BEHIND THE SCENES: ANIMATION
By the time an illustration arrives into the animation chamber, it may have dozens or even hundreds of layers. Precise naming conventions, folder organization, and project management, when applied successfully, empower a geographically distributed team to stay on course. Now begins the process of bringing these elements to life.
The wire frame boxes indicate layer groups intentionally separated so the parameters can be modified with ease.
FROM STILLNESS TO MOTION
Exploring three steps in the animation process.
Poses
Animated scenes and sequences almost always call for more than what any single frame of illustration captures. In this case, many of the fisher-person’s poses and light gradations have been designed in advance.
Key Frames
This video shows the character rendered into key poses. Our budgets tend to run a little lower than Pixar’s (where teams of over 30 can focus on just the hair!), but when scenes incorporate characters, they often call for their own branch of work.
Pre-Visualization
The director may generate pre-visualizations using stick figures to communicate nuances of movement, camera angle, and lighting. This intermediary process is deliberately minimalist to fine-tune the interaction between motion, sound, lyrics, and cuts.
REALIZATION
We welcome you to enjoy the excerpt below. It represents the realization of a long process. What starts out as a vision, contained in the imagination and funneled through a dynamic process of communication, collaboration, and creativity across continents and time zones, finally arrives as the realized dreamscape of a not-so-distant past.
This clip features the completed animation, and also demonstrates the process of layering the illustration. Watch once, focussing on the movement of the character, and then again to notice the layers turn on one by one in the background.