Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Photography and portraiture - What are the classifications of animation?

What are the classifications of animation?

Abstract: Animation can be divided into two-dimensional animation, three-dimensional animation and freeze-frame animation. Although the animation we see on the screen is only ten minutes, making an animation is not as simple as you think. The whole animation production process includes: role design, background design, color design, perspective, composition, dubbing, effect sound synthesis, screening, publicity, sales and other steps. It may take a week to make an animation. Let's look at the introduction first. Classification of animation production 1, traditional two-dimensional animation The early type of animation production is traditional two-dimensional animation, which is mainly hand-drawn and expresses the movements of characters through painting. Its production is often complicated and arduous, consuming more cost and time, but it is also more classic. For example, Disney's The Lion King, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck; China's "Little Tadpole Looking for Mom" and "Make a scene in Heaven" are well-known traditional two-dimensional animation productions.

2.flash two-dimensional animation flash animation is basically two-dimensional and is made by computer technology and flash software. The operation is relatively simple, the production cost is relatively low, the file is small, and it is easy to spread. With the continuous development of production technology, flash two-dimensional animation can be seen everywhere in our lives.

3. Three-dimensional animation making Three-dimensional animation making has been widely used in recent years. It mainly uses three-dimensional simulation technology to simulate, giving people a real and vivid viewing experience. Three-dimensional animation is common in movies such as Transformers and Spider-Man. In addition, with the development of the information age, it has also been applied to the advertising field, such as the three-dimensional animation of Nike shoes designed by Hu Yi, the simulation animation of medical machinery, and the three-dimensional animation of Longquan Temple in Tangshan, all of which have exerted the charm of three-dimensional animation.

4. There are not many kinds of stop-motion animation in the production of stop-motion animation. It takes clay dolls, puppets or mixed materials as its main characters. Its production is to decompose the action of the character, pose a continuous shape, and record it by shooting frame by frame. In this way, a continuous picture is produced when playing. The well-known stop-motion animation includes "A Good Horse", "The Story of Two Generations of Love" and "Chicken Run".

Animation production process 1, character design When the original cartoon is adapted into animation, because the characters and costumes have been finalized, there is no need to do more design. But why does every original animation still indicate "original character design" and "animation character designer"? First, comics are static works. Because of the small number of squares, the lines of characters can be more complicated to deepen the aesthetic feeling and impression of the works. However, when making animation, if you are loyal to the lines of the original characters, it will prolong the painting time and cost more money, so it is necessary to simplify the lines of the original characters. Second, cartoon characters don't have to be colored, and they don't have to connect every line. However, animation needs coloring, so it is necessary to improve the original character modeling and connect all the lines so that the coloring staff can color. Third, some original anime characters are not suitable for anime works. Therefore, for the reasons of production efficiency, coloring, animation modeling and so on, the original animation needs to hire another animation role designer.

2. Background design There have been professional background designers since the era of black and white comics. Background designers should basically draw "good, fast and beautiful". The animation time is limited, so there is not much time to draw slowly, so the popular professional art background designer moves quickly and can cope with the urgent delivery date.

After all the figure modeling and mechanical modeling designs are completed, the director and stylist must cooperate with the color designer to finally determine the color of the figure. Color design must match the tone (background and personality) of the whole work to design the color of the characters. After the color manuscript is finalized, the color specifier will specify a more detailed color type.

Many years ago, before computer coloring, watercolor pigments were used to design colors on white paper. Most of the colors of watercolor pigments are not prepared by the production companies themselves, but are designed according to the color cards and ready-made color types provided by the pigment companies. The reason why I don't paint myself is very simple, because after color design, I need a colorist to paint. If you color yourself, it is difficult for the colorist to name the same color. Of course, if the director asks and the funds permit, the production company can ask the pigment company to make the required colors, bottle them and distribute them to the colorists. Because the color type has been specified by the pigment company before the color design process, the color designer served as the color designator many years ago. And many animations look the same color.

Animation color design and color assignment are all done by software. The software used by the company (animo and RETAS are popular animation software in Japan! PRO) is different, as long as it is software for processing images, color design can be carried out. It should be noted that different software processes colors in different ways, so the same software should be specified for color matching when it is delivered to the colorist. In addition, due to the digitalization of production methods and the freedom of color selection, the selection range of color settings has been expanded, and more delicate and diverse colors have been set.

Color designers and color distributors all start from basic colorists. After one or two years (depending on personal qualifications), he was promoted to be a color designer or a color designer. The biggest difference between a color designer and a color specifier is that a color designer only needs to set basic colors (colors in ordinary sunlight). The color matching staff should also work with the assistant director to set the colors needed for other lighting and drama in detail (dusk, night, special lighting ...). As an animation, color design and color specification should have knowledge of image processing colors. Because the picture quality and color displayed by each photographic equipment are different, if we don't design and specify it without a comprehensive understanding, the color displayed on the TV screen will be very different from the effect on the computer screen, which will reduce the charm of the work. Therefore, it takes one to two years for the basic colorists to be familiar with the actual operation process before they can be upgraded to colorists and then become color designers.

3. Mirror image Mirror image is simply "a script presented as an image". How long it takes to draw a mirror image depends on the progress. An average animation of 26 minutes takes 3 weeks to complete. The perspective view does not need to draw the figures correctly, as long as the later staff can understand it. Nevertheless, the split-mirror painter still needs to practice the character modeling of each work, understand the characteristics of the work in advance, and let the original painter draw the lens required by the deputy director of each episode correctly by relying on the split-mirror diagram.

It is often seen that the draftsman and assistant director are the same person. There is a simple reason. Because the designer of the drawing (the mirror artist) is usually the person who knows the effect and superb acting skills that each shot needs to best set off the charm of the work. Therefore, the split-view picture is often the work of the deputy director.

The assistant director basically shares the burden of the director. No matter how many episodes of OVA series or 26 episodes of TV animation series, it is impossible for a director to take care of all the production details. Therefore, each animation series has an assistant director position to manage the animation production of each episode. Most directors are responsible for the important first and last episodes. The assistant director's job content is basically the same as that of the director except that he is not responsible for the pre-script, design draft and post-production publicity activities. However, since the director is the commander-in-chief of the whole work, before the assistant director is responsible for the production of each episode, the assistant director's auxiliary mirror picture must be approved by the director before the work can be officially assigned to the original painter for production.

4. Composition After the perspective and all the character designs and backgrounds are ready, someone must put all the materials together and draw an enlarged detailed perspective for subsequent actions. It is the composer who performs the work.

Perspective is often just a sketch, which gives an overview of a painting. For example, in a shot, "Xiaoming and Jesse are standing on the sports ground and talking", the composition staff must draw an enlarged picture of the detailed positional relationship between the characters (Xiaoming and Jesse) and the background (sports ground) according to the general description of each frame of the sub-scene, the figure modeling table (illustration) and the background. If the explanation in the composition is not clear, it will affect the subsequent original painting homework. The completed composition and figure design table are handed over to the original painter, who is required to start drawing a more detailed main mirror according to the composition.

Original painting directors exist because a work usually employs two or four original painters (more or less depending on the work). Every figure painted by the original painter may be out of shape according to his own painting style (or painting skills). The work of the original painting director is to modify the original painting drawn by the original painter, unify the painting style and make it loyal to the character design draft.

A good original painter and director must do some research on the photographic lens in order to draw every main mirror well. Movies can require actors to stand in the right position and pose in the position the director wants. But animation can only draw the ideal position and character movements with strokes. Therefore, an original painter and director with good ability and qualification also refers to being able to draw the ideal main mirror picture (the correct posture and movements of the characters) according to the concepts of photography and editing. Many experienced original painters or directors love movies and have done some research on them.

Most of the original painters and original painting directors start from grassroots animators. Because it is necessary to know and be familiar with the animation production process before upgrading to the original painting, it is impossible for newcomers to work in the original painting as soon as they enter the animation company. An animator with good qualifications and hard work is promoted to the original painter and then to the original painting director, which is very fast. Those who are not qualified and don't work hard have to be grassroots animators all the time.

5. Dubbing is divided into three parts: role dubbing, music and sound effect. Most of this part was assigned to various sound departments (such as composer, lyricist, seiyuu, sound producer) by the sound director appointed after the meeting between the producer and the director. This time, it is first mentioned to the voice actor who voiced the animated character (this article uses seiyuu).

The role of a work is decided by the director, sound director and sponsor. Deciding seiyuu and assigning roles is not a simple matter. As far as the planning of the original case is concerned, the director who has both the original case and the original case determines the impression of the characters he created in his mind, and there are many seiyuu in Japan, so it is not easy to pick out the ideal candidate from the seiyuu group. Readers may already know that Japanese seiyuu has a certain market influence, and seiyuu fans will buy their favorite seiyuu performances, so it is sometimes chosen by sponsors.

How to choose the right voice actor for the work? Some directors are exposed to many seiyuu because of their participation in the production of many works and their love for animation. So when choosing seiyuu, you may have thought of using seiyuu to interpret your own works. If the director has no idea, he will ask the sound director for advice. The reason is that the voice guide gets along with the voice actor all the year round and knows better than the director which voice actor is suitable for which type of role. In another case, when a production company launches a new film, it will notify Seiyuu to list the candidates, and then hold a meeting with the director and sound director to decide.

After deciding the candidates, assign the script to the voice actor who plays each role and arrange time for recording. Producer, production manager, director, sound director and assistant director all participated in the recording. Senior seiyuu students may be able to record it formally after an audition because of their rich experience or mature acting skills. Of course, a line (especially laughing or crying) can be expressed in many ways. The director will instruct seiyuu to express the recording in different ways, and then choose the most suitable part to use. This is not to say that the voice is bad, but strong. A line can be expressed in many ways, giving the director a choice. Of course, a voice actor with immature acting skills may have to audition many times to record the effect that the director wants. When recording a single role, a voice actor with poor acting skills will not delay the time of other voice actors (only the director will suffer, and the voice actor should wait patiently until the voice actor with poor acting skills speaks the right lines). But when recording a group play, the voice actors with poor acting skills are very poor. Because the seiyuu recorded together was recorded once or twice, it was ok, and I put it home, but it was still out of NG, and finally they were left to record it alone, which was a bit embarrassing. The recording start time depends on the situation. It usually starts at 10 in the morning, but sometimes it starts at four or six in the afternoon. As for how long it will take, it depends on the length of seiyuu lines recorded that day, the number of people recorded and the maturity of acting skills. Sometimes it can be solved within 30 minutes, and sometimes it takes hours until late at night.

6. Effect sound synthesis In addition to the excellent acting skills of the voice actors of animated characters, sound effects and theme music are another important reason to attract people to watch.

Most of the music is composed by professional composers and lyricists. The scale of music production depends on the budget. On a large scale, famous musicians and symphony orchestras may be invited to play the theme song. On a small scale, it can be mixed by one person with a computer. Composers and lyricists don't just make animated music. They usually come from other music circles and do animation music across lines. In order to understand the worldview that the original (original) producer wants to express, the music producer must have a meeting with the director in advance to understand the feeling that the director needs. After the meeting, I began to make audition tapes. Previously, the audition tapes were given to the director in the form of tapes, often using MD or CD. After listening to the audition tape, the director and the composer held a meeting to revise the direction of music production. Because another important income of animation is the sales of soundtrack CDs, for example, inviting popular pop singers to sing theme songs can attract fans, the girl group formed by record companies for super-large animation works can stimulate sales activities, the super-popular vocal lead singer can attract a certain number of customers ... and many other sales factors make the production of animation music under certain pressure.

As for sound effects, suppose an animated story takes place in summer, and there is no sound except the voice of the animated characters. Even if the image shows a sunny beach or ice, but there is no sound of sea water, the sound of ice melting will make the whole summer feel much less. The order of making sound effects is to collect sound materials-> Compile-> mix->; Recording-> Confirm-> Save the materials. There are three sound effects.

(1) Artificial sound: the original sound effect, which needs to be created by the sound engineer himself, such as the sound produced by weapons or spaceships that do not exist in reality.

(2) Ambient sound: the sound of various scenes around the characters, the sound of cars passing by, the school bell, etc.

(3) Sound: the sound of footsteps, clothes rubbing, door closing and door opening, which is simply the sound generated by the actions of characters in the picture.

According to the desired effect, artificial sound can be made of a mixture of various sound sources or made of different materials by sound engineers. As for the environmental sound effect or sound generation, sometimes it is recorded directly in the street or in the wild, and sometimes it is made of CD, a sound source material sold in the market. The different sound equipment, the volume or everyone's different views on various sounds will change the atmosphere of each animation, so the sound effects engineer should be quite sensitive to sound (any sound) and make great efforts to understand the sound equipment.

Theme music has been composed and sung in the early and middle stages of animation, so the production time is sufficient. However, due to the delay of animation operation, the work of audio-visual synthesis often takes shorter time. The synthesis work is completed by the director, sound director and studio technicians. Some directors like composing music best among all animation works. Because this is the first time that all the animation "parts" made according to the director's instructions are put together for the first time. The working hours of "piecing together" are different. The theatrical version is divided into many sections, which are completed one by one. A shorter episode of 26-minute OVA or TV version can usually be completed in one day. Sometimes the sound source prepared in advance doesn't match the director or image. In terms of the sound of rain, the feeling of heavy rain or light rain or heavy rain or light rain is different. You need to fully communicate with the director and sound system in advance before you can be OK. In particular, the production time of TV series is tight, so it is very important to give post-producers enough time to modify the schedule.

Most songwriters or recording artists who make animation music do not start from the animation industry, but mostly come from other music circles. How to enter the music industry is a bit out of touch with this animation column, so I won't elaborate here. However, it is essential to like music and play musical instruments. Because in order to cooperate with all kinds of animated plots, musicians who make animated music need to know a lot about all kinds of music in order to create ideal music.

7. Preview When making a movie version of animation, the first preview will be conducted in the audio-visual rooms of various film and television production companies after audio-visual synthesis. The reason for the preview is not only to check the final homework mistakes on the big screen, but also to invite relevant people in the industry to watch the film for publicity. After the first screening, if any dissatisfaction is found, it will be returned to the production center for re-shooting. In fact, most of the remake works have been modified to some extent in the process of film inspection in the production center without dragging down the time of review and screening. Moreover, the working hours of the TV version and the movie version are quite tight, and there is usually not much time for remake before sending them to TV stations or cinemas for review and broadcast. Large-scale remake operations are mostly carried out after TV broadcast (movie download) and before DVD release. Because OVA works are not shown on TV or big screen, as long as the deadline for submission can be met, some OVA works will be shown and promoted, but the nature of publicity at those shows has little to do with the content of the works.

Animation works, from planning to launch, must be packaged and promoted by communication (advertising) companies before they can meet the public. When it comes to how to promote sales, we must mention some realistic economic problems and the planning and production costs mentioned in the first to third sections of this unit. It takes tens of millions of yen to make a 26-minute animation, and the movie version is based on 8-digit yen. Therefore, when raising funds for TV or movie animation production in the early stage, it is difficult for both film and television communication companies and animation production companies to produce independently without the help of sponsors. Most of the sponsors who will participate in animation production are publishing, television or film giants who are familiar with the animation industry, and sometimes people from the financial sector will join. When looking for sponsors to cooperate in animation projects, most of them will give sponsors various rights-related conditions under the agreement. The reason is that although the initial investment cost is huge, the recovery rate of related products (TV ratings = advertising revenue, DVD, CD, toys, etc. If the sales go well, it will be several times the production cost. Of course, attracted by the high recovery rate, sometimes sponsors who are interested in animation planning will take the initiative to put forward investment conditions and then participate in the production process. The' Production Committee' (or XX Magic Company, 00 Group, # # Plan ... varies according to the names of animation works) is often an investment company group that actually contributes capital and owns various rights of the works in the copyright label of animation works. In addition, due to the scale of broadcast planning companies, some have their own circulation channels, and some do not, so they will find a large general agent to cooperate. Therefore, we can often see the different situations of' selling RMB' and' selling RMB' companies on the packaging of animated DVDs. Most of the selling yuan is the copyright of animation works. The owners of selling rights and projects mainly contribute to the production company, while selling yuan is the general agent (the company dealing with retailers).

Investment groups have little influence on the actual animation production, but have great influence on the promotion and sales process. For example, if one of the funders is a TV station, it may have an impact on the decision of broadcast time, animation performance and story content. This is related to the different scale of each TV station and the different audiences in each time period. Some TV stations allow a certain degree of sexual suggestion and the intensity of video presentation, while some TV stations have stricter standards for the same period. Under the broadcast censorship standards of different TV stations, animations made for adult animation lovers will not appear in some TV stations. Even if the scale is relatively loose, cartoons made for adult anime lovers will only be broadcast at 65438+ 0 -3 pm, not at 6 -8 pm or 7 -9 am for children. In addition, the TV time of each broadcasting company is different, and it is not difficult to determine which broadcasting company to cooperate with when the animation is broadcast, and so is the theatrical version, which theater can show it.

8. There are many ways to publicize, whether it is original works or original animations. After the decision is made (raising funds and preparing the producer), it will be announced through the websites of film and television broadcasting companies, animation production companies and various miscellaneous videos related to animation, which is the first step of publicity. As far as the film version is concerned, the animated works that can be used to make feature films are already quite famous. Animation magazines sometimes take the initiative or cooperate with the company's propaganda to compile special collections (such as interviews with directors, producers, figures or mechanical stylists, seiyuu ... and other major producers) to increase the purchase desire of inherent loyal audiences. In the early stage of TV series, the production will be announced in various media to attract the audience's attention. In the middle of production, no matter what kind of animation works are released, posters (as shown above) will be displayed in various large-scale activities, promotional videos will be made, producers will be invited to take the stage in advance or girls' groups will be invited to act as animation spokespersons. In some fixed animation-related activities, foreign language versions will be produced to attract foreign agents to buy copyright. In the post-production publicity, in addition to the usual TV and other media advertisements, according to the recent trend, the producers will sell the preview DVD (stickers, T-shirts ...) of animation-related products in advance. Publicity work will inevitably be affected by funds, and sufficient funds can make it famous in more media. However, not every work has a large amount of publicity funds. Apart from the production of fixed posters, web pages and promotional videos, TV stations rarely broadcast special reports of animated works in prime time, like the works of world-famous directors.

9. sales volume speaking of sales volume, it is ten or twenty years for TV dramas to promote DVDs while broadcasting. In the early days, the only animation media was TV or movies. In' ancient times', there were not many channels to contact animation works. Magazine news and TV (1 1 is considered as late-night time) are the main media for children to watch cartoons, but the content of cartoons is also limited accordingly. The appearance of VHS in 1980s opened the market of OVA series animation and changed the habit of watching animation. In the 1980s, it was a big challenge for the salespeople in charge of publicity to sell videos directly without TV broadcast, because there was no precedent, and I didn't know how to price them or whether there was a market. But surprisingly, the OVA animation, which is not limited by the TV scale, sold well, so thanks to VHS, the golden age of OVA was established from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. In addition, due to the emergence of home video recorders, the audio-visual habits of TV stations that can only broadcast on TV have been changed, and the sales model of issuing video tapes after TV broadcasting has been completed. With the changes of the times, the space-occupying LD has become a thing of the past, replaced by the media rookie DVD. In the process of changing from VHS, LD to DVD, the animation industry finally found that the public awareness and publicity effect of direct distribution of video tapes were not as good as those of animation works broadcast on TV, so most well-known OVA works launched TV animation series to promote the popularization of the whole works. With the advent of the DVD era and the trend that TV has once again become the darling of the media, the industry has shifted from releasing OVA series first to directly producing TV dramas and then releasing DVDs and related CDs. If you are popular, shoot a theatrical version or make up a follow-up story with OVA. For broadband networks, based on unsuccessful examples and the negative impact of numerous cases of illegal downloading and copyright infringement, the industry mostly takes a wait-and-see attitude.

In the case that many rights are shared with investors in the early stage of an animation production, the publicity and sales operations in the later stage are often beyond the jurisdiction or control of the animation production company. Nevertheless, it has been mentioned many times in this unit that good animation is the result of good teamwork. The division of labor in the later stage of publicity and marketing is not entirely due to political or economic factors, but also based on professional considerations.

After the last episode of a work was sold in Japan, only the overseas dubbing/subtitle version was sold. Due to the influence of Pokemon's "super popularity" in the world, the market outside Japan has gradually attracted the attention of the Japanese industry and changed its attitude towards overseas markets. Not only actively strive for foreign animation cases, but also gradually change the animation content to meet foreign demand. However, due to the long-term neglect of the potential of overseas markets (the content is completely aimed at the Japanese market) and the different maturity of copyright laws in various countries (piracy is rampant), Japanese industries dare not invest in overseas copyright and animation production without a considerable degree of legal protection and little understanding of the national conditions of various countries. In fact, we all know that Japanese animation has a huge audience in other Asian countries. However, due to different countries' different understandings of official animation works and different playing standards, the industry still stays in making animations suitable for Japan's national conditions, and then invites agents familiar with the national conditions to be responsible for selling or editing versions suitable for each national condition.