Monday, July 14, 2003		Feature

CGI movies? What CGI movies? The curtain rose on DreamWorks’ animated ‘Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas’ last weekend and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg wants audiences to know this latest film voyage of the sailor man has as much hi-tech wizardry as any movie he has ever made with computer generated images, or CGI. Even smash hit ‘Shrek.’

"Our technology department was burning 24/7 just to try to create the tools the artists needed to make their vision come to light. This is as state-of-the-art as it gets right now," Katzenberg said, comparing old-style animation techniques to newer CGI films. Ever since CGI movies like Disney/Pixar’s ‘Toy Story’ and DreamWorks’ ‘ANTz’ began thrilling audiences in the nineties, a debate has raged in Hollywood over whether movies made completely with computer-generated images would overtake older style animation. Experts like Katzenberg, who has become a master of both styles with credits ranging from ‘The Lion King’ to ‘Shrek,’ argue audiences will always want both because each form is unique. ‘Sinbad’ is mostly aimed at kids and faces competition from Disney/Pixar’s CGI-movie ‘Finding Nemo.’

While Hollywood argues about what the future holds for animation, whether traditional-style films will be eclipsed by CGI movies, one thing is for sure. Being deemed a good movie by audiences generally hinges on the story and not on the technology used to tell the story.