ANIMATION JOBS EXPLAINED

you wanna show everyone your bandian [Music] hi friends this is laura aka lulu sketches in case you're new here i'm a visual development artist at paramount working on a feature called tiger's apprentice i've been working as an artist in the animation industry for six years now i've also worked on 2d shows like tangled the series steven universe the owl house and amphibia today i'm going to do a highly requested video i'm going to attempt to explain all the creative jobs in the animation industry that i know of both television and feature 2d and 3d i'm an artist in the animation industry i am by no means an expert at explaining other people's jobs in the industry but i'll try my best if you have more specific questions about some of these jobs there are a ton of resources online provided by other artists who actually do those jobs but hopefully this video will give you a jumping off point to start you need to understand the animation pipeline this pipeline differs from production to production from 2d to 3d and from tv to feature first here is the basic pipeline of a 2d animated television production first the story is created and a script or outline is written then initial character and prop designs are made sometimes key locations are designed at this point next storyboards are made after that voice actors start records then the finish boards are edited together and timed for an animatic with voice dialogue and sound effects once there are finished boards additional characters and props and effects are designed and the bulk of the environments are designed next all the environments props effects and characters are painted for the actual animation tv animation studios in la actually outsource to other animation studios in other countries so as all of these steps of the pipeline are approved they're packaged and sent to the other animation studio where the episode is animated you might have noticed that visual development was not mentioned because for 2d animated tv shows visual development is done at the very beginning as the show is being developed but not during the actual production of episodes for a 3d production whether you're working in tv or feature you're going to have some different steps because instead of flat drawings and paintings of characters props and environments most everything is going to be modeled and color and texture will be applied by surfacing the models i only have experience with 3d for feature but here is a simplified explanation first the story is created then visual development begins initial characters and props are designed key locations are designed storyboards are made voice actors start records these storyboards are edited together in time for an animatic with voice dialogue and sound effects then the environments effects additional characters and props are designed next scenes are blocked out with rough models these previous scenes are added to the animatic modeling is done models are textured character models are rigged characters are animated the effects animation is done final models are placed into the sets set dressing is done lighting is done and compositing is done again every production varies and a lot of these steps will overlap so don't take the order too seriously now that my simplified pipelines are out of the way i will explain the animation jobs mentioned in the pipelines writers create storylines for feature films or episodes of tv series in tv animation there are script driven shows and board driven shows for script driven shows writers create scripts for board driven shows writers create outlines and board artists add their own dialogue and jokes some board driven shows you've probably heard of are spongebob steven universe and adventure time other things writers have to do they have to pitch their story ideas to the other writers and to the higher ups and part of that is kind of acting out your writing and they'll work in the program final draft for formatting the script now on to the art department the visual development team creates the look of the film this dev artists work under art directors and production designers and together they develop the style color and overall artistic approach to each and every sequence everything has to be designed from major characters to the smallest of props every single location anything visual for the film early on biz dev artists work on blue sky exploration where their ideas can help inspire the writers and storyboard artists later on during production vis-dev artists work on color keys lighting keys they create very specific designs to be modeled from and they create paintings to show how those models should be surfaced they also do matte paintings to be used in the backgrounds of films in areas that aren't modeled or you might have a specific matte painter for that job visual development artists do drawings and paintings in photoshop and some even do 3d modeling in maya or blender next let's move on to the story department for a bit storyboard artist or story artist or board artists create storyboards board artists translate scripts and story ideas into visual sequences storyboarding is one of the hardest jobs if not the hardest job in the animation industry in my mind at least storyboarders have to understand composition perspective cinematography human and animal anatomy staging scene structure they have to create appealing character acting with emotion action humor and they have to do this really fast with gestural sketches that read well and convey the story well and then they have to pitch their sequences and act them out in rooms full of people then a lot of the time the story changes and all that work is thrown out and they have to start over being a storyboard artist is not for the weak and as i mentioned if you're a storyboard artist on a board driven show you're also doing the work of a writer storyboard artists typically use the program storyboard pro but i've heard of some tv productions that use photoshop and a few that are even using flash in charge of these storyboard artists are the directors directors are responsible for directing the story of a film or an episode of a tv show they make sure the story and overall vision is conveyed through the boards there are sometimes multiple directors on tangled the series there were always three directors so each director would direct their own episode and then they'd have a team of storyboard artists who would report to them for that episode mostly directors guide their storyboard teams and give notes but sometimes directors will do boarding on the episodes as well after the storyboards have gone through notes in our final eyes storyboard revisionists will help the storyboard artists and directors by cleaning up the boards and addressing additional notes so storyboard artists clean up the rough drawings make sure that there is continuity and that the characters are on model and they might even need to adjust character acting or background locations the notes can vary a lot as for programs storyboard revisionists work in whatever program the storyboarder is using so storyboard pro photoshop or flash next is editing once all the storyboards are sent to the editor they are edited together and timed into an animatic with voice dialogue and sound effects editors have to make decisions regarding pacing acting dialogue and sound now back to the art department let's talk about character design character designers are the artists who design the characters in animated features and tv shows character design is happening throughout the animation pipeline before storyboarding even begins character designers are launched on designs with the script or just a description then this initial design goes to storyboarders to use as reference in their boards eventually the design bounces back to the character designers to solidify their designs after the boards are made character designers start with loose exploration sketches before doing clean finalized designs then they draw character turnarounds mouth charts and special poses special poses happen when the storyboard artist has the character in a very exaggerated pose so the character designer needs to do a clean drawing of that pose on model for the animators to use as reference like most of the art department character designers work in photoshop like character design prop design is happening throughout the animation pipeline prop designers design props to give to the board artist to use as reference before storyboarding begins and they also need to design additional props that are added during the boarding also how props work might be changed during the boarding so then those designs would be sent back to the prop designers to make edits like character designers prop designers also start with loose exploration sketches before doing the clean finalized designs and turn arounds and prop designers also work in photoshop look at you background designers aka location designers aka layout designers design all the environments in a 2d animated series most of these layouts are based on the storyboards because then you know which angles of a location need to be designed some shows have pre-design where a few key locations are designed before the boarding begins tangle the series head pre-design where the layout supervisor would do some vis-dev sketches of the locations to give to the board artists as reference in addition to excellent draftsmanship which is required for character design prop design and layout design layout designers have to have a really good knowledge of perspective layout designers are generally expected to design a background today so they have to work very quickly okay so every single job that i'm mentioning today you have to work fast as hell that's just kind of how the animation industry works so next we'll talk about background painting finally an area that i know a lot about because i worked as a background painter for many years background painters in tv paint the layouts designed by the layout designers background painters are given the clean black and white layouts sometimes with a rough color key from the art director sometimes they're not given a color key and they can just do whatever the hell they want depending on the style of the show you might be painting underneath line art or if the backgrounds are lineless everything must be fully recreated and rendered without lines background painters are told the time of day the mood and any weather changes so they can decide how to render lighting like with layout designers and every job and animation you're expected to work quickly you're generally expected to turn around one background painting a day a color stylist paints the characters props and effects to fit into the background paintings they'll receive clean black and white character designs prop designs and effects to paint for the main characters that are already painted for each episode the color stylist will do a lighting pass to show how the characters will look in the changing lighting of that episode the art director or ad guides the designers and painters in television and guides the vizdev artists in feature art directors create a style guide to follow whether they're working on a feature or a tv show and then they make sure that the designers and painters stay on style in all of their artwork art directors will usually work on some of the designs and paintings themselves too as well as color keys for the color script and lighting keys some shows and features have multiple art directors in tv i've seen sometimes there's two art directors one for color and one for design there's always a production designer on feature films the production designer or pd is the artist in charge of the entire look of the film they oversee the art directors and the viz dev artists so they're in charge of the art department the production designers if they have the time will also work on some of the designs and paintings too my production designer works on a lot of the art himself whenever he has the time but he has to go to a lot of meetings since he's overseeing the entire look of the film okay now on to a few roles that only exist in 3d productions for big studios like disney feature or pixar these jobs are in-house but for most productions feature and television 3d animation is outsourced to other studios outside the us sony actually has its own studio where it does its own 3d animation but it's located in canada okay so this part is a little confusing because i just defined a layout artist as the same thing as a background designer a couple minutes ago forget all of that a layout artist for 3d is very different working from storyboards layout artists use the film's characters props sets in cameras to stage block and shoot the film in 3d first previz layout artist aka rough layout or rlo interpret and recreate the storyboards into a 3d environment they model a very rough set and roughly animate the characters just to see what the movie will look like in 3d animation so the rlo artist determined the initial 3d camera placement in motion along with the first pass of character blocking and staging once the rough layout has been approved by the director final layout or flo comes in they replace the rough models of characters environments with the final approved assets final layout also provides set dressing they take props created by the biz dev artist and dress them inside the set to make it feel like a real space this allows character animators to add final performances into the shots once the shots have been animated final layout applies any additional camera polishing or small edits to account for the new performances added by the character animators and layout artists typically work in maya modelers digitally sculpt characters props and environments designed by the visual development artists and character designers and they also typically work in maya and then rigging artists rig these models basically giving 3d characters a skeleton and they're also working in maya and then texturing artists aka surfacing artists aka look development artists are the 3d artists who create the textures and materials that will be applied to the character props and environment models basically they have to make the model surface match the surfacing pass done by the viz dev artist and then character animators animate the characters character animators bring the characters to life using their knowledge of anatomy weight and acting to create appealing emotional and funny character performances character animators also work in maya and then effects artists animate elements other than characters such as hair fur fluids cloth and explosions lighting artists compose the digital lighting of a scene they have to make sure that the lighting mood and color balance is consistent throughout a shot or scene and then compositors work with the lighting directors and effects artists to create the final finished images in the film while keeping the look continuous throughout the film and that's pretty much all the creative jobs in the animation industry that i know anything about and for every job i mentioned there could be a lead artist who manages the other artists in that area there are a lot of people that go into making an animated film and i just scratch the surface again all productions are structured differently so not everything i said is going to apply to every production or every studio but hopefully this gives you a general idea of how a lot of creative jobs work in the animation industry if you're trying to discover artists who do one of these jobs i mentioned simply watch the credits of your favorite animated movie or tv show their names are literally right there listed and then go follow them on instagram or something i don't know i hope this was helpful this video took a long ass time to make so i would appreciate it if you gave it a thumbs up and i have a lot more videos coming up so make sure to subscribe join the fam we like to talk about animation and stuff okay bye

Channel: Laura Price

Views: 51,376

Keywords: animation pipeline, animation industry, animation jobs, animation advice, animator, visual development artist, vis dev artist, disney artist, disney animation, animated movies

Id: AcLeBajc38I

Length: 16min 20sec (980 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020