Production

One second of animation takes 24 drawings. The average animated feature is 80 minutes long. That would be 460, 800 total drawings to make a feature length film. To produce animated features, animators, artisits, and filmmakers must team together to work at creating a quality film. These are the jobs and tasks required to produce an animated feature:

Stylist/Backgrounds

Alice in Wonderland by Mary Blair

            A stylist is responsible for creating the look of the film. They would spend hours painting and drawing unique designs that would excite the audience or give the film a particular flavor. The most well known Disney stylist was Mary Blair, who produced concept art for Disney for most of the Silver Age of Animation.

            The concept art would become the basis of the film’s sets and background: “Pictorial scenes or establishing shots require the background to dominate the characters since the scenic picture is more important than the action. The animator must make his drawing fit the background. The preliminary sketch on the left established the color and treatment for the final painting right” (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p. 248).

Storyman/Story Sketch

Aladdin Storyboard

            A storyman is another term for storyboard artist. Since animation as well as film is a visual medium, a storyman is responsible for translating the story ideas, characters, business, continuity and relationships visually. Storyboarding allows animators a rough idea of how they want scenes to play out by drawing them and presenting them in the form of a comic strip. Sometimes they approach the idea from many angles so they can get the best representation of the story’s action.

Director

            The most notable job in any film production, a director’s is to pick the pieces being offered many different people and finding how they can fit together into a cohesive product.

Recording

            Before animation production begins, the film’s roles are casted and recorded, considering animation takes at least three years to complete. To an animation studio, finding the right performer is essential:

We learned to be very careful about choosing voice of a fine performer if it did not sound entirely natural and casual. An outstanding stage voice, or even straight voice, gave the animator very little visual help. Similarly, the phony voice or fabricated voice of the imitator proved to be a problem because it never had sincerity. In a parody or a satire the “put-on” voice works well, but it fails to convince an audience where believability is required. The straight voice will keep the character dull, and the phony voice will lose the audience. (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p. 206)

In today’s people assume voice acting is the easiest job there is. However, professional voice actors, like Billy West, will contend to that assumption. It’s not easy, it’s not like simply reading the lines and you’re done. No, you have to give a convincing performance with only your voice and not your body to help aid in emoting. Sadly animation studios keep giving voice acting parts to celebrities instead of professionals.

Assistant Director and Cutter

             An assistant director is neither an assistant nor a director. His duties involve record-keeping and ensuring technology runs smoothly. Every frame of the cartoon is controlled and perfectly in-synch with the voice track, music, and sound effects. A cutter helps keeping and marking the sound and voice synchs.

Character Model Department/Handout

Link

            It takes 24 drawings to produce one second of animation, if a studio is to produce an 80-minute film on time, a studio must assign a team of animators for each character that appears on film. In order to this, the Character Model Department hands out model sheets or sculptures to help aid an animator to animate the character consistently. Model sheets entail the dimensions, size, shape, movement, idiosyncracies and other little details.

Story Reel

            Similar to storyboarding, a story artist combines the storyboards with the voice tracks, music, and sound effects into a movie. It’s sort of like watching the “rough draft” of the film. The director would look at story reel and pinpoint areas that could be refined.

Layout

Link

            The layout man is responsible for the appearance of the picture, scene by scene. Kind of like an architect for animated films: “He works with the director on the staging and dramatization, building on the ideas of the story sketch. He designs the backgrounds, suggests the pattern of action for the animator, indicates camera positions for the most effective shot and the cutting that will tell the story in the most interesting way” (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p. 212). In live action films, editors have the luxury of editing a film a certain way once all the material has been filmed. Animated films don’t have that luxury and everything must be planned out beforehand. This is a list of things layout men consider when working:

1.     One quick look is all the audience gets – keep it simple, direct, like a poster; it must sell and idea.

2.     Fancy rendering at a later date cannot save a poor original conception.

3.     Always keep screen directions clear.

4.     Keep informed on: art is history, architecture, costumes, landscapes.

5.     Keep informed on: styles, mediums, textures, surfaces, composition, drawing.

6.     Keep informed on: technical information – effects given by different lenses, ground glass, filters, gels.

7.     Mood can be established by timing and movement. For example, sad or quiet – long scenes with slow moves on pan, trucks, and characters. Happy or excited – short scenes, fast cuts, quicker moves on camera and characters.

Here are also four ways to plan and make layouts:

1.     Thumbnails. Gather whatever ideas being offered from the storyboards, later on they might become the basis for final layouts, cutting, and staging.

2.     Traditional. Devote time and thought into visualizing the actual layout so that there is consistent planning. Little changes are expected like extending the drawing so a slight pan move can be used, or moving furniture to make room for another character.

3.     Multiple choice. Visualize the scene from every angle to give the director and animators opportunities to pick the staging and layout they liked best.

4.     Long shot or establishing shot. Works similarly to backing shots in live-action film.

Experimental Animation

            When voices are recorded and the story sequences are approved, it’s then time to start experimental animation. Experimental animation is the period in which the supervising animator tests how the character will look, behave and what personality may manifest in rough animation. A perfect example of this would be the video I posted earlier featuring the experimental stages Disney took in creating Tarzan (see Technology and Techniques).

 Supervising Animator

            The supervising animator is the lead animator, responsible for the work done by the animators under him: “The supervising animator would talk to them about the character they were doing, exchange ideas on how to keep him consistent in appearance, suggest business that might fit into their section of the picture, or discuss further ways they all might develop the character. He might also commiserate when things went wrong or try to defend his animators if they were unjustly criticized” (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p 224). The supervising animator also does the key poses in a sequence, then they are handed to his or her team to complete the motion. 

Assistant Animator

            Animators also known as inbetweeners. Their job is to clean up the animator’s rough key poses, details are consistent, the animation is always on model.

The Work Reel

            Like the story reel, where it’s storyboards compiled into movie format, the work reel is a compilation of rough animation. A popular term for this is “sweatbox,” in which the director, layout men, etc. review an animators work in a small heated theater.            

Effects Department

            When an animated film calls for a special effect, it goes to a branch of animators who specialize in them. If the film required things like fire, water, wave splashes, lighting and moving shadows, the effects animators would study the elements’ movement and behavior for inspiration. Then they would animate and caricature the effect needed for the film in layers. Fun fact: The Little Mermaid beat out Fantasia for most special effects used, attributed to the number of bubbles the film used.

Color

            Color is the most difficult aspect in an animated film. Johnston and Thomas (1981) reported: “Every color system on film has its own strengths and weaknesses that somehow must be mastered by the craftsman who wants to put his color theories on the screen. It is often an annoying and frustrating gamble but it is worth the effort if one is at all concerned with the appearance of the product” (pp. 268). Color is selected to add realism to the film, however, some choices may conflict with the background. For example, Johnston and Thomas (1981) noted that Captain Hook’s black hair blended in the shadows of the background, making him look like he was bald. In fact, Princess Ariel’s iconic color scheme of red, green and purple was chosen to avoid these issues. Ariel was originally imagined as blonde, the animators changed her hair for two reasons: 1. To avoid comparisons from the movie Splash, which featured a blonde mermaid. 2. Red hair was less taxing to shade or find alternate colors for different lights, especially since Ariel goes from underwater to the surface.

Ink and Paint

Link

            When animation is complete, the drawings go to the Ink and Paint department where they will be traced over with pens on one side, then the insides are colored in. The result is a complete animation cel. Overtime the process, especially the ink one, was really time consuming. The ink technique was done away with new Xerox technology, which allowed animators to ink their drawings with efficiency and retain the graphical designs that was usually overshadowed by the old technique. It was beneficial by the time Disney was making 101 Dalmatians which allowed the animators to efficiently create 99 Dalmatian puppies, especially because spots were hard to animate. Unfortunately, pencil marks and scratches were notoriously picked up by the Xerox process, which gave the resulting animation a very scratchy quality that was persistent throughout the 60s and 70s. This was done away when Disney began digitally inking and painting their animated features with the coloring CAPS system in the 90s, which allowed the graphic and efficient quality of the Xerox, but retained the beauty and elegancy of the old techniques.  

Works Cited

Johnston, O., & Thomas F. (1981). The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions.