Why do older animated shows from the 80s/90s look darker in color than shows today?
In: 26
There are several reasons.
Back then animated movies and shows were made by drawing directly onto paper and see through cells (basically like clear plastic sheets) this usually included the colors. Today even in the rare “hand drawn” cartoons that still exist, the color is usually done by computer.
The cells were usually the parts that would move or change the most, which is why if you ever noticed in those cartoons, you call always tell the part that is going to move, because the color looks a little different, and smoother.
So with that understanding here are some reasons.
1. Cells don’t hold color as well as paper. Everything drawn on them looks a little dulled.
2. The clear part of cells stacked on paper dims the color of the paper below it slightly because there something inbetween.
3. Pigments (paint, markers, inks, dyes, crayons) are not perfect and are duller/dimmer than a computer generated image on a computer screen.
4. Pictures of pictures are never as vibrant and bright as the original pictures themselves. This is a little less true today as filters can boost colors of pictures afterwards, but this wasn’t done back then.
4. Video tape used at the time, especially the cheaper video used for animation for broadcast TV has far less contrast and color range than newer cameras, and even those have far less than something made directly on the computer. TVs themselves could not show nearly as much color as today tvs so there wasn’t really as much point in trying to go for anything fancier unless it was for a Disney quality feature film.
5. Batman TAS and several shows that followed it broke the mold of animation of the era by drawing on black paper instead of white. This gave it a far darker and grittier look that was copied by a lot of animation that came after it.
Latest Answers