How are animated movies made?

How are animated movies made?

Animation production is a very tedious and heavy work, with a very detailed division of labor. It is usually divided into pre production, mid production, post production, etc. Pre production also includes planning, work setting, fund raising, etc; Production includes

Split mirror, original painting, middle painting, animation, coloring, background painting, photography, dubbing, recording, etc; Post production includes editing, special effects, subtitles, synthesis, audition, etc.

Steps / methods

1. Overall design stage:

1) Script. The first step in any film production is to create a script, but the script of animation is very different from the script of feature film performed by real people. Dialogue in general films is very important for actors' performance, while complex dialogue should be avoided as much as possible in animated films. The most important thing here is to use pictures to express visual actions. The best animation is obtained through funny actions. There is no dialogue, but visual creation stimulates people's imagination.

2) Storyboard. According to the script, the director should draw a story sketch similar to a comic book (draw the script by lens) to show the actions described in the script. The storyboard is composed of several segments, each segment is composed of a series of scenes. A scene is generally limited to a certain place and a group of characters, and the scene can be divided into a series of shots regarded as picture units, so as to construct the overall structure of an animation. While drawing each sub shot, the action as its content, the time of narration, photography instructions, picture connection, etc. shall be explained accordingly. Generally, for a 30 minute animation script, if about 400 sub shots are set, about 800 pictures will be drawn - storyboard.

3) Camera watch. This is the schedule of the whole film production prepared by the director to guide the unified and coordinated work of all personnel of the animation creation collective.

2. Design and production stage:

1) Design. The design work is to determine the form and shape of background, foreground and props on the basis of storyboard, and complete the design and production of scene environment and background map. In addition, it is also necessary to carry out modeling design for characters or other characters, and draw several standard paintings from different angles of each modeling for reference by other animators.

2) Sound. In the animation production, because the action must match the music, the sound recording must be carried out before the animation production. After the recording is completed, the editors should accurately decompose the recorded sound to the position of each picture, that is, the first few seconds (or the first few pictures) start talking, how long the speech lasts, etc. Finally, the whole sound history (i.e. sound track) should be decomposed into the bar table corresponding to the sound in each picture position for the reference of animation personnel.

3. Specific creation stage:

1) Original painting creation. The original painting creation is to draw some key pictures of animation by animation designers. Usually a designer is only responsible for a fixed character or other roles.

2) Middle illustration production. The middle illustration refers to the picture between two important positions or frame drawings. Generally, it is a picture between two original paintings. The assistant animator makes a middle picture, and the other artists interpolate the connecting picture of the character's action. The interpolated continuous action painting added between the original paintings shall meet the specified action time to make it close to the natural action.

4. Shooting and production stage:

This stage is an important part of animation production. Any details on the performance screen will be produced here, which can be said to be a key step to determine the quality of animation (the other is the design of content, that is, script).