 |
A Bancy Studio "Original Celluloid Acetate Painting" of
Bancy, Toby, Joy, Danny Fenton, Sam Manson,
Tom the Cat, Fix-It Felix, Jr. and Mike and Michelle as
animation trainees for Don Bluth's garage studio while
"Banjo the Woodpile Cat" was in Pre-Production from 1975
until it was released on 1979 that was sold to
Rachel Zaracki-Cummings of Jackson, Michigan, U.S.A. |
To Celebrate the GRAND OPENING of My New Blogger Page entitled "The BancyTOON World of Michael Igafo-Te'o -- Here's an article on The Traditional Animation Process BEFORE and AFTER --
1. SCRIPT -- The Idea is first made as a "script treatment" by the writer of a traditionally animated project rather a short film or a TV episode or even a fully-animated feature film using a typewriter but, nowadays, the script treatment for an animated cartoon is now made on a computer.
2. STORYBOARD -- After the "Script Treatment" for a traditionally animated project is approved, tons of sketches are drawn on paper and are put up on a cork board -- some of the animated cartoons have their story sketches drawn by computer using "Toon Boom Storyboard" software.
3. VOICE RECORDING -- While the Storyboard is being prepared, the voices were recorded onto magnetic audio film by the voice actors and voice actors before an "animatic" is created (originally the "leica reel" is the animatic's ancestor) but as of the 2000's, voice recorded is now done on Audio Cassette Tapes and currently on Audio Compact Discs/CDs and/or Audio Editing Software.
4. ANIMATIC -- The Storyboard Sketches are then made into an "Animatic" or "lecia reel" using rather an analog animation camera or a scanner and video editing software. Notice that my storyboards are done on "Toon Boom Storyboard Pro".
5. TRACK READING -- A Track Reader listens to the dialogue as that person writes down every vowel and consultant on the "dialogue" column of an "exposure sheet" using the voice recording on magnetic audio film but currently track reading for traditional animation is now done with Audio Cassette Tapes, Audio CDs and Audio Editing Software.
6. LAYOUT -- The Layout Artist designs every character in their poses, model sheets and notes along with those of the props and even the background sketches on landscapes and interior areas in both horizontal and vertical pans but most of the backgrounds are stiff and standard.
7. ANIMATION -- The Animators animate the characters (and props) in rough "key" drawings, in-betweens and, after the rough pencil test is approved, the clean-up animation is done using rather a superfine non-permanent ink pen or a graphite pencil but nowadays as of the 1990's, clean-up animation is done by placing a clean sheet of animation paper over the rough drawing and is traced onto the drawing using rather a superfine non-permanent ink pen or a graphite pencil.
8. INK and PAINT -- Originally in the Past, Animators' Drawings were traced onto clear sheets of plastic called "cels" but as of 1960, Animators' drawings are "photocopied" onto clear acetate cels using the state-of-the-art XEROX cel copying process then, following the right colors on a "color model sheet", the other people paint the back of each cel using acrylic paint (or in my case, Cartoon Colour's top quality "Cel-Vinyl" acrylics) but as of 1990, line tester video camera operators scan animators' drawings into computers using animation software then the animation drawings are colored inside the lines by computer following the right colors for each character (and prop) on a "digital color model" then comes Digital Compositing! Nowadays, The Best "Digital Ink & Paint" Software for MODERN Traditional Animation are "Adobe Flash", "Toon Boom Harmony", (formerly "USAnimation" then "Toon Boom Opus") "TV Paint Animation", and, yes, "DigiCel FlipBook"!!! -- Notice that "FlipBook" is My Favorite Software for Digital Ink & Paint and Compositing for Modern Traditional Animation!
9. BACKGROUND PAINTING -- The Artists paint Backgrounds using bristol board sheets painted with watercolor and/or acrylic paint (or sometimes this oil-based gouache paint?! -- YUCK!) as those same artists follow the look of the background layout sketch rather standard and/or panoramic. Nowadays, background paintings are scanned into computers after the digital ink & paint work on the animation is done or sometimes animators scan background layout sketches into non-animation software (including "Adobe Photoshop" and "Autodesk Sketchbook") to trace the outlines of the B.G. sketch onto a clean "digital layer" then color the background in a layer underneath the outlines just like the people at Golden Street Animation (owned by animator Scott T. Petersen) does Digital Background Paintings.
10. CAMERA -- The Animation Camera Operator, while following the "camera instructions" on the exposure sheet, takes a picture of a single frame of animation onto a single frame of motion picture film (some 16mm but mostly 35mm for art's sake!) by placing the cel over the top of a background and the picture is taken and the process repeated frame-by-frame (Notice that in The U.S.A. and Canada, There's a total of 24 frames per second of NTSC film but in Great Britain and Ireland and even European countries outside North America, It's 30 frames per second of PAL film!!!)
11. FILM EDITING -- After the Film is developed in the film laboratory, The Film Editor makes the "final cut" using negative cutting and, after the negative cutting is completed throughout the entire traditionally animated project in one or two film editors (or, in the case of the features, it's three to four film editors?) the finished film before printing is viewed on a film editing machine called a "moviola". Nowadays, we take computers and "Avid" editing software to help film editing enter the "digital" era of the motion picture post-production process before the film is plotted onto motion picture film stock using a film recorder (rather "Celco" or "Lasergraphics" or the Arri camera company's very own film recording units!) before and after post-production services.
12. SOUND DUBBING -- After the negatives are produced, The Sound Dubber combines the picture with dialogue tracks, sound effect tracks and music tracks the OLD way from the early days of sound movies until the early 2000's when sound dubbing and foley recording goes "digital". (my cases of analog sound dubbing are Disney's sound designer Jimmy McDonald, Warner Bros. Animation's Treg Brown and Hanna-Barbera's very own sound editors!) Nowadays, Sound Foley Recording, Sound Mixing and ADR Dubbing is produced using state-of-the-art technology (thanks to the massive success of Lucasfilm's first "Star Wars" movie of the late 1970's) instead of using analog film.
13. FILM PRINTING and DISTRIBUTION -- The Printer Person prints the completed film onto multiple rolls of motion picture film stock before the traditionally animated project is ready for distribution and release in theaters and/or television. Nowadays film printing after post-production editorial stuff is done using film recorders (mentioned on Step No. 11 earlier) and film lab developing machines long since the 1990's when computers take part of the film editing process even though some movie moguls, in the cases of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, still use analog film editing using their moviola machines and analog film editing equipment!
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Glad You Loved This "Before and After"-style of The Traditional Animation Process!
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P.S., IF Any Comments about This Blog Post on Traditional Animation Before and After, Please Let Me Hear from You!
