Handmade
Written by: Amy Li
From Budapest Reporter
When gifting, we are often told, “Maybe you can make something by hand.”
After all, making and doing things by hand is one of the most obvious demonstrations of effort, diligence, and patience, and the products of such work, although maybe imperfect, will show whoever is on the receiving end that you care.
This level of work, unfortunately, has been becoming more and more uncommon as we enter the age of computers, technology, and fast-paced lifestyles. Instead of, say, sewing a bag, we conveniently go to the store to buy one. In the end, we lose not only the personalization of such things but also their meaningfulness.
One of the most prominent examples of this transition can be found in the world of animated movies. Many people have grown up watching classic Disney movies from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Although there are admittedly mistakes, such as slightly different colors and sometimes slightly inconsistent shapes, in the big picture, the magic in these movies was never short, capturing the imagination. Yet, it is easy to forget that these movies were carefully planned, meticulously animated, and painstakingly painted, all by hand. It is no wonder, then, that these childhood movies have such a personal feel to them.
Disney’s method of almost literally hand-making their movies has largely continued all the way, except for a few exceptions, to The Princess and the Frog, which could be regarded as Disney’s final hand-animated movie (The Princess and the Frog was followed by Tangled, which was computer-animated).
It would be unfair to say that CGI (computer-generated images) has not played a key role in the development of the movie industry, nor that it has not had its share of positives. It has made animating movies quicker and cheaper, shapes and colors more consistent, and more ease in putting ideas down onto, well, a computer. CGI has allowed filmmakers to expand into movie genres and plots that had been untested and unimagined before, such as in Jurassic Park, where some of the dinosaurs had been brought to life thanks to a computer, or, being more Disney-related, having Rapunzel’s hair being the length it is.
Computer-animation has also allowed movies to become longer. From Lady and the Tramp’s seventy-six-minute-long feature to Moana’s one hour and forty-seven minute run time, computer-animated movies have become significantly longer thanks to the less time-consuming process.
But at the expense of how much quicker and more convenient movies have become, these movies have also lost the nostalgic, personal charm of the simplicity and innocence of the films from the hand-drawn years.
It seems impossible to completely detach from the world of technology nowadays, and technology has played its part in making our lives simpler and easier. From simply searching up something rather than going to a library, to mass-producing goods instead of having to make them oneself, a lot of responsibilities and chores that we might have to do before are not given much thought at all.
But it is important to not forget how meaningful something can be if it was put together by hand because of all the thought and time and work that had gone into it.
The charming simplicity of something handmade will never fade away.
