What Is Animation?
The word animate comes from the Latin verb animare, meaning “to make alive or to fill with breath.”We can take our most childlike dreams or the wackiest worlds we can imagine and bring them to life. In animation we can completely restructure reality. We take drawings, clay, puppets, or forms on a computer screen, and we make them seem so real that we want to believe they’re alive. Pure fantasy seems at home in animation, but for animation to work, the fantasy world must be so true to itself with its own unbroken rules that we are willing to believe it.
Even more than most film, animation is visual.While you’re writing, try to keep a movie running inside your head.Visualize what you’re writing.Keep those characters squashing and stretching, running in the air, morphing into monsters at the drop of an anvil! Make the very basis of your idea visual.Tacking visuals onto an idea that isn’t visual won’t work. Use visual humor—sight gags.Watch the old silent comedies, especially those with Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy.Watch The Three Stooges. Many cartoon writers are also artists, and they begin their thinking by drawing or doodling.The best animation is action, not talking heads. Even though Hanna-Barbera was known for its limited animation, Joe Barbera used to tell his artists that if he saw six frames of storyboard and the characters were still talking, the staff was in trouble. Start the story with action. Animation must be visual!
Time and space are important elements of animation.The laws of physics don’t apply.A character is squashed flat, and two seconds later he’s as good as new again. He can morph into someone else and do things that a real person couldn’t possibly do. Motion jokes are great! Wile E. Coyote hangs in midair. In animation the audience accepts data quickly.Viewers can register information in just a few frames. Timing is very important in animation, just as it is in comedy.The pace of gags is quick. Normally, there are more pages in an animation script than there are in a comparable, live-action script, partially because everything moves so fast.
Animation uses extremes—everything is exaggerated. Comedy is taken to its limits. Jokes that seem impossible in live-action are best, although with today’s special effects, there is little that can be done in animation that cannot be done in live-action film as well.
The Production Process
The production process is slightly different at different studios around the world. Even at a specific animation studio, each producer and director has his or her own preferences. Children’s cartoons are produced differently from prime-time animation because of the huge variation in budget.Television shows are not produced the same way as feature films. Direct-to-videos are something of a hybrid of the two. Independent films are made differently from films made at a large corporation. Shorts for the Internet may be completed by one person on a home computer, and games are something else altogether; 2D animation is produced differently from 3D; each country has its own twist on the process. However, because of the
demands of the medium, there are similarities, and we can generalize. It’s important for writers to understand how animation is produced so they can write animation that is practical and actually works. Therefore, the production process follows in a general way.
The Script
Usually animation begins with a script. If there is no script, then there is at least some kind of idea in written form—an outline or treatment. In television a one-page written premise is usually submitted for each episode. When a premise is approved, it’s expanded into an outline, and the outline is then expanded into a full script. Some feature films and some of the shorter television cartoons may have no detailed script. Instead, creation takes place primarily during the storyboard process. Writers in the United States receive pay for their outlines and scripts, but premises are submitted on spec in hopes of getting an assignment. Each television series has a story editor who is in charge of this process. The story editor and the writers he hires may be freelancers rather than staff members.The show’s producers or directors in turn hire the story editor.
Producers and directors have approval rights on the finished script. Producer and director are terms with no precise and standard meaning in the United States, and they can be interchangeable or slightly different from studio to studio. Independent producers may deal more with financing and budgets, but producers at the major animation studios may be more directly involved with production. Higher executives at the production company often have script approval rights. Programming executives also have approval rights, as do network censors and any licensing or toy manufacturers that may be involved in the show. If this is a feature, financiers may have approval rights as well.
Recording
About the time the script is finalized, the project is cast.The actors may be given a separate actor’s script for recording. Sometimes they get character designs or a storyboard if they are ready in time.A voice director will probably direct. If this is a prime-time television project, then the director may hold a table read first, but usually there is no advanced rehearsal. At some studios the writer is welcome to attend the recording session. That is far from standard practice, however, and writers who do attend probably will have little or no input on the recording. Some studios still prefer to record all the actors at once for a television project, as if they were doing a radio play. However, each actor may be recorded separately. This is especially likely if the project is an animated feature. Individual recording sessions make it easier to schedule the actors, work with each actor, move the process along, and fine-tune the timing when it’s edited. Recording the actors together allows for interaction that is impossible to get any other way. Executives with approval rights have to approve casting and the final voice recording.
The directors usually work with a composer, who may be brought in early for a feature. Hiring might not be done until later in the process if this is a television show, although some directors bring in a composer early for TV as well.
The Storyboard
Storyboard artists take the script and create the first visualization of the story. Often these boards are still a little rough. In television and direct-to-video projects each major action and major pose is drawn within a frame representing the television screen.The dialogue and action are listed underneath each frame. Usually, an animatic or video of these frames is scanned or filmed from the board when it’s complete. This animatic, which includes any recorded sound, helps the director see the episode in the rough and helps in timing the
cartoon. Executives must approve the final storyboard or animatic.
The storyboard process may take about a year for a feature.The script or treatment will undergo many changes as the visual development progresses. Artists sometimes work in groups on sequences, or a team of a writer and an artist may work together.The development team pitches sequences in meetings and receives feedback for changes.The director and other executives have final approval. Feature storyboard drawings are cleaned up and made into a flipbook. Finally the drawings are scanned or shot, the recorded and available sound is added, and the material is made into a story reel. Any necessary changes discovered during the making of the animatic or story reel are made on the storyboard. The building of the story reel is an ongoing process throughout production. Later breakdowns, then penciled animation, and finally completed animation will be substituted.This workbook of approved elements is usually scanned and available on staff computers and serves as an ongoing blueprint. For CGI features a 3D workbook shows characters in motion in space as well.
The word animate comes from the Latin verb animare, meaning “to make alive or to fill with breath.”We can take our most childlike dreams or the wackiest worlds we can imagine and bring them to life. In animation we can completely restructure reality. We take drawings, clay, puppets, or forms on a computer screen, and we make them seem so real that we want to believe they’re alive. Pure fantasy seems at home in animation, but for animation to work, the fantasy world must be so true to itself with its own unbroken rules that we are willing to believe it.
Even more than most film, animation is visual.While you’re writing, try to keep a movie running inside your head.Visualize what you’re writing.Keep those characters squashing and stretching, running in the air, morphing into monsters at the drop of an anvil! Make the very basis of your idea visual.Tacking visuals onto an idea that isn’t visual won’t work. Use visual humor—sight gags.Watch the old silent comedies, especially those with Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy.Watch The Three Stooges. Many cartoon writers are also artists, and they begin their thinking by drawing or doodling.The best animation is action, not talking heads. Even though Hanna-Barbera was known for its limited animation, Joe Barbera used to tell his artists that if he saw six frames of storyboard and the characters were still talking, the staff was in trouble. Start the story with action. Animation must be visual!
Time and space are important elements of animation.The laws of physics don’t apply.A character is squashed flat, and two seconds later he’s as good as new again. He can morph into someone else and do things that a real person couldn’t possibly do. Motion jokes are great! Wile E. Coyote hangs in midair. In animation the audience accepts data quickly.Viewers can register information in just a few frames. Timing is very important in animation, just as it is in comedy.The pace of gags is quick. Normally, there are more pages in an animation script than there are in a comparable, live-action script, partially because everything moves so fast.
Animation uses extremes—everything is exaggerated. Comedy is taken to its limits. Jokes that seem impossible in live-action are best, although with today’s special effects, there is little that can be done in animation that cannot be done in live-action film as well.
The Production Process
The production process is slightly different at different studios around the world. Even at a specific animation studio, each producer and director has his or her own preferences. Children’s cartoons are produced differently from prime-time animation because of the huge variation in budget.Television shows are not produced the same way as feature films. Direct-to-videos are something of a hybrid of the two. Independent films are made differently from films made at a large corporation. Shorts for the Internet may be completed by one person on a home computer, and games are something else altogether; 2D animation is produced differently from 3D; each country has its own twist on the process. However, because of the
demands of the medium, there are similarities, and we can generalize. It’s important for writers to understand how animation is produced so they can write animation that is practical and actually works. Therefore, the production process follows in a general way.
The Script
Usually animation begins with a script. If there is no script, then there is at least some kind of idea in written form—an outline or treatment. In television a one-page written premise is usually submitted for each episode. When a premise is approved, it’s expanded into an outline, and the outline is then expanded into a full script. Some feature films and some of the shorter television cartoons may have no detailed script. Instead, creation takes place primarily during the storyboard process. Writers in the United States receive pay for their outlines and scripts, but premises are submitted on spec in hopes of getting an assignment. Each television series has a story editor who is in charge of this process. The story editor and the writers he hires may be freelancers rather than staff members.The show’s producers or directors in turn hire the story editor.
Producers and directors have approval rights on the finished script. Producer and director are terms with no precise and standard meaning in the United States, and they can be interchangeable or slightly different from studio to studio. Independent producers may deal more with financing and budgets, but producers at the major animation studios may be more directly involved with production. Higher executives at the production company often have script approval rights. Programming executives also have approval rights, as do network censors and any licensing or toy manufacturers that may be involved in the show. If this is a feature, financiers may have approval rights as well.
Recording
About the time the script is finalized, the project is cast.The actors may be given a separate actor’s script for recording. Sometimes they get character designs or a storyboard if they are ready in time.A voice director will probably direct. If this is a prime-time television project, then the director may hold a table read first, but usually there is no advanced rehearsal. At some studios the writer is welcome to attend the recording session. That is far from standard practice, however, and writers who do attend probably will have little or no input on the recording. Some studios still prefer to record all the actors at once for a television project, as if they were doing a radio play. However, each actor may be recorded separately. This is especially likely if the project is an animated feature. Individual recording sessions make it easier to schedule the actors, work with each actor, move the process along, and fine-tune the timing when it’s edited. Recording the actors together allows for interaction that is impossible to get any other way. Executives with approval rights have to approve casting and the final voice recording.
The directors usually work with a composer, who may be brought in early for a feature. Hiring might not be done until later in the process if this is a television show, although some directors bring in a composer early for TV as well.
The Storyboard
Storyboard artists take the script and create the first visualization of the story. Often these boards are still a little rough. In television and direct-to-video projects each major action and major pose is drawn within a frame representing the television screen.The dialogue and action are listed underneath each frame. Usually, an animatic or video of these frames is scanned or filmed from the board when it’s complete. This animatic, which includes any recorded sound, helps the director see the episode in the rough and helps in timing the
cartoon. Executives must approve the final storyboard or animatic.
The storyboard process may take about a year for a feature.The script or treatment will undergo many changes as the visual development progresses. Artists sometimes work in groups on sequences, or a team of a writer and an artist may work together.The development team pitches sequences in meetings and receives feedback for changes.The director and other executives have final approval. Feature storyboard drawings are cleaned up and made into a flipbook. Finally the drawings are scanned or shot, the recorded and available sound is added, and the material is made into a story reel. Any necessary changes discovered during the making of the animatic or story reel are made on the storyboard. The building of the story reel is an ongoing process throughout production. Later breakdowns, then penciled animation, and finally completed animation will be substituted.This workbook of approved elements is usually scanned and available on staff computers and serves as an ongoing blueprint. For CGI features a 3D workbook shows characters in motion in space as well.
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