Animation Production

Documentation and Organization

Robert B. Musburger, PhD

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351270366
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatique
• Subtopic: Programmation de jeux

This text follows the animation production by concentrating on the documentation necessary to accurately and professionally organize each step of the process. Examples of each piece of paperwork needed to complete the project will be shown. Many newcomers to the field are not experienced in the basic processes to organize their project in an orderly manner. The result is a chaotic, inefficient, and incomplete product. Readers are presented with a step-by-step guide to organizing the process by following professional standards in creating needed and useful documentation for all animators, whether creating in cells, stop-motion, experimental, or computer graphic productions.

Key Features

Provides simplified but intense coverage of animation production.

Written to be easily read by newcomers to the field, ranging from students to professionals.

Each chapter contains objectives, summaries, examples of forms, key terms, and examples of how professionals use the same techniques.

This book provides both students and instructors an easily understandable explanation of the system and the directions on how to prepare documentation.

1

Introduction to Animation Production Preparation

Why is this Book Needed, and Why Should You Use It?

Animation: A Definition

History of Animation Production Processes

Introduction to Story Construction

Summary

Kinetic Art is the first new category of art since prehistory. It took until this century to discover the art that moves. Had we taken the aesthetic qualities of sound as much for granted as we have taken those of motion, we would not now have music. But now in kinetic art and animation, we have begun to compose motion.

Len Lye (1964: 82)

Why is this Book Needed, and Why Should You Use It?

After years of teaching animation, working with animators, studying animation as an art form as a means of expression, and watching animation become a driving force in virtually all media forms, I felt I needed to add my thoughts. I decided to write to assist all of you interested in the field. Whether you want to create an animation production, study the animation as an art form, or simply love animation, my hope is that this book will give you an opening to fulfill those interests. At the same time, I have gathered the information in this book as a means to assist you, whether you are a student or a newcomer to the field. My goal is to unravel some of the mysteries of the many different documents used in planning and completing an animation project.

This book is written to give you a method of completing your goal of understanding the animation process in as professional a manner as possible within your capabilities. This book covers only a portion of the topics needed to completely understand all there is to learn about animation. My purpose is to tell you about a wide ranging and important aspect of the paper work, known as documentation. You need to learn to create and use documentation in order to move forward efficiently in the animation process.

This book will not cover the following animation topics: details of camera operation, lighting philosophy, editing, and the fine details of every computer application and program used in animation production and distribution. There are two reasons for ignoring these topics: First, an amazing number of books specializing in each of these areas individually and in great detail are available to you. Second, and most importantly, the rapid change in digital technology makes it almost impossible to accomplish my goal and report absolutely accurately on each aspect of animation and write a book like this one in the time book publishing requires.

Animation: A Definition

The definition of animation, for your understating of this book, includes such techniques as puppets, collages, sand and clay figures, found objects, painting and scratching on film stock, pin boards, time lapse, rotoscoping, silhouettes, and, of course, cel and computer animation. This broad definition is both a blessing and a detriment when you try to understand the creative process of animation. Traditionally, you could shoot a group of objects on video or film, or still shots, at the rate of one or two frames at a time to create animation. But today, with computer applications and digital equipment, no clear difference exists between a physical creation and a digital creation as a work of a creative animation project.

An early and specific definition of animation is that animation is utilizing the capability of the human brain to combine separate images into a continuous moving image by creating a series of drawings that relate into continuous flow of visual information.

Humankind has been interested in movement since the earliest artists painted on cave walls, on pottery, and on tombs of the dead. The key to movement in all media depends on the physical and psychological effects of the mental phenomenon of persistence of vision. Greek astronomers, Roman poets, and British, German, and Swiss scientists all were concerned with this mystery until the early 19th century. By the early 1800s, the fundamental principles of the mind and the eye’s ability to connect more than one image after another into a continuous stream of visual material became better understood. For that mental leap, we now have motion pictures, video, and digital images.

One of the most quoted and accepted definitions of animation was stated by Norman McLaren of the National Film Board of Canada:

Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn; What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame; Animation is therefore the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between the frames.

Furniss (1989: 3)

Regardless of the animation definition that is published or accepted, animation will continue to be defined by technology, techniques, society, economics, politics, and the industry of show business. For you, it just means there are no limits to your creativity, but you must understand that the choices you make in your production, whichever technology you work within, must be comfortable to you.

History of Animation Production Processes

I will not bore you with a litany of dates, names, and inventions about the development of animation production. I would prefer to introduce you to and increase your curiosity about animation production processes, how it came to be, and how it exists now. In addition, I want you to understand you have a choice of spending all of your time experimenting with every production technique you can think of, or you may better spend your time studying what has happened before in the field of animation production. Use the skills and efforts made by your predecessors in developing, creating, and laying the groundwork of animation production; it has worked for 200 years, it can’t all be outdated and useless.

Using strings of single images on a film strip base to animate objects preceded the development of the film itself. Many of the earliest films were produced to exhibit the so-called mysteries and special effects. In reality, they were “animated” before they were “filmed.” To do so, early animators/filmmakers used single-frame exposure of action and artwork, and double exposures to create those effects. The fundamentals of animation and motion pictures developed from these same experimental techniques. Today, you may use the same basic techniques whether your production is created on film, video, or within a computer.

You will face the prospect of turning your ideas into a viable production acceptable to you and, just as important, acceptable and understood by your audience. You should start with a study of what has occurred before you in the field of animation. There is no point in your spending time and energy solving creative problems solved by others. Better you study the works of others to respect and understand how animators have created their works. The techniques they developed are still used in either analog or digital animation productions. You should watch examples of as many animators as you can, including all genres, styles, and formats. Especially watching animators who produced throughout the entire history of animation will give you a basis for building a solid foundation for your animation.

Reading about animators, their works, their lives, and the cultures within which they worked will provide you an understanding on how your life and your culture within which you live and work may affect your creative response. You must continue to read, study, and watch others to lay the groundwork to develop the production you want to do, and when completed, you will be proud to claim that as your creation.

Many fine books have been written covering the development of animation and how the animators solved their creative and technical concepts (see the Bibliography at the end of this book). Research other sources because the rapid technical changes in the field have never allowed the industry to stay in one spot and will continue to expand on a weekly, daily, and even hourly basis.

Introduction to Story Construction

In preparing to produce your animated production, you will be faced with organizing the planning of each step of the process. To assist in what could appear to be a complicated process, the focus of this chapter will lead you through a two-step analysis of describing each of the pieces of paperwork you may need to help you create your work. This chapter divides the needed documentation into two categories: descriptive documentation and form documentation. The differences sometimes may overlap, and depending on the individual processes used at each studio, the descriptive documentation and form documentation will vary in style, form, and use. The remainder of this chapter introduces the first step you need to consider mentally to start your production. You should start with your idea, then develop the concept, and, finally, move on to the rest of the story construction.

Chapter 2 covers the preliminary descriptive documentation you will need to understand and use to start organizing your production in order to develop your idea and concept as you concentrate on considering how you will move toward writing the script.

Chapter 3 includes the descriptive documentation for those stages needed to actually prepare your script. Chapter 4 deals with the method of script preparation.

Chapter 5 analyzes each specific form you may need or should use to better move your production forward efficiently and gives you full creative license to create your own concept. Chapter 6 concentrates on audio production and production forms you may use to lead to the final stages of the production process.

This chapter has been written to help you better understand the differences between the many types of documentation: descriptive and form documentations used in animation and in reality. This includes all methods of media production, audio, radio, television, cables, motion pictures, and satellite (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Chart of Documents

The three types of documents described and explained in this chapter include descriptive documents, document forms, and audio document forms.

This chapter will include the exact process used in documenting an animated production. This chapter will also describe the documentation and forms you will need to use depending partially on the size of your production, the budget, the crew, and your client’s desires. The following step-by-step process covers the critical areas, regardless of the complexity of your product. Several of the steps may be combined with other steps, again depending on the type of production you wish to create.

The documents you need to become familiar with and understand how to use during your production may include handwritten notes, outlines, storyboards, drawings, sketches, diagrams, or even conversations and notes from meetings among the crew or thoughts within your mind as the auteur.

Story Construction

The first step in creating a story that will become your animation production is constructing the story. In the past, the animator was the director, producer, and often even the actor and the writer because at first there were few scripts actually in place on paper during the animation production process. Animation was, and for you today might be, an auteur medium if you chose to write, direct, draw, render, and produce your animation concept.

Although during the earliest days of animation all of the writing aspects of the production process were completed by one or two people for any single production, the process of assembling the information needed for you to reach a complete production remains the same today, regardless of whether you or someone else actually writes the script or what form the written documentation becomes.

At the same time, a group of your crew may begin writing as a committee in a “gag” meeting. A “gag” meeting consists of three to a dozen writers, led by a producer. Their function is to work out a storyline, character development, and the scenes (gags) that build the action and the progress of the plot. With increased use of computers to create animation, the separation of writing and drawing became even more clearly defined. The value of quality writing in developing strong characters and stories to capture and hold the audience separates good writers from poor ones. All stories should be based on some kind of a conflict, but violence is not as important as the use of action that propels the audience into the story. Humor is crucial in ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• 1 Introduction to Animation Production Preparation
• 2 The Preliminary Descriptive Documentation of Animation
• 3 Documentation of Animation Preparation: Second Scene
• 4 Narrative Documents for Animation Production
• 5 Animation Production Forms
• 6 Final Production: Audio and Postproduction
• Glossary
• Animation Digital Sources
• Bibliography
• Index