Scribble Kibble The Animation Show You went to college for this?
What’s it like to work for an animation studio?
Well, that depends on what your job there is, how big your studio is, and whether or
not you’re producing for episodes or a feature length film.
For today let’s stick to episodes.
As far as jobs go, you’ll get a basic idea of what they are by looking at how an episode
of Steven Universe is made.
First, A small team plans the overall arc for the whole season, then comes up with episode
ideas.
Once the ideas are ready, if the show is script-driven, writers draft up each episode.
But if the show is storyboard-driven like Steven Universe, there are no scripts.
Instead, one writer makes a skeleton outline of major plot points.
It’s the storyboard artists who flesh out the episode, write the dialogue, draw the
key emotional expressions.
Eventually you get a finished storyboard for the whole episode.
When the show director approves the storyboard, then everything happens at once.
Background Art, Rough Cut Music, Voice Acting, Rough Animation
Once finished, all of those jobs roll up into an animatic, which is like a giant reference
movie the animators use to make the episode.
Outsourcing the animation part of a TV series is common.
Two different Korean studios animate Steven Universe.
Within the studio some people will be in charge of character animation, some might focus only
on special effects or lighting or cleanup, some are supervisors who make sure nobody
falls behind and pick up slack wherever it’s happening that day.
The studios send finished animation back to the US a piece at a time.
As each piece arrives the Steven Universe team fixes animation errors and adjusts parts
that might not look right.
While this is going on a sound designer adds sound effects and the final version of the
music.
Put the corrections and finished audio together and you get the semifinal episode.
The production team and network executives review the episode.
On rare occasions something still needs to be changed, and at this point it’s expensive
to make changes but it does happen.
After this final review you get your episode.
And here’s the real kicker - at any given time the studio is making multiple episodes.
So when the animators begin working on episode 1, the storyboard artists start episode 2
and the writers are making episode 3.
There’s a fantastic book which describes all of the Steven Universe production process
it in far more detail, titled “Steven Universe: Art & Origins.”
You’ll get to hear more about working in a studio from a special guest after the break.
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S: Now that you know generally how TV animation happens, what is studio life really like?
Well, let’s talk to a an animator who’s worked at one!
Please welcome Onion Skin.
O: Hello everyone!
S: You’re an animator.
People have the impression that when you become an animator, you pick a studio and that’s
where you work.
Is that really what it’s like?
Are you just sitting at a desk animating at one studio for the rest of time.
O: If you could do that I’m sure a lot of people would be very happy because that is
stability.
This is an industry that doesn’t have a lot of stability.
You tend to work a lot more on contract.
S: Small studio versus mid-sized studio.
What’s the difference of working with a small team of 5 people and a bigger team of
40?
O: As things increase you need a lot more organization.
When I was in the smaller one - this is when we were doing the Dr. Who animations - and
that started off with about 5 animators and over time we grew it to about 20 or so.
We had to learn on our feet how different roles work and how they support each other.
Because when there were only 5, we didn’t even use a storyboard at first.
We could just talk about what happens.
But when we got to about 25 to 30 people, then we realized that continuity was starting
to fall down.
That’s when layout artists come into it and you employ someone full time where basically
their job is to make sure every character is situated in the right spot.
S: What’s your day-to-day life like when you’re actually going to the studio and
you’re here to produce the show and you have a deadline?
O: Depending on the show it’s just a Monday to Friday 9-5 and that’s it, and then there’s
others where it’s on a quota basis and you’ll get paid based on how many seconds you produce.
Or you’ll have a combination of the two.
You’ll work Monday to Friday but you have an expected number of seconds that you also
have to get done.
S: Say you’re an aspiring artist and you’ve practiced for years, maybe gone to school,
but haven’t been on a production team before.
What is the most surprising, unexpected thing about working at a studio?
O: How to accept notes and critique.
When you spend a lot of time putting your heart and soul into something, and a director
or lead will just slam it and tear it apart, and a lot of the time say, “Do this again
from scratch,” and you’re like, “Man that took me a whole day.”
That is very humbling.
And you gotta get used to it and take it on the chin, and that’s how it goes.
O: Very, very talented artists will come out of college but that talent’s gone to their
head and they don’t like accepting critique.
They barely last a few weeks, not because they get fired but because they leave.
It’s a real shame because they have so much potential but their ego gets in the way.
S: Yeah, learning to accept critique… that’s a long road.
I think it’s hard for some people.
This has been so great.
Thank you for coming on the show and I hope that we’ll see you back again some other
time.
O: I hope so!
There’s much more to talk about.
S: So much to talk about that we started a podcast called Animoot all about animator
life and struggles.
Catch that and today’s guest star Onion Skin in the description below!
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Last time I challenged you to draw this image with the hand you don’t normally use.
Let’s see what you came up with.
This one turned out pretty good -- oh, but Pearl.
She looks like she has a beak!
Matt sent a note with this one.
It says: I tried.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
It’s like abstract art that goes up in a gallery.
Geeze, this is really good.
Did you trace it?
Even if you traced it with your off hand, this… you’re ambidextrous!
You can use both hands.
I love this one so much.
Hee hee.
“Oh Dear We Want Death”
These are fantastic.
I’m really glad you guys sent stuff in.
Wow, this is completely done with the non-dominant hand and it’s pretty amazing.
I’m impressed.
[laughing] There was an attempt.
Absolutely beautiful.
Yes.
Hey, you got creative with this one.
You kind of made it into your own illustration.
It looks like a title card.
This should be the title card for this segment.
Those are the highlights.
Thanks to everyone who submitted one, even if it didn’t show up.
Look for the next art challenge in Scribble Kibble 103.