FIVE GREAT SECONDS
Hunchbacks, Miracles and Monstrosities
There's a shot in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame1, during "Out There,"2 where Quasimodo3 scoops a handful of water running out of the mouth of a gargoyle high atop the cathedral.
As he does, the water catches the sunlight and creates a (hand-drawn? mix of traditional-and-VFX?) lens flare - first with a few bokeh circles, then with larger halation rings as Quasi splashes the water, impacting the reflection.
Nowadays, who would care? An effect like this is table stakes in the ever-accelerating race toward realism in animation, and in 2025, it would presumably be executed by an intricate subroutine of code laboriously developed by industry-leading minds.
But in 1996? STRIKING.
Thirty years ago, working at a video store, I used to stop and stare at this FX shot to try and figure out each step of its execution (we were nearly a solid decade before I could just pull screencaps off YouTube like the ones above).
And I'll never forget: this one sourpuss store regular made a point to sniff and sneer over how not-a-big-deal this captivating (to me) effect was, and how he could “do the same thing for 50¢.” (His words, not mine; at that time I intuited what my career would later confirm: animation costs.)
I doubt that he could - the early-internet world was full of Your Friend's Big Brother types who "saw through the bullshit" and knew how to do everything, a solid decade before digital tools and devices democratized all of it - but more critically, he wasn't the person who had either executed the effect in the movie, or had set the challenge of its inclusion.
To him, the lens flare was just an effect; to me, it was a visual symbol of ingenuity, of pushing technical boundaries, of marrying updated thinking with classical technique to deliver cinematic impact, likely debated, practiced and perfected by top-of-the-line professionals.
I was admiring work and the people who made it; he was critiquing output.
And that's just the philosophical aspect - in context, it's a surprising spritz of added value that helps propel an already-stirring musical number toward a literally towering crescendo.
Philosophy and art and theater and music, married in a split-second, and you'd never notice its absence, but you sure as shit can feel something from its inclusion.
I worked in animation for a while, where I supported the people creating moments of ingenuity like this daily, knowing I didn't have the mindset or skills to execute them myself; I know from experience that it's unlikely I would have been the one to think of including the lens flare in "Hunchback," much less have the artistic skill to execute it, but knowing my limitations allows me to push against them and set a course to achieve what I think I can't currently do.
TL;DR: even beyond its blatant theft, ecological impact and rapacious amorality, this new trend of Miyazaki A.I. slop will never stir, or move, or provoke thought, or surprise, or spark philosophical engagement.4
Every A.I. evangelist or experimenter I’ve engaged with seems to boil their excitement down to the same elliptical argument:
Them: Look what this GPT can make!
Me: What is it, though?
Them: It’s … what this can make!
I’ve spoken before about the satisfaction of creation of something from nothing, and I get that it’s a feeling that can accompany an achievement of almost any size - the amount of time I’ve spent revisiting a half-ass song demo or hastily-designed t-shirt of mine is an unseemly ego trip, I admit it.
But I’m sorry: feeding prompts into a plagiarism engine to create nothing of substance or meaning doesn’t meet the criteria of creation.
It isn’t art. It’s output. It’s the real 50¢ trick5. If you think that's good enough, I don’t really know what to tell you, except that I genuinely feel bad for your standards, and your unwillingness to push beyond them.
Dir: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise; W: Tab Murphy, Irene Mecchi, Bob Tzudiker, Noni White & Jonathan Roberts, based on Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo; Visual Effects Supervisor: Christpher Jenkins; Walt Disney Studios, 1996.
Music by Alan Menken, Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Designer/Supervising Animator: James Baxter; Voice: Tom Hulce
Beyond debating whether it should exist, a standard to which it barely rises to begin with
If you don’t count the expenditure of resources.


