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Filip Stojanovski
Contemporary Storytelling: Comics and Animation
Making an Animation
Storyboard
The storyboard is a visual tool that presents the
flow of the action. It looks like a very detailed comic, and includes
sketches of the behavior of the characters during the story, as
specified by the written script. It specifies the changes of camera
angle, changes of position or changes of direction of the movements of
the participants in the action. This sketchy record is then used to draw
key frames.
Drawing Key Frames and Animating
Classical animation includes the use of drawings,
which are photographed with a special camera, and then joined in a film
sequence. Such drawings (or paintings) are called cells, and the whole
process "cell animation." Because some of elements in the
drawings do not change from cell to cell, it is best to re-use what is
already drawn. This way the drawings consist of several layers of
transparent plastic (celluloid), each containing different elements of
the scene. For example, one layer for the far, immobile background such
as the sky and the horizon, another for the closer background such as a
group of trees, and a third for the character.
The design of the scenes also plays a role in the
emotional involvement of the viewer. Because the background is static,
covering 90% of the field of vision, animators pay great attention to
filling in details that would make it as believable as possible (White,
1988, p.154). The use of colors, line styles and patterns also enhances
the emotional effect (Thomas & Johnston, 1981, pp.483-486).
Similarly to the style of drawing of Japanese comics, the elaborate
backgrounds provide a sharp contrast to the stylized characters, helping
the viewer enter the world of the story with greater ease (McCloud,
1993, p.43).
When the cell is photographed it becomes a frame –
part of the motion picture. The important frames in which changes in
size, position, direction or shape occur are called key frames. Usually
the lead artists draw these cells first. Then, the act of animating
takes place: the animators draw the cells that are in between the key
frames. This process is more based on calculation than on artistic
creativity, involving drawing slight changes in the position from one
drawing to the next. Because the cells drawn are in between the key
frames, it is sometimes referred as "in-betweening" or "tweening"
(Macromedia, 1999). After the cells are drawn, they are photographed and
included in the movie.
Sound Synchronization
Different theorists share the position that the use
of sound is of vital importance in wrapping up the whole animation. The
background music sets the mood in a powerful way. But what adds the
final touch to the process of convincing the viewer of the
"reality" of the experience is the synchronization of
characters’ speech. The speaking scenes get a different treatment than
the rest of the movie. When making such scenes, the conversation of the
actors is recorded before the drawing (White, 1988, p.134). Then, the
editors do extensive temporal analysis of the recording, documenting the
time of utterance of each distinct sound, and calculating which frame is
related to that moment. This information is forwarded to the animators,
who can draw the appropriate facial expressions to appear at the
appropriate time for the sound (Culhane, 1990, pp.212-213). This makes
the movie complete, and ready for viewing.
Contents
| Foreword |
Glossary |
Works Cited
Comics: Bits of History |
Modern Age |
Great Adventurers |
Vocabulary
| Grammar: Closure
Animation: Origins |
An Early Animator |
Classical Animation |
Making an Animation
| Epilogue
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