Charlotte and Wilbur

I have mixed feelings about using digital animals in films. 

First of all, historically animals have suffered a great deal in film-making. But animal training has become so much better in recent days. Animals have the choice whether or not they want to do something, instead of being beaten into it. Which also makes it harder to film. Photographers have to wait until the animal decides to follow directions.

Digital animals can do things that normal animals can't. And you don't need to worry about mistreatment. But so far, I've only seen one movie where I couldn't tell that the animal was fake (unless viewed from a certain angle). 

And nothing can top a real-live animal. So much of our lives are artificial now that it's important to have something real. Even if you're only seeing it on a screen.

 Anyway, this is all stuff I've discussed before. I don't see many real animals in film anymore. But I just watched the bonus features of Charlotte's Web. The live-action one (although the cartoon has fabulous songs). 

Almost all of the animals were real in the newer version. The filmmakers spent countless hours filming pigs and cows and sheep, and picking out the right motions to match the dialogue. They added mouth movements to make the animals talk, and there are a few digital additions. Like a pig doing a back flip. Templeton and Charlotte are entirely digital. Although they merge them into scenes with real animals. Like Templeton pushing a gosling out of the way. 

(Even The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe includes real animals, like wolves, even though it's very solidly in a fantasy world).

I was excited to find how much this film focused on real animals - in a way that was respectful to the animals themselves. It took a lot of work. Probably more work than it would have taken to make computer animals. An computers are taking over jobs everywhere else. What about the people that train animals? My cat loves to do tricks. She comes up and demands to do tricks every night (in return for treats). People that do humane work with animals shouldn't be put out of business. Again, we need real animals. Not just computer ones.