An animator who makes animations.

Animators are the poorest workers in the animation industry. However, those who want to become original paintings, original painting guidance and animated character modeling design must start from animators. At present, many famous Japanese animation masters, who were grass-roots animators of some animation production companies more than ten years ago, lead the dream-chasing youth to live in simple apartments and eat instant noodles on meager wages. Let's see how animators practice and why life is so cold.

Animators are grassroots employees who clean up lines and draw frames. After painting the main mirror, the original painter should hand it over to the animator to clean up the lines and the framing action in the middle of the painting (*2), and the framing action of the finished draft should not be handed over to the colorist for coloring until the animation inspector has seen that there is no problem with the action. How many frames to draw is specified by the original artist in advance, so the animator doesn't need to draw a few frames between the main mirrors. Frame animation is simple and complicated (*2). Simplicity means simple mouth movements (*3) or eye movements. Most newcomers who just entered the animation company just need to draw (practice) this simple frame picture and clean up the original picture drawn by the original painter. It will take several months to clean up the manuscript and "practice" seriously before sending it to such a complex full-identity frame as Tu 1. After sending it to the complex frame, it will take 1 to two years to become an original painter. After becoming an original painter, your painting ability can be truly recognized in the animation industry, and your right to speak can be greater. Before introducing the original painter, we mentioned that animation is like a movie, but the difference is that animation uses pen and paper to create the picture that the director needs. Therefore, before you become an original painter, you must be familiar with how to freely draw various movements of characters, and then independently compose a perfect main mirror whose movements are loyal to human body design, suitable for animation production. This is why all production companies require newcomers to stay in animation classes for one or two years (*4).

That animator is poor in everything. The animation industry calculates the monthly salary according to the number of completed sheets. Basically, a shot animation draft is about 150 yen to 300 yen. A novice who just entered the animation company can complete about 400 frames of animation in a month (generally less than 400). Based on the minimum 150 yen, you will only get 60,000 yen a month (at most, it will not exceed120,000 yen). In Tokyo, where the cost of living is high, it's really hard to live without living with your parents (no rent) or having some savings (perseverance and determination) to support yourself as an original painter.

It is not difficult to become an animator. There is no education or age limit. The shortcut is to enter a special school, which introduces animation production companies to graduates every year. However, as many predecessors in the animation industry have said, what you learn in special schools is useless in animation companies. If they want to participate in animation production, it is better to knock on the door of the animation company in person and study in the animation company without wasting time and tuition.

note:

* 1. Animator: English-between Japanese:

*2. Frame animation manuscript example 1 Another poor class in the animation industry is the colorist. Animators and colorists are indispensable personnel in animation production, but their status is undeniably low. Their work is very boring and hard, and they can't shine even when the stage lighting is well done. The job content is simply to paint the color designated by the color designer on the part designated by the original painter (of course, the actual coloring skills are not so easy). The colorist is the last step before all the painted shots are cut together. If the previous process is delayed, the coloring time of the coloring staff will be relatively reduced. However, it is a common practice for Japanese animation circles not to submit on time, so colorists must often paint in a short time to catch up with the editing.

The digitalization of animation, which is often discussed by all walks of life, usually begins with this coloring process, and the previous processes (except color designation) are all made by hand.

Before the production process is digitized, the colorist's work is as follows

1, copy the cleaned original painting and animated line drawing on cellophane with a tracing machine.

2. Color with anime colors.

3. Check whether the coated cellophane is wrongly painted or stained.

When cellophane was used a few years ago, a skilled colorist (as shown on the left) carefully drew the color behind cellophane with the copied line drawing and color design. If you use celluloid board, it will cost the production company a lot of money to buy celluloid chips, pigments and so on in one year. Plus, after painting, you have to wait for the rubber painting to dry before you can do photo editing. Sometimes it is time-consuming and laborious to draw several times if you can't draw well. However, many animation masterpieces are still completed on time (sometimes not, the audience doesn't know) and distributed on TV or cinemas every week (most of them are not, the audience doesn't know), depending on the strength of animation production contracting companies in other countries.

After the production process is digitized (as shown on the right), the colorist's work is as follows.

1, use the scanner to save the original painting and animated line drawing into the computer.

2, clean up the line

3. Color according to the specified color.

As mentioned in color design, most animation production companies in Japan use ANIMO or RETAS! Pro carries out computer coloring and color assignment (in fact, any drawing software can be used as an animation coloring tool). Use RETAS! Pro industry accounts for more than 80%. The reason is that Dongying Animation, an old animation manufacturer, took the lead in using that software to build a system, and many production companies followed him. Digital coloring operation really saves a lot of money and manpower. This software allows you to draw in the window, saving film and paint. But in fact, due to the lack of understanding of digital coloring by manual craftsmen, the hard work of coloring personnel has not been reduced.

First, when introducing the role design, the problem of "online" was mentioned. Readers who have used drawing software may know that when drawing with software, if the lines are not connected together, the painting will overflow the specified range (*2). Because the celluloid board is hand-painted, the part with unknown wiring can be drawn by experience regardless of wiring. But after using the computer, the computer will not be smart enough to actively help the colorist identify the wiring part. Therefore, the place where the connection is not good depends on a small painter to draw a black line to correct it. More coloring time (but no salary increase).

Second, the computer saves the time of coloring and increases the variety and diversity of colors. However, due to the delay of the previous manual process and the wrong idea that colorists can complete or modify drawings with more colors in a shorter time. This makes the colorist still work very hard.

It is not difficult to become a colorist, as long as you are familiar with drawing software (because of the above problems, it is ideal to know the basic knowledge of painting). However, if you want to occupy a sky in the color department of the animation industry, you must work hard to study color and think about it in the animation company for a year or two before you can independently assume the heavy responsibility of the color department. The so-called photography is simply the animation draft and background synthesis (*3) homework. Photography effect means that the operator in charge of photography uses a camera or filter to shoot special effects according to the position indicated on the director's chronograph (*4). Photographic effect is very important to Japanese animation. Because the number of Japanese animations is small, it can be covered up by using photographic effects. ! ) There are many disadvantages to a small number of sheets.

Before the animation industry was digitized, photography was carried out on the photography platform (*5), as shown in the left picture. The process is: fix the background, draw according to the cellophane specified in the chronograph, and put it on a 3-link platform that can slide left and right. Flatten the non-reflective glass (*6) used to fix the celluloid painting, and then use the 35/ 16mm camera (*7) installed above the movable frame to synthesize or shoot the animated version of the celluloid board. In addition to photography, the hard part of the photography platform should be concerned about not staining cellophane. In addition, the lighting on both sides of the photographic platform is very strong, as if the hands are basking in the sun every day. But it was too hot to melt cello prints, but the voltage of the air conditioner was spent on the photography stage, so we had to turn on the electric fan to cool down. The era when it was really difficult to use a photographic platform has passed in the blink of an eye. Traditional cameramen who can't adapt to digital production have to leave the animation industry. Few animation companies have video cameras, even if they do, they don't need them.

After the animation production is digitized, all "photography" groups or companies use computer software to "synthesize" the background and the animation draft. Gradually use "success" and "camera work" to distinguish the traditional saying. But the word "photography" is often used in the production scene, even if there is no camera on the scene. There are many kinds of computer synthesis software, such as Adobe After Effect, Discreet Inferno, Retas! Aye. Wait. Readers can find the functions and picture legends of each software in the webpage of each software, so I won't go into details here. Although it saves a lot of time and effort after synthesizing with computer software, the situation of the photography team desperately rushing for the manuscript has not changed. If the animation draft is completed slowly, it will press the colorist's homework time, and of course the time for photography and editing will be shortened. When shooting a TV series, the atmosphere can feel a murderous look. ...

Next, let's talk about the photographic effect. In the animation, you can see the twilight of the sunset on the lake, the starlight in the sky, the fading in and out of the memory lens, the vibration when the bomb explodes ... and so on. Using filters in digital photography can achieve many effects. The words used in photography are the same as those used in the era of photography platform, except that a real camera is missing.

Photographic effect consists of two operations, one is camera movement, which refers to the movement adjustment of moving photographic objects. In addition, it is to use a filter or adjust the focal length of the lens, and shoot with a pre-drawn animation draft for special effects processing.

The following are some common photographic effects:

1.Fix: fix the camera position and shoot the animation draft at the fixed position. Most shots are shot like this.

2.T.I./T.B.(*8): Zoom out or zoom in on the camera with the people in the picture as the center.

3.F.I./F.O.(*9): People fade out/fade in, and the lens focal length is adjusted.

4.O.L. (* 10): For example, overlap two boxes A and B, and change the picture by fading out A and fading in B (and vice versa).

5. Vibration effect (* 1 1): Take an earthquake. When the vibration breaks out, move each picture slightly to shoot the vibration effect.

6. Corrugated glass (* 12): The filter with uneven surface distorts the picture. Usually used to represent water or fire scenes.

7. Backlight (* 13): refers to the flash (such as starlight and lake light) or flash (such as laser cannon and Lei Guang) when the light below the camera shines upward.

8. Soft focus (* 14): Adjust the focal length to make the picture blurred or soft. Often used in romance or to emphasize the loveliness or handsomeness of the protagonist.

Although this is a time-consuming and laborious work, many animation works can still be completed on schedule, which is the "magic" of the animation industry.

Most of the production processes in animation companies stop at this step. The post-production industry is mostly handed over to professional companies. We will start talking about editing, development, recording, dubbing ... and so on in the post-production industry next time. After adding special effects or coloring in an animation company, the video material is usually made into a commercial video (*2), which is handed over to a film and television production company (*3) to use a splicing machine (*4) to make an original film (*5) made according to the split view, and finally shown in front of a TV or theater. All editing materials shall be submitted to the film and television production company in advance by the production manager (*6) or other means, and the production manager shall make an appointment with the director, assistant director and film and television production company for editing.

The most ideal splicing situation is that all the shots that need to be colored and added with special effects are completed, and the director, assistant director and splicing personnel can perform splicing operations according to the scene diagram. However, most of the coloring and special effects can't be finished before the editing operation, so animation companies often hand over colorless black and white line drawings to editing companies. Please ask the film and television production company to change the line draft after coloring (*7).

Back to the editor. In the stitching room (pictured above (*8)), the assistant director (the person who draws the mirror image) looks at the mirror image and gives instructions to the stitching staff. Such as: "cut the lens time shorter here", "lengthen this lens a little" and "this lens doesn't seem to fit here". Try ahead. It often takes hours to watch and change the original editing work of the adjusted lens repeatedly. Basically, no matter how long it takes, the splicing step should be finalized at one time. The reason is that if the original film is continuously lengthened and shortened, it means that recording or dubbing has to be re-recorded many times, which is not only time-consuming but also expensive. The importance of editing is that no matter how carefully you draw the perspective of an animation, you can't see anything wrong with the whole work before editing. Moreover, even if the director, assistant director and animation director check the manuscript repeatedly before editing, there are still omissions. For example, although it seems that lens A and lens B are connected in perspective, the effect after splicing may not be as good as that of lens B placed in front of lens A, or the edited film exceeds the specified time, so it is necessary to decide which lens to keep or give up in the editing stage (*9). Therefore, editing is very important in the sense of "final inspection" for the step of showing an animated work in front of TV or theater.

Make the edited original into about three kinds of videos, which is convenient for post-production work. These three videos (* 10) are as follows.

1, video tape for audio operation (* 1 1)

2. Original (* 12)

3. EDL digital data (editing data) (* 13)

The first kind, as the name implies, is a dubbing, sound effect and synthetic video tape that will be explained after being handed over to the audio company. The second is to compare the sound effects and hand them over to the production company for storage and video synthesis. The third is pure editing operation material, such as which shot is added after which shot, which is generally not needed. However, if editing and editing operations use multiple production companies (such as theatrical version), you need to have an EDL material for * * * to work together.

It seems that although the editing operation is so troublesome, some directors like this step best, because after several months of long production stage, editing this step is the first time for directors to see the works that have been worked hard for several months (years) completely, which is very fulfilling. Special effects can be handled in the following three ways.

The first is the background special effects (*3)

The second is to add special effects to the lens with computer software after painting the basic colors (*4).

The third is the photographic effect of the photographic part.

The first kind of background special effects refers to natural phenomena such as smoke, fog and flame. (such as the fog on the left) painted directly on the background. The way of expression is specified in the perspective in advance and handed over to the art design company for drawing operation. The second and the third have two steps. In the first step, the original painter draws the part that needs special effects in the main mirror (*5). The second step is to use computer software and special effects (* 1) in the designated part after the original painter finishes painting or to use photography skills in the subsequent photography stage.

The second special effect is explained by smoke. When a shot needs the effect of smoke rising, the director will first have a meeting with the animation director who performs the composition work to discuss the required smoke painting method. Such as what kind of smoke, the size of the diffusion range. The animation director instructs the original painter to make the composition of the main mirror (as shown on the left) after being checked by the director and assistant director in each episode, and then enters the split-mirror animation operation of the smoke.

In the coloring unit, it shows that all the lines of the animation are connected and the layers are obvious because of coloring. So the smoke after coating is quite flat (as shown in the left picture). However, the feeling of smoke can not be expressed by simple plane colors, so it is necessary to use brush effect to add an extra layer to achieve the hazy feeling of smoke shadow. This is the second kind of special effect (as shown on the right).

After the left and right pictures are superimposed together with background special effects, it is the shot completed according to the composition drawn by the original painter (as shown below).

The second special effect is to use spray paint (*6) to show fuzzy or hazy effects before computer operation in animation industry. Special effects are all made by computer software. The reason for using computer software is very simple, saving time, effort and money. This is not to say that manual painting is not realistic enough. If there is enough money for painting, hand painting is of course the best. However, a special person is hired to draw special effects. If you want to draw 100, you have to spend 100 on personnel and painting. If you use computer software, as long as you process the image through the filter, you can achieve the desired effect.

Usually in the coloring group, it is divided into ordinary coloring personnel and special effects personnel. After coloring, if there are special effects, give them to the special effects personnel to continue. There is no clear person who specializes in special effects in the coloring group. Most of them are reserved for those who draw better.