How is animation made?

The production process of cartoons is quite complicated, and it has to go through many people, such as director, original painting, modeling design, modification, animation, background, coloring, post-production and so on. I found some information on the internet. You can read it yourself. You can also go to our company's website before the exam.

Tasks and specific contents of pre-production of cartoons

● Pre-stage: It is the initial stage of an animated film. It is particularly important to make full preparations in the early stage. It is often necessary for the creative staff (screenwriter, director, artist and music editor) to repeatedly discuss and discuss a series of issues such as the story of the script, the structure of the script, the style of the artist and the setting of the scene, the character modeling (the choice of equivalent actors) and the music style. First of all, we should have a literary script with complete conception and excellent structure. Then, according to the requirements of the literary script and the director, we should establish the artistic design style and design the main scenes and characters. When the artistic design style and character modeling are established, the director will visualize the character storyboard and draw a picture with a split shot.

Animation, like all film and television works, usually begins with what people often say: "The script is the basis of a play". "The basis of a drama" refers to a literary script, which ensures the integrity, unity and coherence of the story and is the basis of film creation. At the same time, it provides the basic elements of future movies, such as theme, structure, characters, plot, background of the times, specific details, etc., which are generally completed by screenwriters. Comic script is different from ordinary film and television dramas, which requires literary writers to pay more attention to the characteristics of comic production, emphasize the sense of action and movement, and give rich picture effects and enough room for expansion while writing the story structure; Then there is the word story board, which is generally written by the animation director himself, with the functions of prompt picture, plane angle, editing method, color and light processing and so on.

Music scripts are generally used in cartoons that need pre-music, and the style of theme songs often determines the musical tone of the whole work, so the establishment of music scripts and theme songs is very critical for cartoons with pre-music.

I talked about pre-music, and there is pre-music and post-music. Post-soundtrack refers to: make a good picture first, and match it with music with corresponding rhythm and melody according to the rhythm and feeling of the picture. Try to achieve the harmony and unity of music and picture movement rhythm. Achieve the effect of music matching the movement, color and artistic conception of the picture.

According to the requirements of the script and the director, the art designer designs and establishes the art style, completes the main scene and the color samples of the main scene, as well as the color specifications of the character modeling (the design of these scenes and scene color samples, character modeling and color specifications is directly related to the overall visual effect and artistic style of the whole cartoon.

Screenshot version of the drawing is that the director turns the characters on the storyboard into pictures and visualizes the story and script, which is not a simple illustration, but a concrete re-creation. It is the most important basis for drawing and making an animated film. All the links in the middle and later stages are carried out according to this mapping platform, and the requirements of the platform must be strictly obeyed. Zheng, a famous film director in China, once said in the book Film Director: "Film is an art that achieves personal style through collective creation. If the director's creation is based on the literary script, then the creation of each department is based on the director's conception, that is, the overall conception of the plot, characters, pictures, sounds, rhythm, colors and so on of the future film. Otherwise, it will go its own way and make a movie into something neither fish nor fowl. " Therefore, the drawing of the beat table is very important, and it is a guiding sample for all links in the middle and late stages. All links must be based on and follow the requirements of the shot table.

1.2, animation, post-production links and tasks

● Mid-term: The main tasks are specific drawing and inspection. Namely: design draft, original animation, background drawing and proofreading. Mid-term is the key link of animation production, and it is also the link with the most workload and personnel input. People who need to participate in painting not only have high painting basic skills and artistic accomplishment, but also have creativity, responsibility and great patience and perseverance.

Design draft: It is a pencil drawing that is enlarged according to the small picture of each shot in the cartoon picture. It is the basis for animators and landscape painters to draw.

Design drafts are divided into: role design draft and background design draft.

1. The character design draft draws the starting and ending position and movement route of the character in the picture, the most important dynamics and expressions of the character, and the relationship between the character and the background according to the determined specifications. Generally, a simple shot only draws one character design draft, and a complex shot draws two or more character design drafts;

2. The background design draft draws the specific shape, angle, light and shadow direction of the scene and the starting and ending positions of the moving or pushing lens according to the specified specifications. If there is a front layer, it should be painted separately or marked in red, and if there is a pair of bit lines, it should be marked in red.

Background: The environment in which the characters live in the animated picture. Pencil painting, watercolor painting, gouache painting, oil painting, Chinese painting and other forms can be used to draw on paper or celluloid sheets, which are divided into single-layer background and multi-layer background. With the intervention of computer technology in the field of animation production in recent ten years, there have also appeared a large number of computer backgrounds in which pencil drawings drawn by art design on drawing paper are scanned into the computer, and then drawn by background painters in the computer with software.

Dynamic inspection: a kind of work in which the action of an animated painting is inspected by a special person after the animation painting is completed.

Proofreading: Also known as "proofreading", it is one of the preparatory work before the cartoon draft is shot or scanned. After the animation draft is completed, it becomes the finished product of the animation part. The finished animation products are concentrated in the proofreading department. Proofreaders check each shot one by one, and combined with the color background, check the overall effect of the picture, such as the position relationship between the role and the background, perspective angle, alignment accuracy, etc. After the director agrees, make the final preparations.

In the medium term, the workload is huge, the links are complex and there are many people. Efficient and responsible producer and producer supervision is essential. The producer's task is to coordinate the work in the first, middle and last stages, supervise the progress of each process and each type of work, and reach an effective agreement with the director, other creative staff and post-production staff in the first stage on cost control, art and technology. Ensure the production cycle and cost accounting of the whole cartoon.

Post-stage: It is the final stage of an animation, and the quality is directly related to the final playback effect of the animation.

This division of labor is mainly to color and correct the paintings completed in the middle period, then shoot (film technology), scan and synthesize (computer technology), and finally edit, dub and score with the background. So as to finally complete one or more high-quality animated films.

In the traditional film-making animation, traditional manual tracing and coloring techniques are generally adopted. First of all, a large number of transparent films (celluloid sheets) are needed. After painting, the workers first painted the original and animated pictures that had been proofread with black or colored ink as they were, and then painted them on the reverse side with a brush when they were dry, and then turned the celluloid sheets upside down for use when all colors were dry. In recent ten years, with the continuous improvement of post-computer technology and the rapid development of post-stunt technology, traditional hand-painted and complex film stunt shooting have gradually or completely withdrawn from the post-animation field. At present, the post-animation software widely used in the world is American, which has the characteristics of convenient coloring, high speed, high efficiency and beautiful color, and has played an important role in promoting mass production. At the same time, using a series of carefully arranged stunt programs to deal with the stunt shots in cartoons also simplifies the intensity and difficulty of previous animation stunt shooting, making the stunts such as overlapping, fading out, fading in, blinking, smoothing and zooming become the most basic skills, and increasing the convenience and speed of post-production.

To sum up, the process of making an animation is quite complicated, and it needs to go through many links, and the collaborators are also very complicated. A complete and clear understanding of the whole production process of an animation from the early stage to the middle and late stage is of great significance to people engaged in animation production and planning and even future investment.

References:

One animation/