The Craft of Animation

Animation is an artistic endeavor that can be both an individual pursuit and a team effort. Because of the amount of work and money required to bring a creative vision to completion, animated products are more often than not team efforts. As such, during the creation and production of any animated film or interactive game -- be it long or short -- there is always a great deal of discussion and planning, quite a number of meetings between representatives of different units and between each team member, and no end of extended, singular focus by each team member to bring a creative vision to life. It's an exciting art form within which to practice one's craft. The financial rewards are usually not tremendous, and many good animators toil away creating beautiful films or games never receiving more than a working wage. However, the real reward is the same as any other entrepreneurial craftsperson receives -- be they carpenter, farmer, writer, baker, mechanic -- when they see the product of their labour that they have invested so much of their time and effort in completing to the best of their ability finally brought to others for their use and enjoyment.

The bear necessities

Like anything, all animated productions begin with a story container. Let's take one story idea that has a particular human condition at its core. For example, "What if a father lost his wife and therefore treasured his only son as his reminder of her?" Let's say the son has a small physical disability and so the father is overprotective of his son. Add a quirk to the father's character that he's shy and retiring. Let's expand on the initial question and ask, "What if the father's son was abducted -- would he search for his son and rescue him?" Now substitute animals for humans, but leave the animals with human characteristics. Then set these questions in a visually rich environment. Perhaps the animals are instead fish and the environment these fish live in is the Australian Barrier Reef. Perhaps the father and son are adorable clown fish. This description of Pixar's Finding Nemo is only one example of the genesis of an animated product. Given the myriad stories that can be told, there are an equal number of ways an animated production can unfold.

In 2002, I had the privilege of hearing a young Mr. Andrew Stanton tell the story of Finding Nemo long before the film was released. I sat in a front row seat of a small screening room on Pixar's Park Avenue Campus in Emeryville, California while -- for 90 minutes -- Mr. Stanton quite literally acted out the story the studio was developing. Keep in mind, Pixar was in the middle of production on the film. The film was still a year from its release. A yellow steno pad the story was written on was Mr. Stanton's only prop. Honestly, I was entranced. The experience left me humbled by the power of how a good story wrapped in a polished, confident presentation is enough to entertain and move people. This skill can be translated to most any occupation you decide to embrace. But within the craft of animation, story is key.

Story is the key aspect of animation, but it is not the only aspect. Within the genre of animation, there are numerous avenues to channel artistic talent. These avenues can be divided into these major phases: story; pre-production; audio recording; production; music and post-production. Not included in this essay are the very important aspects of business (for example: finding financing to make the production, contracting talent to work on the production, administration and management of talent and technical resources), marketing (advertising and perhaps licensing the product characters and concepts to third parties to increase the production's profits and reach) and distribution (actually getting the final product to the intended audience).

Painting the roses red

As story is the key aspect of any film or interactive game, writers hold key positions within animated products and, quite often, are directors as well as writers. For example, Mr. Stanton was both writer and director of Finding Nemo. Because of the number of individual craftspeople that potentially work on (and the length of time it takes to reach completion of) any animated product, the most solid method of conveying the story and vision for the product to everyone involved is through the storyboard. A storyboard is a visual, step-by-step telling of the animation's story through small tightly or loosely drawn storyboard panels much like a comic strip. This is the essence of the writer and director's creative vision, and is often used early on to "sell" the story to others to secure financing and talent to work on the product. Depending on the size of the product (and the ability and inclination or the writer and director), the writer and director may create these panels themselves, like Terry Gilliam and Hayao Miyazaki. Other writer/directors, like George Lucas, employ storyboard artists whose job is to draw the product's storyboard.

Zero to hero

Pre-production easily uses the broadest range of talent of any of the other phases. Think of everything that needs to be planned in order to achieve the creative vision outlined in the storyboard: Will this be a traditional 2D drawn animation like My Neighbour Totoro, computer-generated imagery (CGI) more like Finding Nemo, or a stop-motion filmed animation like Fantastic Mr. Fox? What does each character look like exactly? Who will animate each character? Who will act as each character's voice? When will everyone start working? Where will they work? What tools will everyone use? What colour will the characters be? What will the backgrounds or environments the characters appear in look like? You can see there are myriad questions that need to be answered before the actual work of making the product can begin. Within this area there are many different artistic occupations that can assist with answering these pre-production questions: the art director gives the product a unified appearance in keeping with the director's vision; the lead animators guide and ensure the animation crew and plan the animation components; the character designer; the background and layout artist works with the art director to give the product the proper mood; the props designer design each item the characters use in the product; costume designers; the colourist keeps all the visuals in sync, and so on. The list of tasks and people to complete them is almost infinite. Again, depending on the size and scope of the product, these can all be one person's or many people's jobs. However, most of the questions about the animation product have to be answered before the long stretch of production begins or the animation will have no structure or focus. Without this structure and focus, the animation will most likely never be completed.

The bells of Notre Dame

Audio recording mentioned above refers mainly to the process of recording the characters in the animated product's voices, but it really also includes all sound in the animated product, called sound effects and "foley." It's worth considering that animation is at its most convincing with a solid audio soundtrack. Prove this to yourself by playing a section of a favourite animated product -- but with your eyes closed. Convincing sound effects and foley make a huge contribution to how fast a character moves, like the Enterprise (yes, it's a 3D animated character) in the most recent Star Trek or how terrifying a character is, like the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings. Add music to the mix and easily three-quarters of a completed animated product's appeal is how well-crafted its audio soundtrack is.

Heigh ho, heigh ho

Production is the long task of actually creating all of the parts of the animated product now that they've been planned. Depending on the type of animated product being developed, lead animators animate key poses for each character in each scene, in-betweeners create the in-between movements between each of these key poses, clean-up artists clean up the animators' and in-betweeners' work, drawings are scanned into the software being used to assemble traditional animations, colourists colour each frame of the animation (or texture artists texture each component of a character's 3D model), background painters or environment modelers create each scene of the product's environment. The list of tasks to be accomplished is again almost infinite but must be tightly planned for the product to reach completion. It is important to keep in mind the plan set out in the pre-production phase is to be strictly adhered to so as to maintain focus throughout the entire production phase as this is by far the most arduous and lengthy phase of any animated product.

Whistle while you work

The creation of music for an animated product comes within the production and post-production phases. Its importance, like the audio sound effects and foley described earlier, cannot be under-estimated. One need only hum the theme of either Star Wars or Super Mario to be convinced that one of any film's most potent aspects is music. Music has the ability to maintain audience mind-share by encouraging viewers to "carry a tune" around with them long after the experience of the film is over.

Let's get together

Post-production involves putting all of the production parts created in the above phases together so that the initial vision is realized. In this phase, the storyboard once again returns to guide the compositors putting characters into scenes and environments, the editor whose task is to piece these various scenes together into a whole, complete product and the sound designer to combine the sound effects, foley and music with the completed visuals all under the direction of the product's director. Interactive animated products have a similar process, but also layer onto this an extensive software testing cycle to ensure the product behaves the way it was conceived.

Once complete, the animation product has to be marketed and distributed to its intended audience as described previously, something that I won't discuss here but is just as important as creating the product itself. However, please remember, if you intend to make a living at some aspect of animation, it does no good for you to toil away by yourself while no one ever sees your work. Marketing yourself and your own abilities through the portfolio of work you develop is the same as marketing and distributing an animation product. As Marcel Duchamp said, "It is the spectators who make the pictures."

This brief overview of an animated product's development should give you a real sense that there are many varied creative employment and entrepreneurial opportunities available to you. While animation is an artistic endeavor that can be both an individual pursuit and a team effort, more often than not practicing the craft is a team effort. Many animators are introverted and derive enjoyment from creation, but working with others often can be a chance to enjoy and learn from your cohort's talents and mistakes. The financial rewards are usually not tremendous, but the real reward is the same as any other craftsperson receives when they see the product of their labour finally brought to others for their use and enjoyment.