Animation : Ask Me Anything (AMA) 7/19 to 7/20- The Animation Production Process & Storytelling by Brian Smith

Thanks for having another AMA, Brian Smith! After a project is greenlit, what's the first thing an Animation studio does?

Thank you for sharing your time with us today, Brian Smith! In what ways, if any, is the development process different for animation vs. live-action?

Thanks for your question, Maurice Vaughan ! It's kind of interesting because there has very likely already been a small team of artists working on the project, shepherding it through the development process. Significant storyboarding will have already been done, along with character designs, set designs, prop designs, and even animation tests. At the bigger studios, once a picture is added to the slate, the production team will go about the process of staffing, which usually means moving artists and production staff that are on a show that's nearly finished onto the project, or scheduling when they can join. A production schedule will be generated for the show to determine which sequences are put into the pipeline and in what order. Generally, the projects take several weeks or even months to ramp up into full production once something is greenlit, so the front-end departments like story, layout, and animation will get staffed up first.

This is all very general I know, and hopefully, it answers your question. The point is, there isn't a hard cutoff between greenlit and production. It's more of a soft transition, at least from an artistic standpoint. The first and most important thing is the schedule so we know what we're working on and when so that staffing up makes sense.

Hi @ashley. I'm not as familiar with the live-action process, but in animation, a lot of it is about building the world. I was involved very early on with the development process for DWA's The Boss Baby, which was a kids' book originally, and a short one at that. So the director was simultaneously developing the story, as well as what the world was going to look like. A lot of research was done on baby toys and strollers and playpens and car seats. There can also be a lot of iterations in terms of what the world is going to look like in terms of artistic style. Is it going to be a realistic-looking world or more stylized? If it's going to be stylized, what style are we going for? Depending on how the world looks, that will inform the designs of the characters, which can also go through many, many iterations. Get almost any "art of" book that shows early character designs and you'll see that early versions of almost any character bared little resemblance to what ended up in the produced feature. The director will also work with a screenwriter and a small group of storyboard artists who will rough out the story and get it to a point that's good for production. The story is rarely 100% figured out before an idea is greenlit, which often creates some fun issues when they rewrite the 3rd act, causing entire sequences that are already done to be redone.

Hi Brian, thanks for the AMA! In your development process, do you typically have a celebrity muse in mind when creating the dialogue and/or persona for a particular character?

Thanks for the incredible insight, Brian Smith!

Will Maurer thanks a lot for the question! That is something that I encourage people to do when I'm analyzing scripts and the dialogue needs work. Just like everything else, there are stages to developing dialogue. In early drafts and in the early stages of development, it's important to get the personality and general flavor of the character down. Then as the story becomes more refined, it's a good idea to think about specific voices for characters to help add to their individuality. I do believe that thinking about what actor you want to play a role and then trying to write the dialogue in that actor's voice is helpful in crafting good dialogue.

Thanks for joining us @Brian! Are there any upcoming animated films in particular coming up that you're especially excited to see?

Brian Smith great to see you doing another AMA. I'll have to think about some questions to ask but wanted to drop a comment to be up to date with any questions that come in.

Ask questions, everyone. Questions can help greatly, but you need to ask them first.

That's a great question, Emily J. I think the one I'm most looking forward to that's still to come out this year is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayem." I know a few people that worked on it, and the visual style looks amazing. In case you're wondering, my favorite animated movie of the year so far is "Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse," and I cannot wait for the next animated Spider-man movie to be released.

Thank you very much for the question, Cee. The main thing to keep in mind is, are your characters easily animatable? When characters get too complex, they can be difficult to animate the way you want them animated. Simplify wherever you can without sacrificing the look of your project. Also, mixing live action and animation adds several layers of complexity, so you need to make sure that the design of the character matches the world in which it's performing. Something might look completely normal in one world, and entirely out of place in another. I'm thinking of the episode of "The Simpsons" when a CG Homer was accidentally transported to our world and looked completely ridiculous. That was the joke, so it was intentional, but there are too many times when an animated character unintentionally looks out of place, so do what ever you can to avoid that.

Hi Brian Smith! I want to pivot to animation development from my current career as an unscripted/doc creative producer. I was thinking of taking a couple of courses in scripted development (it's been a while since college!) to help demonstrate that I'm serious about the transition. Is there anything else you would recommend I do in order to become a more viable candidate for these types of positions in animation? Thank you in advance!

Thank you all for participating today! Feel free to check out my web site where I blog about movies and offer screenplay services.

https://monumentscripts.com/

Hi Rit, I'm not gonna lie, it's going to be an uphill battle. Most people in animation development started their careers there and worked their way up. I'm not saying it's impossible to break in at a higher level, it will just be challenging because you will likely have to cut someone in line. I would learn everything you can about storytelling and screenwriting. The Hero's Journey is a popular storytelling tool in animation, so I would recommend reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey applies a lot of Campbell's writing to cinema. Blake Snider's "Save the Cat" is a favorite of the director of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. Robert McKee's "Story" and Syd Field's "Screenplay" are also books you should be familiar with.

Brian Smith Hi Brian, if you are stepping out from live-action to an animation based project,, what are the main things you should bear in mind for a successful transition?

Hi Geoff, the thing to know is that animation is a completely different process of filmmaking. In animation, you're literally making the film one frame at a time and every component of every frame is taken into account. Also, the process of making one animated film literally takes years. I rarely spent less than a year working on a film. TV animation works on a much faster schedule, but it's still much slower than live-action. Also, the nature of animation will make it feel like you're making the same movie multiple times. Animation is also very factory-like. There is a pipeline in the process that can make it feel very mechanical, but it works well. Just keep in mind that everything that you know from the live-action world will do very little for you in animation and you'll be fine.

Have you ever done claymation?

Would it be possible for you to review my pitch deck?

Brian Smith Thank you Brian. I laughed when I read:

“Just keep in mind that everything that you know from the live-action world will do very little for you in animation and you'll be fine.”

But I will keep that in mind!

I haven't specifically worked with clay, but I have dabbled in stop motion. That is another completely different way to make a movie. Stop motion animation is a completely different process from either hand drawn or CG animation. Stop motion is probably more similar to live action in many respects. I actually went to college with an excellent stop motion animator who is now a supervising animator at Laika.

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