The following are excerpts from my copy of Brian Lemay's "LAYOUT AND DESIGN MADE AMAZINGLY SIMPLE".

The following ain't no 'copy-and-paste' o, na me take the pains to type am out myself (letter for letter, word for word, ), which as you know is time-consuming, so bear with me as I won't be able to present the whole text in one fell swoop, but rather in two parts. Enjoy! HOW ANIMATION IS PRODUCED Watch any animated cartoon on T.V today and at the end when the closing credits come on the screen, you're bombarded with what seems to be a million named grouped into different departments. Don't bother trying to read them all because they usually flash on for about 3 seconds per 20 names. It takes a lot of people to create a half hour cartoon, roughly about 230 in all different areas. It breaks down as follows: Production (non-artistic) ----- 25 Executives ----- 10 Designers ----- 8 Storyboard ----- 10 Layout ----- 40 Animation ----- 70 Cel Painting ----- 52 Post Production ----- 15 With this many people it stands to reason that a great deal of organization and planning goes into the production of a cartoon. Each department has it's own area of expertise and employs people who specialize in that specific area. The hierarchy is quite simple: PRODUCER | | DIRECTOR | | (non-artistic) (artistic) Production Co-ordinator Department Supervisors | |

| Production Assistants (quota / time sheets)

| Individual Artists & Technicians

The producer is usually the owner or head of the studio and answers to the investors. The producer may be an investor as well. The director overseas and directs all aspects of the production, making all the major artistic and technical decisions. The director answers to the producer. The production co-ordinator is responsible for the physical production of the show. Paper flow and deadlines are controleed through this office. Also, time sheets, quota and payment are dealt with here. The department supervisors are the specialists that make sure the director's ideas are carried out. They regulate the artistic quality of the production within their individual departments. The individual artists and technicians create the artwork that is used in the final production whether it's a character design or a sound effect. These people are under the control of the department supervisors. Production assistants help to keep the flow of work moving by taking care of nonartistic/technical aspects within the production such as organizing storyboards for each department, delivery of layouts to the animation and background departments. Collection of time sheets as well as many other time saving services. These people allow the artists to spend all their time creating the art for the cartoon.

THE PROCESS THE actual physical production of an animated cartoon always begins with "an idea" or "concept". This is then passed on to two different departments, (1) the writers, and (2) character designers. The writers develop the idea into a story and create an outline that describes the function and mental characteristics of the various characters. This is called "the bible". The character designers will use these outlines to create a structured series of drawings for each of the characters, showing physical characteristics and capabilities from various angles (full front, 3/4, side and rear) as well as different facial expressions. These are known as "character model sheets". Location or background designers (sometimes layout artists) create the environments that the characters move around in. Similar to a theatrical set designer, these people draw 3/4 downshots of the various locations. A great deal of research goes into the production of the location designs.

To be continued,,, Re: 2d Traditional/Classical Animation Corner. by Lafem(m): 1:34am On Aug 13, 2007 Continuation,,,, This [location or background designers] department in most cases will have a resource library with books on numerous subjects ranging from furniture design to nature books. Some studios have a staff librarian to find and categorize this information taken from amazines such as National Geograpic and TIME. Thus, if a location design of a Central American Aztec village is required, the designer need only request all reference material on this subject for a more accurate artistic interpretation. While location and character designs are being created, props used by the characters may also be required such as a wooden mallet. Again a certain amount of research to create an authentic looking piece. Next, all these designs come together in the Storyboard Department. Here they use these to create a visual version of the script in what looks like a very long comic strip. The Storyboard shows the camera angles, character action and background elements in a fairly rough form. This depends on the type of production again. A Saturday morning cartoon show might have a very rough sketch, or something much more accurate to a full color version more for a feature length film or commercial. Once the storyboard has been approved by the director, it is then sent to 3 different departments (1) sound recording, (2) art direction and, (3) layout. Sound recording covers voices, sound effects and music. These are each recorded individually then edited together to produce the final sound mix. Once the voices and sound effects are edited, they are "broken down" by an editor who listens to the sound track and writes down each sound that is made on each of the individual frames. This information is written on what is called a "bar sheet". This is used by the animator to match the sounds to the drawings so that it looks like the characters are actually talking. This is called "lip-sync" (sychronization). The layout department uses the storyboard along with the character, location and prop designs to develop the working size artwork used by the animators and background artists which will finally be photographed under the animation camera. In a lot of cases today, these packages are sent overseas to other animation studios, (mainly in Taiwan, Korea, China or Japan), where the work force is greater and production costs are lower. Proper communication of ideas is of prime importance in this case, since long distance calls can waste needless time and money. The layout package goes to two departments from (1) animation, and (2)background painting.

The animators use the layout animation poses as a guide for the character placement within the camera field as well as action. Sometimes the animator will use the poses as "keys" for their animation. A copy of the background is also included for environment placement. The animators give life to the characters by creating a series of drawings that when photographed individually, will produce "the illusion of life". They also transfer the information on the bar sheets to exposure sheets which are used by the camera person as a guide to indicate which order the drawings are to be exposed in and for how long. The background layout is used in the background department as a guide for the final rendered background. The painters use the color sketches by the art director for mood. In some cases, the layout artist may provide a black and white rendering as well. The medium used by the background painter depends on what the style of the film is. It could be pencil crayon, markers, pastel, watercolor, gouache or airbrush. Oil paints are rarely used simply because of the long drying time. Once the animation has been completed, it moves into the cel painting stage. This labourious and time consuming process requires the transfer of each individual animation drawing onto a sheet of clear acetate or a "cel". The transfer is done either mechanically by photocopying the image or by hand tracing with a grease pencil or pen. The cels are then painted on the reverse side using a special cel paint or just plain water based latex paint applied with a small paint brush. With the growing advent of computer technology, it is becoming the trend to scan the animation drawings into the computer, then apply the colors electronically. The colored images are then projected, with the background image, directly onto the film or video tape. This saves an enormous amount of time and money. The work of 20 people done within 1 week of time can now be done by one person on a single day. Once the cels have been cleaned of dust and excess paint, they and the painted background and any other elements required are sent to the camera department to be photographed under camera. The camera person follows the instructions given on the exposure sheets.The film is then processed and an editor splices all the scenes together in their proper order. The visual film is synchronized to the audio track, sound effects track and music tracks. These are then mixed together and transferred to video tape (usually at a post-production studio). The final video tape is then shipped to the television network or station and is shown on the air during its time slot. Yay! Feature films can cost up to 5 or 6 million and production last 3 years. Half hour specials and Saturday morning shows run between $250,000 to $500,000 and production lasts 6 months a year. Commercials, depending on the style and complexity can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 and last 1 month to half a year.