movies/tv Why're most animated movies under 1hr 30m long

[TheMarkz0ne 962]

I am watching Superman/Batman Apocalypse right now. It's exactly 1hr 12m like EG. I just want to ask why these movies have to be so short. It feels more like a special than an actual movie 

[Yamato 1,348]

Just think about how long it takes to make an animation. No one really wants to animate a 2 hour movie if it doesn't really need to be 2 hour long.

[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 777]

My intuition is budget, you can only have so much if it going towards the story and the animation crew. Now that I think about it, I haven't really watched a two parter 'movie' from a series in a long time (exception being FiM.) While I did enjoy watching a 'movie' from past series, I never found the story strong enough to really keep my attention. 

Edited May 20, 2013 by Accellerant

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

Most movies period are under that. If a movie reaches two full hours it's considered to be getting long, and two-and-a-half to three hours is considered "holy shit, I have to site in this theater for that long?"

[Bright Honor 2,679]

Most likely budget constraints and such. DC animated films tend to have top-notch animation, which is probably expensive.

[Love*Potion 575]

IT COSTS A LOT OF MONEY

 

IT COSTS A LOT OF TIME

IT COSTS A LOT OF EFFORT

 

Animation is a tough business, especially since we (or at least i do) live in a country where animation is generally looked down upon as a more "childlike" medium of film.  It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, as well as a team of people who work and animate well together. Now it's obviously similar with a live-action movie as well, but the actual filming process takes a few months. Most of the time is spent in pre/post production, when everything is planned and/or finalized to perfection. Plus action movies have big-name actors and get the big-bucks to produce.

 

Okay I'm done 

[TheMarkz0ne 962]

Yeah but what budget? I mean they use Adobe Flash at it's fullest to animate FIS. I know they need to pay their staff, but that should be abot it

[Zygen 6,066]

It probably costs a good bit of money to animate and have staff do all the work and stuff.

 

Plus it takes time I'm sure aswell to animate all the stuff for the movies.

 

I guess partly it might be because someone set the benchmark and well everything started being around that long, maybe its because some study was done and they found out that movies longer then 1 1/2 hours had less sales or something idk. 

 

Plus if it doesn't need to be long it doesn't really need to be long, being lone for the sake of being long is kinda pointless.

[Orablanco Account 3,707]

Yeah but what budget? I mean they use Adobe Flash at it's fullest to animate FIS. I know they need to pay their staff, but that should be abot it

 

Adobe Flash isn't the only program they use. There's actually a lot of programs that they utilize that are custom made for the show's production (as with any other animated show), and while I'm not sure on the specifics on any of this, there's alot of input to put together.

 

You also have to pay money to run all of this and to render the final product. A really high quality flash animation that only lasts a few minutes can take days or weeks, and each of these episodes are 22 minutes each.

[Pinkazoid 3,493]

Besides the time it takes, all the time to make a movie would further interfere with the animation of the show itself, i rather have a 1 hour and 15 minute movie than waiting a year or more for the next season.

[~Lawful Jordo~ 2,066]

Have you ever animated before? 

 

It takes forever, and on top of that it's expensive.

 

Cheaper animated movies tend to be short because it cost a ton of money to animate.

[Twiliscael 3,960]

Money, effort, time, etc. You know how long it can make for a sequel to come out, and that time would only be extended even further by trying to be much longer. Another major reason is viewer attention span. Do you think that everyone will be able to sit through a moovie longer than that without getting antsy and uncomfortable? By the end of a simple hour and a half long movie, I just want to get my ass out of that theater. Imagine how younger kids (of whom the movie is probably mainly directed at) would feel about that.

[Sploich 5]

Most animated films are made for a child audience and it is believed that children have a short attention span. It does explain why Pixar's longer films don't do quite as well as DreamWorks' shorter ones at the box office.

[Flow 1,629]

Pretty much every professionally made animated movie took a year or two to make regardless of type, from planning to animating to voicing the characters. 

 

It's expensive and exhausting to make, and they use much more programs than what you think.

[Scootaloo Is Best Filly 578]

I am sure it is really hard and cost effective to make movies. Plus I think it has to do with kids having short attention spans. I would rather have a movie that's short and have me begging for more. Then a movie that drags on and on and wished it would end sooner. Leaving the audience begging for more not begging for less.

[Hansel 1,512]

Just think about how long it takes to make an animation. No one really wants to animate a 2 hour movie if it doesn't really need to be 2 hour long.

Unless it's Akria. That was more like. "Hey, I know I can tell my story in less then an hour and half, but why not two hours?"

 

 

 

 

Anyway, there's several reasons why many animated films are fairly short in comparison to live action films, many of which have already been said. (Although, I would like to point out that there are many animated films which are very long as well.)

 

Here's something that my lecturer kept pounding into our heads whilst I was at uni (Well, I still am, but I finish in a few weeks);

"Cut it. Cut out anything that isn't a hundred percent necessary. Does the audience need to see this scene? Does the story work without it? If the answer is yes, then get rid of it."

 

Extra scenes is extra time and stress. Extra time and stress is a lot of extra money.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Hansel

[ErBoi 501]

Yeah but what budget? I mean they use Adobe Flash at it's fullest to animate FIS. I know they need to pay their staff, but that should be abot it

Well, you have teams of writers, storyboard artists, designers, background artists, background clean-up artists, builders, posers, and animators to worry about; plus revisions going on in each of those groups.  So a lot of people doing a lot of work.

Even so, a lot of modern day "live-action" movies end up to the point where you could almost call them animated movies due to the amount of CG used.

An hour and a half used to be pretty standard for movies in general, live-action or otherwise.  I'm not well-versed in exactly when movies started getting so much longer but it did seem like it was around the time Lord of the Rings became a hit that filmmakers decided it was OK to make movies almost twice as long (or longer in several cases).

Anyway, an hour or so is typically plenty of time to tell a good story.

[Hansel 1,512]

Even so, a lot of modern day "live-action" movies end up to the point where you could almost call them animated movies due to the amount of CG used.

 

This.

 

It amazes how many movies that are considered "live action" are actually almost completely animated. Fun fact: Around 95% of The Phantom Menace was animated, if I remember correctly. And that was back in 1999...  

Avatar (The Blue smurfy cat people one) may as well have been sold as an animated film, but I guess it wouldn't have done as well in the box office if it had.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Hansel

[Bucky McGillyCuddy 956]

Animation really is a time consuming job. The Big studios like Dreamworks, Pixar and Blue Sky can take just as long to create a 90 minute as it does a live action film and even longer in most cases. Finding Nemo was in development with Pixar for about 8 years if i remember correctly.

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

This.

 

It amazes how many movies that are considered "live action" are actually almost completely animated. Fun fact: Around 95% of The Phantom Menace was animated, if I remember correctly. And that was back in 1999...  

Avatar (The Blue smurfy cat people one) may as well have been sold as an animated film, but I guess it wouldn't have done as well in the box office if it had.

Who could have guessed that these amazing leg animations on these totally real-looking dinosaur thingamajigs that look like they were made into an army with the power of copy and paste was actually CG?

 

(Answer: Everybody)

 

Edited May 23, 2013 by Harmonic Revelations

[Umbral Noir 1,556]

Animation takes a lot of time to make, because even the shortest amount of footage takes a long time to make! Take Wallace and Gromit, for example, it takes Aardman a whole day just to make 5 seconds of footage!

[mycarhasaMoustache 449]

Because Animated movies usually have a much smaller budget then Live action movies and take a very long time to animate and edit and sync up audio.