QUESTION Victor Duarte Gê Trigueiro, Fortaleza, CE, and Fernando Henrique de Oliveira, Juazeirinho, PB
Those who are not in the business cannot even imagine the size of the grating. The first step, of course, is to define a story to tell. Next, it is necessary to come up with a script, the document that contains the lines of the drawing and the technical indications to guide the production – how each scene will be, what each character will do and so on.
The third step is to transform the script into the so-called storyboard, a kind of comic book that gives an idea of what will happen in each frame. When the storyboard is ready, then designers, art directors and voice actors take on the challenge of composing the magic of animation. By the way, no magic at all: behind a cartoon, there’s a lot of sweat.
See for example the drawing numbers Monica’s Gang, which aired on Cartoon Network. To produce just one seven-minute episode, the designers use over 200,000 illustrated sheets! More than 20 artists participate in the process, which takes about a month to prepare each episode.
The idea of giving action to drawings began to be realized by the Belgian Joseph Plateau. In 1832, he invented a disc with several figures that gave the impression of movement when the squiggles were rotated in front of someone. More than 70 years later, in 1906, Englishman James Stuart Blackton photographed more than 3,000 drawings frame by frame, creating the film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (“Humorous Phases of Funny Faces”), considered the first cartoon in history.
In the pioneer works, practically everything was done by hand. The story changed in the 90s, with the help of computers. Thanks to them, it became easier and faster to add color and movement to the characters. The machines also paved the way for 3D animations, such as the Toy Story and Shrek sagas.
Check out the step-by-step in detail:
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
1) The production of an animated cartoon starts far from the drawing boards. First, you need to write a script with the main indications about the story. This script gives rise to a storyboard, a kind of comic book with the main scenes of the cartoon. Just to give you an idea, the storyboard of a seven-minute film usually has 200 to 250 comics.
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
two) The next step is to detail the storyboard scenes by recording the comic on video. To define the size of each scene, the animators themselves imitate the lines of the characters. This kind of “draft” of sound and image forms the story roll, a videotape that serves as the basis for the next stages of production.
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
3) With the story reel in hand, the animators start planning the drawing, defining scenarios, framing, expressions and positions of the characters. After everything has been decided, the team of Designers. Production is segmented: part of the team only takes care of the scenery, while another gives life to the characters.
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
4) At this stage, the drawings are still scratched in pencil, directly on sheets of paper. This whole mountain of scribbles plus the story reel are kept in the animation score, a large folder with essential production information: the sound base for the voice actors, the planning of each image and the drawings that are later inked and colored.
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
5) All this information is analyzed by the animation director. He checks if the lines fit in each scene and evaluates if the movement of the characters is ok. For the animation to be perfect, every second of drawing needs to have at least 24 drawings. A simple “Hi, how are you?”, lasting 1 and a half seconds, consumes 36 drawings!
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
6) After the director analyzed the movement and evolution of the scenes, the final art comes into action. At this stage, the drawings receive an ink stroke. Afterwards, they are scanned and painted on the computer. In a seven-minute animation, almost 200,000 sheets of sulphite go through this process
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
7) The next step is the animation composition. With the help of a computer program, the drawings of the characters are inserted into the scenario and the animation sequence is assembled. After that, the digital film is recorded on the computer’s hard drive. Through another software, it is converted to film, originating a roll of film
– (Allan Sieber/Strange World)
8) still need to record final audio. In a sound studio, voice actors give voice to characters and sound engineers add sound effects. Lastly, the film and audio track go to a lab where sound and image are blended together. And the film roll is ready!
CONSULTANCY José Márcio Nicolosi, director of the animation department at Maurício de Sousa Produções