So if you’ve been following these blog posts, you might know different types of animation, but ok, what next? How do we make something like Pixar’s ‘Up’ or some awesome motion graphics for our business logo?
Well, in this series I’ll be going over my Animation 101 talk and breaking down all the beginner info I get asked a lot when I’m either out doing talks (book me in here or see more information in my information pamphlet) or messages the studio gets sent from prospective clients that are either interested or utterly lost. And I get it, it’s a bit of a minefield. I spent 4 years of university as well as almost 10 years in film and TV before I really solidified some of this stuff, but I’ll attempt to break it down.
The animation process is different for every type (learn about types here) but generally it follows what we call a pipeline. This was pioneered by Walt Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’ - Disney wanted to push more industrial processes into animation and in doing so he developed the pipeline.
This is broken up into Pre-production, Production and Post production, then Delivery. It sounds complicated but it’s essentially:
Pre-production - planning and preparing to animate the thing
Production - producing the animation - animating it, i.e.: making it move
Post Production - usually fixing problems, adding final touches
Delivery - delivering the finished product to the client.
But what actually is the process of pre-production, what does it mean?
It means all of these jobs. So generally the animation starts with writing the script, then the Concept Artist creates mood boards, (which are like inspiration sheets), and then paints or models concepts.
The Character Designers then take all this work and create character designs. Based on these designs, someone called a Storyboard Artist draws out the script, illustrating what is going to happen. The storyboards are then reviewed by the client to make sure everything is good and they are happy with the direction.
Then the storyboards work as a blue print for the rest of the animation and this marks the end of the pre-production phase. Colour scripts or test animations are sometimes done to decide the colours of the animation beforehand and test animation allows the client to see an idea of how the finished animation will look. See below the one for Moana.
Once that is all done and approved, the studio moves into production.
This means that if it is a 2D project, backgrounds are painted, the character designs are turned in to rigs, (imagine puppets with joints etc but 2D and digital), and then those rigs are brought into scenes to be animated.
This is where most of the time (and money) goes on a production. It’s at this stage in the process that the editor starts filling in the video version of the storyboards, (known as an animatic), with finished animation. Sometimes animation is ‘reused’, flipped around, or colours changed to save on costs.
As scenes get animated and backgrounds get finished they are put in to compositing which is in post production - the last part of the pipeline.
Post production is where all the finished work is compiled, music and subtitles are added, colour is graded, (which is a fancy way of saying making sure they match the Concept Artist’s original vision), and retakes are done.
Studios also sometimes have a ‘Retakes Animator’ to reanimate any animation that the director or client doesn’t like or feel isn’t up to standard. Special effects like smoke, fire or water or rain are added at this stage as well as anything like rays of light or dust particles.
Although they are separate, on a live project all these stages will usually be running at the same time almost, with shots or scenes going through the entire process whilst some parts might get stuck on one stage for longer.
For example, a very complicated fight scene may take months in storyboard in pre-production and animation, whilst a simple hand shot or establishing shot of some trees may get all the way to the end a lot quicker. Shots can get sent back, cut from the show or started over at any stage but the process is designed so that this is done as little as possible.
If you are interested in learning more about the animation process, feel free to come along to one of my talks.
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