sure the reasons are things like Zachary Levi. And better music, and a valiant horse named Maximus. 

There are still plenty of artists out there who are loyal to the olden days though, and who long to revive, restore and relive them. People like Tim Schafer who crusade to keep classic adventure games alive.

They create these marvelous stories for us to be a part of, and they quite literally have the whole world in their hands. 

So, there's hope, and that's all I need.