CGI is animation

The argument

The case for including animated films rests, on this view, on the claim that the line between animation and live action has already dissolved in practice. Wholly animated films do not differ much from live-action movies that incorporate computer-generated imagery, and the two have a great deal in common when it comes to planning out how sequences are going to be filmed and rendered. Both begin with sequences that exist as designs before they exist as images, both require those sequences to be composed shot by shot in advance because nothing can simply be pointed at and photographed, and both arrive at the finished frame through rendering rather than through exposure. Proponents press the point further by observing what kind of animation CGI actually is. It most closely resembles 3D animation, the same technique behind Best Picture nominees such as Toy Story 3 and Up, and the artistic techniques involved in creating 3D animation and CGI are not far apart from one another. The same craft of modelling, lighting and rendering is at work whichever sort of film a given shot belongs to; what changes is only how much of the finished picture was made that way. That last observation is what carries the argument. If the Academy already admits films whose images are substantially animated, on the ground that the animation sits alongside photographed performers rather than replacing them, then the criterion being applied cannot really be that a Best Picture contender must be photographed rather than animated. What remains is a distinction of proportion, and proponents hold that a proportion is too arbitrary a thing on which to found a whole category exclusion, particularly when the artistic labour on either side of the line is the same labour. On this reasoning, if films that use CGI are allowed to be considered for Best Picture, wholly animated films should be considered too.

Premises

Counter-arguments

While CGI is used in many live action films, most of these films are not overly-reliant on this aspect of the creative process. CGI is supplementary to the live action aspect of these films. This becomes even more apparent when practical effects are used in conjunction with CGI. For example, filming a stuntman performing a stunt wearing a harness and cables and later removing the harness and cables electronically. While this isn't wholly live-action, it also wouldn't be considered animation.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] While similar to animation, the fact that CGI must be incorporated into a live-action setting makes it entirely different from animation.