Old School Layout: Part 3, Character Posing

The layout artist was responsible for designing the backgrounds, camera direction and composition of each scene. He was also required to give the animator suggestions on character posing. Often times, a layout artist would just trace pre-existing character poses from a model sheet to save time. This "short cut" could not work in all cases. Sometimes you just had to draw the poses. A frustrated animator, like myself, could sometimes get carried away and block out an entire scene of action with poses. Other times, a complicated position or a drawing of a combination of characters joined together required educated drawing skills.

Facial expressions was another challenge. Angry, sad, surprised, thoughtful, happy, confused or any combination of facial posing would be required to convey the emotion of the moment. Beyond the face, the emotional attitude also had to be extended to the whole body. In short, the artist must act-out the movement to be illustrated. The animator was to take these "suggestions" and use them (or reject them) as a basis for the multiple drawings he had to make to convey the action or emotion of the scene.

Besides human characters designed for the film, the layout artist also had to design incidental characters in the style of the show. The curse of this assignment were crowds! Audiences, armies, mall shoppers or mosh dancers were the responsibility of the layout artist NOT the design department. This assignment also included incidental animals. Horses, cattle, cats, dogs or goldfish often had to be added to a scene as the storyboard required.

Finally, any props or effects had to also be drawn and designed by the layout artist. "Props" consist of hammers, vehicles, pencils, bars of soap, writing paper, books, etc. etc. If it can be picked up, worn, consumed, driven or ridden, the layout artist designed it if the model department did not. That happened often in those tight productions schedules or yore. Flames, explosions, water, rain, snow, gunfire, dust, smoke, even spit, sweat or slime were included under the realm of the layout artist and labeled Effects.

All these character poses, backgrounds, camera direction notes, prop and effect designs were gathered together in a light cardboard folder, labeled with the scene number and added to the growing pile of folders that represented a sequence within a picture. 25-30 folders/scenes a week.

When the cost of American labor outpaced the funding available, various elements of the process were sent overseas. The first to go was the jobs of inking and painting the drawings onto celluloid sheets. Assistant animation followed and then the Animation. The process of Layout was the last job contracted overseas because once it went, all control of the final product disappeared. An attempt was made to recover this control by forcing the storyboard artists to draw "mini-layouts" in place of story panels. This added to pre-production costs because of the amount of detail required to mimic the job of the layout artist. The addition of digital "animatics" to replace the direction written on exposure sheets takes pre-production costs another step as it requires many more poses drawn to give the viewer (Usually an executive rather than an artist) the illusion of movement. Old School has now become the New Method.

Old School Layout: Part 2, Camera & Composition.

The Old School Layout folder contained other elements besides background, overlays and underlays designs. At minimum, besides a background design, a layout folder should contain a separate piece of paper with the camera directions on it. This could be simple, just a tracing from the field guide chart indicating whether the scene was to be photographed at full field or a closeup either at center or some other location within the screen field. Sometimes a tilt of the camera was required. At other times the start and stop position of a pan was indicated. In any case, even if the scene only required a shot of a background, a separate piece of paper should be included to indicate the composition of the field.

Depending on the action, a folder could also contain several animation poses. I did one scene in my youth that contained twelve poses. I did this because the storyboard artist went through the trouble of drawing eight panels and I added a couple more to those. The animator who received my layouts, now a director, came to my desk and told me he was unaccustomed to receiving more than three poses in a folder. He found my poses so complete that he just "charted" the inbetweens for his assistant and sent the folder on. He asked if I was a frustrated animator! In truth, I was, so I wasn't upset about doing the animator's job so completely. I considered it a compliment because the animator is under no obligation to actually use any of the poses the layout artist draws. Often as not, an animator complains that he can't use any of the drawings he finds in a layout folder. In those days of TV animation, animators weren't always great artists. They considered themselves "graphic actors" and the actual "on-model" correct drawings had to be done by somebody else, usually their overworked assistant. Cross-over artists who understood compositional drawing and animation action were not common.

It's uncommon again with the advent of computer generated animation tools. Computer "geeks" are becoming involved in animation in creative jobs with very little or even NO drawing experience. The tools (or "crutches") available to them give them the illusion of being artists. The best examples of great computer generated animation is the result of a collaboration between a graphically trained animator and a techno-genius computer wiz. Working in tandem, they cross-check their work so the artist doesn't stray too far from the software requirements and the computer nerd doesn't restrict the creative posing of the animator. Remember how the early 3D attempts were limited to robots or vehicles because human characters didn't look "real" when shoved through a digital process? Computer Graphic animation has come a long way since then. Still, the best animation artist has always been someone who has a workable left and right brain. More on that next installment.

Old School Layout - Part One, Background Designs

Old School Animation required that every scene be "laid out" or prepared for animation. So, after the storyboard had been completed, it was sent to the director and layout department at the same time. This was an undesirable situation brought on by time constraints. Ideally, the director should time the storyboard to the recording session and edit down the board to the time available. Invariably, the recording or the storyboard was longer than necessary. The director could cut the storyboard down to the correct length and THEN send it on to Layout.

This procedure would, obviously, save time and money but with deadlines looming and staff artists waiting, the storyboard was rushed into layout. The Layout Supervisor (Me) would "break-down" the board for layout by dividing it into background areas. Dockyards, country road, Hideout exterior and interiors, old mining shaft, etc. If a section contained a lot of scenes, it would be broken down into two or more edible lengths of about thirty scenes (a weeks work). If a background area was short, like 8 scenes or so, it would be combined with other smaller sections to make up a week's worth of labor. This was done so the background areas would match with each other. If two sections in the same area were handed out without background design elements or plans, the result would be two completely different designs of the same section. I often "plotted" out the interior of a structure so that the artist would know where each room inside were located along with exit doors. This kept confusion down and the screen direction logical.

A folder of layout drawings contained several elements. The first element was the background or "set" of each scene. The background for the scene was designed to the supposed length required. If all action or dialogue took place in one spot, a single "field" drawing sufficed. A "field was approximately ten and half inches high and twelve inches long. If a lot of walking, running or movement was required the fields would extend in length. This was called a "pan". If a chase was required, the fields would hook-up in such a way as to repeat themselves. This was a "repeat pan". The backgrounds also contained any foreground elements, a table, a tree, a fence. etc. that passed by during the chase in front of the character. This was called an "overlay". If a background contained an open door but after repeating should be closed, a door was added to the background as an "underlay". The proper use of over and underlays added depth and the illusion of space to a single background element.

Old School Animation - Part 1

The film animation process of days past required the sacrifice of acres of forest to produce the pencils and paper that went into every process of this hand-drawn medium. Not any type of paper would do nor every make of pencil. Because animation at this stage was a photographic process, every final drawing had to be photographed by specialized cameras. This demanded that each drawing remain in accurate registration to each other. To accomplish this, standardization had to be followed, starting with the paper. The paper varied in weight but was of a standard size for television production, 12 1/2 by 10 1/2 inches. It had to be thick enough to withstand a lot of handling but thin enough for light to pass through several layers. At the bottom of every horizontal sheet were three punched holes; a round one in the center flanked by two horizontal slots. These holes fit over three compatible metal projections on a drawing surface and were repeated on the camera platforms. This process made sure that the paper the images were drawn on could be used with accuracy on the cameras that would shoot the final product.

The pencils used were of varying grades of hardness from 6B (almost powdered graphite) to 6H (like filed steel). The softer grades were used for rough sketches and conceptual beginnings and the harder grades were for tiny detail and finished work. Most quality pencils came from Germany and had no erasers. Little arrowhead-shaped pink erasers were attached on the ends to compliment the larger pink erasers for serious mistake correction. Some folks liked to use mechanical pencils that could handle hair-thick graphite pencil leads in various grades. I was a wood pencil guy. Myself and others would hand-crank points on our wood and graphite tools with manual pencil sharpeners. When electrical pencil sharpeners came in they became status symbols as only the key artists or heads of departments were supplied them!

The thousands of drawings that went into the manufacture of animated movies or television series relied on this paper and pencil process. Registration required that everyone worked on an animation desk. At Disney Studios these desks were behemoths of custom-made birch plywood in specialized combination for layout artists, animators and inbetweeners. Those of us in television at Hanna-Barbera got a standardized desk that was painted over with a textured paint with a grit so hard you could file your fingernails on it! These desks had shelves above an adjustable drawing board with a two drawer cabinet to the side. Dead center in the drawing surface was hole big enough to accommodate an iron framed disk holding a rectangular pane of glass. This glass was the actual drawing surface for most of the work done. This Animation Disc changed little over the years. At first it had a permanent bar-peg-bar registration projections below the glass and a sliding ruler in a slot at the top. The ruler was adorned with the same alternating bar-peg-bar system that was used on the bed of the animation camera. With the exception of Disney, the whole industry used this system. Disney, of course, had to have its very own registration system of bar-bar-peg-bar-bar-peg, etc.

For the purposes of this series, the process described will be restricted, more or less, to the standard animation process used in Saturday morning television network cartoons of the mid to late twentieth century.

A Fallen Companion

Today I mourn the passing of an old companion of mine. Jaime Reyes Diaz was born on January 6th, 1937 and passed on to a better life on June 20th, 2009. I met Jaime in 1971 when we were both working for ABC on the animated TV series, The Curiosity Shop. We were both young and working as assistants to some great animators like Phil Roman, Hal Ambro and George Nichols. This show is where I met Don Morgan, a character designer, who would also become a life-long friend. Don and I had planned to attend a birthday luncheon for the legendary art director, Tony Rivera. But, as fate would have it, they left without me! When I looked up from the scene I was working on, the studio was empty. Except for Jaime. He introduced himself and suggested we have lunch together. Thus began a forty-year friendship.

Jaime and I had several things in common. We both grew up in small farming communities and went to school to study art in large cities. I grew up in the town of Austin, Minnesota and Jaime came from Saenz Pena in the state of Chaco, Argentina. We both ended up in Los Angeles. Jaime arrived in America in 1963 and I arrived in L.A. in 1964. We brought with us our wives and our dreams. Jaime married his childhood sweetheart Maria Ines Aguero on June 8, 1961. They proceeded to add three children to their family, Bill, Annabelle and Claudia. I watched them grow up in Valencia until 1983 when Jaime moved the whole family to Buenos Aries, Argentina.

Jaime ran his own studio in Argentina for many years. This was always a dream of his. This family-run studio produced Disney comic books, artwork for publication in Europe, award winning local product commercials and animation under contract from Hanna-Barbera. Jaime's studio was a key animation contractor for me when I produced Fish Police, a prime time show created by Hanna-Barbera, and the pilot film, Dexter's Laboratory, which would become a hit series on the Cartoon Network.

Jaime and I worked together many times over the years, as layout artists for Hanna-Barbera and in the animation department for Ralph Bakshi. We even partnered in a small animation studio of our own, Magic Lantern Productions. We depended on each other professionally and when I created ChalkZone with Bill Burnett, I hired Jaime as a staff director. Those were good years. Jaime went on to team up with Bill Burnett on another short, Dr. Froyd's Funny Farm.

In Argentina, Jaime created a short called Gaucho Pampa. It was unfinished except for a box of paper animation he carried with him when he moved back to the United States in 1995. It was his dream to finish it and place it into film festivals. Jaime was directing Danger Rangers for my company, Animotion Works, when I again saw this amazing classical-styled animation. I thought it a shame that this work had never been seen so I agreed to fund the project to completion. It was included in the Taiwan International Film Festival in 2007. It was the final joint project we would work on.

Argentinians are a proud people and Jaime was no exception. As proud as Jaime was of his craft, he was proudest of his children and bragged about them whenever the opportunity presented itself. He was prouder still of his grandchildren: Nicholas Lalli, Andres, Clara and Felix Tonconogy, Tomas Diaz, Rocio Belen Diaz, Bryana Diaz; and Steven, Anne Marie and Michael Zambon. Jaime's greatest tragedy was the death of his son Bill two years ago. My friend never really recovered from this heartbreak.

Jaime was a good friend and had a funny streak in him that was unnoticed by many. He never lost his Ricky Ricardo accent and, I think, played it up. He'd call me and say "Hello? Larry?" and pronounce it in the most extreme accent you could put on two words. When I responded "Hello, Jaime", he would say "How you know it's me?" He never got tired of this running gag. I don't think Jaime really had any hobbies outside his animation and drawing. He was happiest creating his totally charming and whimsical characters and environments. I called him the Argentinian Dr. Seuss.

He was also often unappreciated for his excellent animation direction. He was a perfectionist so he wasn't fast and that sometimes put him in trouble with Production Managers. On ChalkZone, I had to defend Jaime's tardiness to management by assuring that we would make up the excess cost in Post Production due to lack of retakes. When Jaime's first picture came back from overseas animation I was the one to inform Jaime of the result of his being over schedule. When I told him that due to his efficient directions there was not one retake in the whole picture, so relieved was Jaime that he threw his arms around me in a hug. Then holding me out he said "Larry, I deserve a raise!"

And so, Adios, my dear friend. I know you are at peace. Still, your friends and family will miss you. For as the famous western painter, Charles Russel once said in consolation to a friend, "Old man Death is only hard on those he leaves behind." We, who are left behind, will remember.

Alternate Realities

I've heard it said that "There's no RIGHT or WRONG way to do something." There's a Creative Way, a Practical Way, an Economical Way, a Fun Way, an Intense Way, etc. but no Right or Wrong way. I disagree. There's a Right and Wrong way to do Every way. If you set out to do an economical picture and succeed, you used the Right Way. If the picture went way over budget, then that's the Wrong way to do a cost effective picture. If you set out to make a commercially successful film but it failed at the box office then you did it the Wrong way. If you decided to make a Creative or Artistic picture but it was critically panned in every country that saw it, then you failed to make it the Right way. Simply put, a picture is made the Right way when it succeeds at its established goals and is made the Wrong way when it fails to achieve those goals.

If a film wins the Academy Award for technical excellence but is rejected by the paying audiences when the filmmaker was striving for a Blockbuster hit, then it is an example of the Wrong way to make a movie. It's hard to make a film that succeeds at All Ways. Making a movie that's economical, popular, critically acclaimed and a financial hit rarely happens because it's so hard to do.

So how does a filmmaker beat these odds and continue to make movies? Use Common Sense and achievable goals. Start with absolutes and add extras from that point. Here's an absolute: financial investors expect to make money. I can hear you "arty-types" groaning but this is an actual achievable goal. Just how much money is mere fortune telling. "Exceeds Expectations" is always a good goal so strive for that by keeping expectations realistic (Never say "low"). A solid, "No frills" budget increases the chances of making this goal. Keep your cast and crew balanced between proven professionals (costly but dependable) and talented new-comers (hard-working but inexperienced). If you're an experienced artist but a "new-comer" to financial matters, partner with a veteran producer with artist-friendly skills. Here's another absolute: money drives the production (lack of it kills the dream). So, have your money in the bank as you proceed according to an approved schedule. If money is slow in coming or always delayed...shut down production! That will kill the production but save the picture. If there was no money to finish the first attempt, don't assume it will be different the second time around. Find the problem! If you can't fix the problem, take inventory of the assets and the costs remaining. Do a new budget and schedule on the production elements that remain. This will allow production to quickly continue once the monetary problems are resolved. Remember, artists are the only people willing to work for nothing so fix the monetary problems before re-starting production. Setting up a well-oiled production takes time so be patient, that's another absolute.

Money isn't everything when it comes to making a movie, so we'll touch on the other, more fun, elements next time.

Old School Storytelling

A lot has been said about the "magic" of new technology. Things have changed in animation over the 40 years I've been working in the industry. The most obvious has been the introduction of computers and their artistic software. Prior to that, much tedious pencil and paint work was required for production and post was finalized via silver nitrate 35 mm film. The computers added cleaner work stations, quicker final product and instantaneous delivery by the World Wide Web. But the artistic requirement is the same. It remains a hand-drawn medium. Hundreds of people are necessary to produce an animated film, just check out the credits on the latest Pixar sensation. Scores of new categories have been added to the old credits like background painter and animator. So, what was it like in the "Olde Days" before pixels and bitmaps?

Digital projection is all the rage now and before that it was video tape. When I started, transparent film was still king. The end product was Ektachrome silver nitrate film (until the invention of "safety" film stock) delivered to one of the three television networks: ABC, CBS or NBC. Animation was a by-product of live-action film-making so the terminology came from there. Film product was measured in "feet". A "foot" of film (12 inches) contained 16 35 mm frames. It took 24 frames to make up one second of time. An hour's worth of programing (60 minutes) contained 90 feet of film and 1440 frames. You can tell by all these numbers that there was quite a bit of math used in cartoon making. And because this process was a photographic process it effected all the stages of production.

The process began with paper and pencil. I can hear the writers reading this objecting to this supposition. Obviously, the process began with a script. Not true. The process began with a story but that began with pencil and paper in a story room. The large studios like Disney all had a story department composed of artists that could create stories. They would sit around in a room and bounce concepts and gag ideas off each other. These story elements would be noted and the work load divided between various artists who would each draw a section of the cartoon (or theatrical feature). The end result of this would be a storyboard. Originally, storyboards were just slips of paper with images drawn vaguely to screen proportion and then pinned up in progressive order to cork board on a wall. These rough story elements were then "pitched" to the lead director who would contribute with the other artists in the room to the refinement of the story. During the early television production process, these slips of paper became formalized storyboard panels that were standardized per studio. This made the final board more uniformed to make the process of copying them for distribution easier and more economical. There never was a "script". The whole cartoon was written by talented artists who had a strong sense of story-telling. Scripts and "writers" came much later when visually-impaired network executives demanded a "non-visual" format they were comfortable with. Next time we'll talk about another "Old School" paper and pencil process that followed the storyboard, Layout.

Networking

I got my first professional job through a recommendation of a man who admired my work. That is how I got the second job and just about every job since then. I only recommend artists to others that I can be sure will perform work up to the standards I expect of myself. Now that so many new people have come into the industry, I find I have to reintroduce myself to employers all over again. Only now I have a reputation. Once you build your reputation, protect it. It will bring you work. You build up that reputation through strong networking. Today, this word "networking" means electronic communication but, even today, a personal visit or your actual voice on the phone holds greater value. Sometimes you don't have that phone number you need and that requires you contact a friend who does.

After working at the HB Company as a unit layout supervisor for a couple of years, my immediate supervisor left to become the Production Manager at a new company. After working there a couple of months, he recommended me to head up their Layout department. He set up a meeting with the studio executives. This new company had as a department head a tremendous designer as layout supervisor. Unfortunately, this great artist was a poor manager. His right brain overwhelmed his left and the company was way behind schedule. I agreed to accept this new position but I wasn't interested in holding this job. I wanted a different situation in the company. The executive producer asked me what job I was seeking and I said, "Yours."

My boldness and honesty did not scare him off and we agreed to see if we both lived up to our expectations. After three years, when the growth of the company warrented it, I was promoted to producer, then senior producer as other producers were employed. This all started because of the recommendation of the Production Manager who knew my work. I outlasted him at that company but we continued to work together on mutual projects over the years. Good recommendations are the life blood of this industry.

Korean Konnection

The first time I went to South Korea was in 1981. Disputes with the north were still a fact of life and the airport was full of soldiers armed with automatic rifles. Downtown Seoul was a mix of old and new construction and, in the month of November, the air was heavy with carbon monoxide fumes. Many space heaters fueled by kerosene oil provided warmth in the concrete office buildings but you had to leave the windows open for ventilation so no one died of asphyxiation. It was an exciting place for a young man who had never been out of the country. I was sent there by the animation studio I worked for to oversee a trailer film for a feature we hoped to produce. Television work was slow, the studio wanted to keep me on staff and going to Korea for a few weeks was the cost of continued employment.

The Koreans, like most Asian countries, respect old age. Unfortunately, I was young at the time so I was not the ideal vision they had for a director when I arrived on the doorstep of the Korean studio. They put me in a room with an English-speaking Korean director and a translator, gave me a desk and coffee, then, ignored me...politely. I was given a short stack of animation work to peruse. I looked through it and gave it to the Korean director with my comments. He put it aside without looking at it...politely. I tried to be of use and was always offering my valuable suggestions but the Koreans all smiled and went about their work as if I wasn't there. After several days of this, I bought a book on Korean culture because I figured I was doing something wrong. This book was an eye-opener. It taught me how to work with Koreans who, unlike Americans, don't just naturally assume that the guy from out-of-town must be a genius. I was being judged. Politely.

I learned enough Korean to be polite. I deferred to my peers, was pleasant but not overly friendly with those under my jurisdiction and learned patience. When I finished a stack of work, I approached the director by saying, "I have finished looking through this work and have made notes about several scenes. If you find any of my comments useful I will make myself available to you in any way you wish." Then I sat down, drank my coffee and waited until needed. Eventually, the director finished his stack of work and asked if I was ready to review my notes with him. On his schedule, not mine. Once the pecking order was established and my professionalism confirmed by my work, we became fast friends. We are friends today.

The Korean language has a status component to it. You change the ending of a word when you are speaking to an equal, a superior or someone of lesser status. Of course, being American, we are taught to use the equal term for all our communications. When I departed for the U.S. after a month, I took leave of the studio I worked in. To the animation supervisor I said my good-bye using the peer ending. Nothing unusual there. The Koreans assumed I didn't know better. When I said my goodbye to the studio manager, however, I chose the terminology used when speaking to a superior. Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed. Everyone realized that I knew what I was doing and had just paid the studio executive a huge compliment! Not only that, I had deliberately elevated the animation supervisor to my level as director. This simple compliment was reported back to my superiors in the U.S. along with a fervent request I be assigned a longer level of stay. Finally, an American that understands!

When working in a strange environment, understanding the culture, language and customs of the natives will ease the working relationship. A little research can produce great rewards. Make sure those who represent you live by that creed.

The Shit Filter

Anybody who thinks being a supervisor is an easy job has never been one. You answer to way too many people and you are responsible for the work of way too many others. The difference in pay is negligible or less than what a good, fast artist can make. I say FAST because commercial animation art is all about volume. As a Layout Supervisor I was responsible for turning out 300 scenes of layouts in two weeks time. This required being able to do the layouts that my crew was unable to do or did incorrectly. Why not hand the bad layouts back to be done over or corrected? I did, if there was time. If not, I found it faster to do them myself. This made for a lot of late nights.

It was also essential that I know the strengths and weaknesses of every artist on my staff. Not all artists are born equal. Some are very good at landscapes but weak at character drawing. Some can produce great poses but have no idea how to draw architecture. Animal drawings are no problem to some artists but automobiles or bicycles are beyond them. Casting the artist to his strength was a mark of a good supervisor. Of course, background layouts are often more difficult and time consuming to draw then a simple close-up of a character. In order to keep on schedule and prevent rioting, I would have to balance out how many background heavy scenes I gave to everyone. The scenes that demanded a good background went to good background artists and when excellent character acting was required, I'd cast a great character artist. That meant, I'd have to correct character posing in the scenes that the background artist had to draw and adjust the background in the scenes that the character artist couldn't do.

Once I had my crew running smoothly and our quotas were being met, they gave me another show to run at the same time! Oh, I got more people, of course. Instead of doing one show with a mere staff of six artists, I now had ten artists to do two shows! By the standards of the day, this seemed fair...to management. This challenge required a division of work. The solid background artists were pulled off into a separate unit to draw nothing but backgrounds for the two productions. I had to hire outside "free-lancers" to make up the difference in personnel. Their work was competent but I had less time to require repairs...so I did them. I had little time to train new people, least of all a new assistant supervisor I was required to take on. I was issued an ultimatum; either I choose an assistant or the department head would. I picked a solid, if unimaginative, artist with good work habits for the job. He thought it was an advancement until he started to make repairs and excuses for his crew. I felt vindicated when this former worker came to me and said; "Until I started doing this job, I never realized what jerks my co-workers were!" Supervisors aren't born they're made.

Anime Eyes

Asian animation has arrived in full force in the U.S. As a boy I remembered it as Kimba, the White Lion and Speed Racer. I hated it. I was raised on Disney feature animation with the mastery of the "Nine Old Men". I loved the fast paced humor of the Warners and MGM theatrical shorts and the droll characterization of the early Hanna-Barbera television cartoons. I found this imported look to be uninspiring. No more. Anime and Manga are here and are as popular as sugar cereal.

I had my first "flirt" with Asian animation many years ago on a feature unit. It was after my introduction to independent feature production at Vinnie's underground comic book venture. Many of the animators on Vinnie's show went over to work on a Japanese funded product based on Greek tragedies. I'm not sure why someone thought tragedy would be a good venue for an American audience but the money was good and the quality was high. I started as an assistant animator and got involved in story sketch as time progressed but progress was slow. There was plenty of time for partying but no one in the art staff truly believed they were working on a hit film.

This was the only time I worked on a show where the lead character had Anime eyes. He also had Mickey mouse ears and proportions three heads high. A character's proportion is always judged on how many heads high a typical human stands. On the average, Five heads is a good "norm". Tall, long legged women can be six heads high. Mickey Mouse and all those old characters were three heads high. Our character looked like that with huge ears even though he was human. The logic behind the story selection was that the Greek fables and stories were universal in scope so a large audience could be reached. This was Japanese money and the financier wanted it to be popular around the world NOT just in Asia. He chose an artist that was born in Japan but worked at his craft for many years in America. A young man who personified the goth artist look. A good designer he was but not a good producer. All projects demand a return on their investment and progress must be made. I can't remember when I received the realization that there was no chance of turning this picture around. Another example of good money gone to make a bad picture. I didn't wait for the luxury liner to hit the iceberg. I jumped ship and started my own small shop. Better a happy pauper than a miserable king!

In Charge...At Large

After a very disappointing second attempt at running my own company, I wondered if there was any need for a small operator in a time big industry? As it turned out, there was! The layouts I did as a Free Trapper were in demand and a spot opened up as a Crew Chief for the Company. An ol' employer of mine remembered the level of quality I turned in on a regular basis and hired me on. I was back working at the HB company but this time running a crew of layout artists.

Most of the guys I learned from were now retired or had moved up the ladder. This left a spot open in management. My reputation as an artist with a functional left brain recommended me to this task. More importantly, I had the ability to communicate specific information clear enough to expect an accurate product in return. So, my job as a Layout Supervisor began. This position is rather an antique one by today's digital production system. In the days of 35mm film production and paper animation the process demanded that scripts be converted into storyboards. These were small panels of shot by shot action and compositional drawings of background elements that visualize the whole cartoon in a form similar to comic books. They were done quickly in those days and were often very sketchy. The details of the actual compositions, background designs, incidental characters and prop designs as well as all initial animation posing was done by the Layout Department.

The Layout Department was the first directorial step in the film making process. Each panel of the storyboard was broken down into sequences based, usually, on background elements.; Ext. Schoolyard, Int. Classroom, Int. Soda Shop. Ext. Athletic Field, etc. Obviously, if the episode took place mostly in a lifeboat at sea, where the background was the same, this system didn't work. In that circumstance, the show was broken down into Night and Day, Storm, Ship Sighting, Shark Sequence, etc. This was my job. I had a staff of artists that needed a week's worth of work each Monday and I had to break the show down into chewable/doable sizes that could be done in a 40 hour week. There were approximately 300 layouts in a typical half-hour show. Each artist was expected to do 30 layouts a week. Therefore using simple math, the only kind I know, I'd need 10 artists to do a half-hour show each week. I didn't have 10 artists on my team. I had between 4 and 6 artists of varying levels of speed, talent and competency. I needed two weeks to produce a half-hour episode. My job required that I meet that schedule. How I did it, Young Artist, is the subject of another blog.

To Market, to Market, to buy...

If you are looking to sell entertainment to children and, hopefully, a bunch of stuff based on that entertainment, you have to understand the marketplace. What are those kids buying, or more importantly, what are they watching? Technology has widened the choices for young audiences. Broadcast television, cable, satellite TV, DVDs and TiVo, video games, and the Internet has divided the audience into very fussy viewers. Children's entertainment and the venue for watching it has changed over the years and is changing faster today.

In the days when I was in that young audience, the shows I watched were all about goofy adults or animals that behaved like goofy adults. In live action it was Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis. In animation, feature films were about fairy tale adults like Cinderella, Snow White or Lady and the Tramp. The reason for this was the film makers were trying to entice a Family Audience into the movie houses and that included Mom and Dad as well as the kids. Television with it specific "target" audiences changed that focus.

For years the pundits of television decided that their audience was going to be little boys. They came to believe that little girls did not control the program selection. Aggressive little brothers changed the channels to what they wanted to watch and the girls "went along with it". The youngest children would watch what the older kids watched and school-age viewers stopped watching cartoons once they reached their teenage years. That limited the audience from seven to eleven year old boys. The broadcasters sold a lot of toys to this audience but it didn't include many dolls. After women entered the executive levels of television and programming, the desire for "girl shows" emerged. We saw "My Little Pony", "Care Bears", "Jem" and, later, "Power Puff Girls" and "Kim Possible". The best of these shows tried for a "cross-over" audience that appealed to both genders. "Spongebob" and "ChalkZone" were good examples of these types of shows.

That was then. This is now. The pendulum has swung around to all-boy shows again. And the age group has shifted to "Tweens", kids between the ages of 11 to 14. This audience is no longer elementary school kids but not quite full-blown teenagers. With the advent of Pre-school shows, and whole Networks that cater to them, there now is a designation for every age group in the pre-adult market. This change of marketing strategy can prove to be very inconvenient for a producer that has created a show around a specific audience. This happened to me very recently.

I worked three years on developing a show around a strong, if reluctant, female heroine. It revolved around a Korean girl who was the last member of an ancient Chinese Clan of super-warriors who fought a race of alternate universe goblins. With the help of her Grandmother, and a power mask, she guards a portal against an invasion of this old evil. Created in Korea, it had to appeal to Western markets. I became involved and added western interest by having the girl be a Korean-American visiting her Grandmother in Korea when the goblins invade through an opened portal. Sound good? It was a sure sell to the Koreans who sought Chinese investment. The Chinese joined the project but wanted "Chinese content" so the Korean locale was changed to a Chinese one. The girl now became a Chinese-American child and the story had to be changed and prepared for production with this in mind. An American investor with distribution ties bought into the project late but insisted on doing some "due diligence" about what the networks were buying. The conclusion was that the current project needed redevelopment. This time the hero had to be a boy! This would have changed the whole dynamic of the series and delayed production for a year, so a compromise was arranged. A male Chinese cousin was added to the series and another power mask added. Now two hero characters had to be served and the story "bible" had to be extensively rewritten...again!

It's never an adventure if things go smoothly. Rivers change courses, passes are snowed in, alliances with local natives are re-arranged and yet, the project must continue. Adjusting to changing markets, the addition of new partners and the betrayal of alliances are all part of the journey. Experience is the factor that makes the difference in success or failure. Invest in that.

Studio Ownership...Part Two

The fledgling studio I started took on a partner when Nandu relented and joined the experiment. We were the best of friends and took out a two year lease in a new building. We needed to sign a partnership contract between us so we had an attorney draw one up. This was like getting married! The lawyer asked us terrible questions like; "If one of you gets sick and can't work, does he still get paid? If one of you dies does the business pass onto the partner or does the wife or children inherit that share?" Our friendship was tested at the beginning during this contract process. We survived and assessed our assets. Nandu was a designer as well as an animator so he designed a flyer and we hired a business promoter. I had established a contact with a major studio and we exploited that by contracting out all the layout designs for a new show. Thanks to Nandu, a well known cartoonist collaborated with us to produce and animate a couple of main titles for a Mexican studio. We paid our bills and shared all revenues. Unfortunately, Magic Lantern Animation made the same money as before but now had to divide it by two. This was less than we could live on. After a year, we bought out of the lease and went in search of new prospects. It was my first entry into the pleasures and pitfalls of studio ownership. I'd recommend it to everyone who is young and stupid. You have many years to recover from your mistakes and maybe learn something from them. By then you'll be older and smarter or, at least, less stupid.

Gone Native

The best guides across the western wilderness have "gone native". This is a term, often of derision, used to describe a man who has lived too long among the native tribes he works with. The tell-tale signs are there. He has a native wife. His hair and clothing reflects the style of those who trade with him. He'll sit on the ground before he will a chair. He points with his chin. He punctuates his dialogue with sign language gestures. He speaks in phrases known only to the initiated. These "native" guides were often distrusted by the Eastern men who hired them because they feared their loyalty was suspect. Yet, the most prosperous voyages used these men.

New investors seeking to penetrate the American animation market will do well to put their faith in a guide the natives trust. You'll need a crew to make your fortune and a good guide, trusted in the business, knows the best people for the job. Artists are funny people. They see things differently than other folks. They aren't very good at schedules, budgets, international currency exchanges or even test marketing. And they are very distrustful of people who do know those things,...unless they can draw. They can seem obstinate, lazy or untrustworthy to someone who only thinks with their left brain. A guide who knows his crew, their strengths and weaknesses, can position them where he knows only their best will shine. I have learned my craft from the best in the business. Legendary men who were flawed but gifted. I have come to know that often the most visionary of men are not always the most reliable. But when surrounded by a talented support crew the product produced exceeds expectations every time.

Fur traders leaving Montreal in the East to make their fortunes in the West, beyond the far coast of Lake Superior, manned an eight to twelve man canoe. In the front went the visionary, the Avant, to warn of dangers ahead and to plot the best route. In the rear was the Gouvenail, the practical man, whose skill at steerage guided the boat to safety. Ranging along each side of the canoe were the Milieux, or middle men. They were the common rowers and packers who did the hardest work but bore the least responsibility. Sprinkled about the milieaux were "singers" who knew many songs and sang out to aid the rowers to pull in cadence along the journey. These "singers" were paid extra because their songs made the work easier and the trip faster. In the center of the canoe sat the Bourgeois. He is the leader of the crew. If any man of the canoe suffers an injury that makes it impossible to do his job, the bourgeois takes that job over. He has done all the jobs in the canoe including cataloguing the goods and keeping the ledger.

Dear Investor, when you leave behind what you know to travel into unknown but rich territory, choose the right man to sit next to in the canoe. Choose a bourgeois that knows the route, knows his crew, knows how to keep the books and, just as important, knows how to sing! Then, when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling and practical efforts fail, the songs will pull the canoe through the waves to the prosperous shores ahead.

Studio Ownership...Part One.

I played with feature animation for awhile. After Nandu's exit, a constant drain of talent left Vinnie's studio. I stayed on until the last moment requiring a formal "layoff notice" for termination. This allowed certain unemployment benefits to kick in. Afterwards, with feature "credits", I followed another animator over to the next feature in town. This one was funded by Asian money with a young Asian designer as studio head. The money was good but there seemed to be less structure at this studio than the last. There was amazing talent hired but no clear direction as to what the story was that we planned to tell. And so we drifted into development purgatory for months, maybe years. I saw my opportunities for advancement and creative expression wane away. A veteran animator saw it differently: "I have no problem being a rich man's play thing!" I was too young for such philosophy and I slid into a creative depression.

So, I quit that comfortable job and opened my own studio with no prospects and no clients. This was something I often talked about with my animator friend Nandu, so I suggested we team up. Nandu was reluctant to get involved. Starting your own studio was a big risk and he was already running a nice side business doing publication illustrations for a big studio. So Nandu deferred. I made a few phone calls and let it be known that I was available and a few small jobs came in. Then the television animation season kicked in and I became one of the "farm houses" the major studios jobbed overflow production to. A couple of nice little product commercials ended up in my hands and the studio made the rent. In fact, my wife, who was against the whole enterprise from the start, had to admit that by the end of the year my income had exceeded the salary I made at the feature studio!

Now, Pilgrim Artist, I know what your thinking. You think that starting your own place is the fastest way to success. I beg to differ. For me it was the course of last resort. I'm a brick by brick kind of builder. Over the years as I acquired more respect and opportunity I moved up the pay rate. Client meetings, self-promotion, budgets, schedules, taxes and expenses, long hours for no extra pay, artists who fail to deliver and someone else's vision to perfect, was NOT my idea of the perfect employment situation. Yet, I was doing okay and my self-image picked up. This was noticed by friends and acquaintances and everyone wanted to attach themselves to a "winner". Best of all, I thought, Nandu came back.

Telling Tales

When you're leading a pack train through the wilderness, every man in the group has a job to do. Some know what plants are useful for food or medicine. Others are experts at horse-wrangling. There are blacksmiths, saddle-makers and gunsmiths in our outfit. Everyone has an essential skill. When asked what I did to benefit the group, I answered, "I tell the stories." I believe storytelling is essential to survival. Storytelling preserves the history and accomplishments of a culture and, if well done, entertains as well, thereby assuring their repetition. Telling tales is what I have done all my life. Coupling this talent with an ability to draw led to a career in animation.

I still tell stories as a living. As a layout artist, the way I pose a character tells a story about the character through their body language or dress. The way I compose the character against the background I design sets the mood for the story to be told. As a storyboard artist, I interpret the script in a graphic manner that creates a film around the story told. As a writer, I determine what story will be told on the screen. An animated tale lives or dies by the story that is told through a multitude of hands and minds.

When you're telling multiple stories for a television series you don't just tell one story at a time. You design a series as you would design a painting. You choose a point of focus and you lead the eye around the painting through a series of planned elements, shapes or color, to give the desired effect. You didn't know that's what an accomplished painter does? That's good! The exceptional painter never wants you to know that you're being manipulated.

So it goes with an accomplished storyteller. You design the first episode to introduce the key character and all the people he will being working closely with throughout the series. You create an exciting story that will set the tone for all the stories to come. And, more importantly, besides the beginning, you design a through story that gives you a middle and an end of the series, or at least, the first 13 episodes. This allows the creator or story editor to instruct his writers in the type of stories that need to be told to advance the goals the series is heading towards. Have you noticed that the most successful series on television, with the best written stories, all have this forethought put into the direction of the show? You haven't noticed that connection? Then, the next time you're planning on producing an animated television series, give the Mad Animation Prophet a call!

Striking the Mother Load

As a worker bee in the hive of television animation you were "paid by the pound". You got a minimum salary but were expected to turn in so much "footage" or scenes or drawings to justify it. This resulted in the general opinion that television was cheap "rush" work. If you longed for respect, you had to move into theatrical features. This basically meant you had to work at Disney because they had the "lock" on animated features. Disney was considered the "Cloisters" because they didn't seem to fraternize with anyone from television and didn't know what was going on in animation beyond the walls of their studio. Amazingly, they never got laid off! Everyone wanted to work on a feature project but Disney was a "closed shop". You had to be born inside the walls, it seemed, to get a shot at working there. (This was more true than not. Disney workers beget Disney workers!) This all changed in the 70s when the underground comic book movement beget X-rated animated features!

There was a new look to animated features and it was an adult look. It was irreverent, sexy and foul mouthed. It mocked established institutions like government, religion and politics. And it did it all with the raw, unbridled look of underground comics. This movement was headed by a young man from New York, we called him "Vinnie", who brought the world of underground comic book artists to the screen. At the beginning of his rise I ended up working at his studio. During a drunken luncheon one day Nandu, an animator friend of mine, and I decided to enlist with this new studio and embrace its vision to take on the Disney giant. We were hired after an interview, Nandu as an animator and I as his assistant. I was finally working on a feature production. I had hit the mother load!

There's a lot of good things about working on a feature. First off, it's a union staff position so its pays well every week and comes with full benefits. It's a long-form project so it could last two years in production! Best of all, you have all the necessary time you need to do your best work. Of course, this was NOT a Disney feature but an independent production which meant Vinnie could make up his own rules about how the picture was to be made. He took some "shortcuts". He didn't photograph the rough pencil animation before it was painted but waited to see how it looked on the scene in color. Instead, he would "flip" the animation in his hands to see how it played. Tim, another animator on staff, picked up on that and only gave Vinnie completed, cleaned-up roughs to look at. He had a special relationship. His wife was also on staff as his exclusive assistant and his daughter was her exclusive inbetweener. Tim was a favorite because Vinnie could see his work fully as he flipped it. I had worked with Tim before and always thought his work was mediocre but the boss loved it.

The rest of the animators had to use assistants and inbetweeners from the "pool", like me. Vinnie expected a reasonable amount of work from his animators and Nandu had difficulty meeting that demand without utilizing some "tricks" he learned in the television business. Nandu was a master of the "invisible hold". He would keep a character in one position for no more than a third of a second or 8 frames of film. Even if the character stopped moving his body, something else on the character, his arm, his hair or tie, would continue animating. This was known as "overlap" in the industry. And before the character started moving again, he would begin the animation with a simple action like a hand move, an eye blink or a head bob preceding the actual movement of the character. This was called "anticipation". Overlap and anticipation were the marks of an excellent animator. In order to save money in TV animation, Nandu would use separate drawings of hands, heads and eyes animating atop a character body at rest. Employing this technique, he was able to make the footage demanded by Vinnie. The trouble was, it didn't flip well. A character would move a short while then separate into many body parts making seeing the action out of context on paper impossible. This gave Vinnie the impression that Nandu was a "hack animator". They quarreled and Nandu left. But I stayed on. Other animators liked me and was given prestigious, if difficult, assignments.

I stayed at that job long enough to see justice play out. Eventually, all completed animation was painted and photographed onto 35mm film and Vinnie got to see it in action. Tim's work, which seemed so wonderful on paper, was revealed to be mediocre and he was sacked. However, when Vinnie saw Nandu's work on the screen, he was delighted. He loved it and wanted the animator who did it praised and given more work! He seemed confused when he was informed that he fired that artist earlier. Vinnie never even knew who did what on his show. And he certainly wasn't able to tell good from bad by merely "flipping" it through his hands.

Uniformity

One of the distinctions of the Golden Age of Animation was uniformity of style. Some people refer to this, mistakenly, as a "house look". A "house look" is a "sameness" to each picture produced by a studio. Disney had that "look" as did Warner Brothers, MGM and UPA. In television Hanna-Barbera fell into that definition. A "house look" could be a good thing if it was considered "classy" as the "Disney look" was. It could be also be considered "dated" like MGM or "limited" like Hanna-Barbera. UPA was called the "modern" or "new look" in its day. This irritated Disney who produced a series of films, Johnny Appleseed, Wind Wagon Smith, Paul Bunyan and the Academy Award winning Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, just to prove they could be "modern" if they wanted. After winning the Oscar and the point proven, Disney went back to their "house look".

Uniformity is something different and fundamental. It's a basic rule of animation that the finished picture should look like it was drawn by one hand. It is, of course, highly improbable that an animated film of any length could be completely drawn by a single individual. Film-making, in general and animation particularly, is a collaborative effort. Hundreds of artists, executives and technicians go into making a theatrical release movie, just check the credits after a PIXAR film for this revelation. Still, no matter how many people are involved in the production of a picture, there should be a uniformity on three levels; purpose, story and design. For the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to focus on design.

I'm a big believer of an Art Director run picture. This is an individual that will set the overall "look" of a picture whether it is character, costume, background locations, interior design or color. This doesn't mean that he draws, designs or paints all these elements himself but he chooses the style and the artists that will be responsible to deliver the look of the show. He is also the key person responsible for all these elements. It's his fault if things go amiss in these areas. The Art Director must be an artist. This person must be able to pick up a pencil or a brush and draw the correction he wants another artist to make. Often, this person is the creator of the cartoon or series being produced. If you are investing in a "film property", you are also investing in a "film maker". The final look of your product must look like this person drew it all. If several artists with different styles are creating elements for the show without an overall creative direction, the result will look like a patchwork quilt. The Arabs have a saying, "A camel is a horse made by committee". There needs to be a single vision on an animated project that controls the style or no one is going to want to saddle up and take a ride on the finished product.

Odd Jobs

I've done some odd jobs in my day. I was a traffic cop at a County Fair. I unloaded watermelons out of a produce truck. I trapped gophers out of local farms and sold their feet to the township. I posed as a wax figure in a Hollywood museum. All this was just to get extra money. What I really wanted to do was work in Animation. Well, young critter, once I became a professional in that industry, I found a lot of odd jobs! As a pilgrim moving up the food chain, I gained experience at a number of jobs. I could draw, I could animate, I could tell a story, I could take orders and, when the opportunity arose, I could give orders as well. I'll give you two examples...

I was approached by a feller that wanted me to produce a music video for him of a group of kids singing "Happy Birthday". You know the song but did you know that the song is copyrighted? Yep. This feller licensed the rights. He figured that videos were the next hot item. If he could personalize them by adding a spot of animation to the head of a purchased video, they'd make great birthday gifts. I asked an intelligent question about what name we would record when you came to the part of the song "...Happy Birthday, Dear ???...". He had no answer. True personalization would require a custom recording of the name and animation of a character saying that name in animation. It was a quandary. Such a question almost killed the job. PILGRIM TIP #1: "Never ask a question you don't have an answer for!" I suggested that we include a dog in the animation that would cheerfully bark at the moment a name was called for. Good answer! The picture moved forward. The film was a simple affair. It was just a puppy with a row of kids in their party clothing holding balloons in front of a simple but colorful card. They sang, the camera cut close on the dog who barked and cut back wide for the finale. It was a husband and wife venture. The wife art directed, the husband financed and I jobbed out the work to an animator, layout artist and a background painter. I directed, painted the cells and moved the finished work through to delivery. What happened after that? I'll probably never know. The little film just disappeared.

I also worked free-lance by mail for a small commercial house in New Mexico. They'd send me a script, a pre-recorded sound track, sometimes an existing model of a character and a tiny budget. I'd do everything else. I drew the storyboard, designed the characters and did the animation. This was all sent back to New Mexico where they finished the commercial, sent me a copy of the finished film and a check for the work. It was a lotta work for the money but fun when you're young and need material for a portfolio reel. Well, I did a commercial for a local (New Mexican) dairy that had a pre-existing character of a boy as its logo for their milk. I didn't care for the design but did the commercial. They loved it and sent me another. While I was working on a feature film, I got a call requesting I do another milk commercial. I refused. The money was bad and I had a full-time gig. They begged. The client insisted that the same guy do the commercial. I offered to find them a good replacement and I'd check in if they had any problems. Grumbling, they agreed. I knew of two good artists temporarily out of work and they jumped at the chance! I offered to give them the contact number and they could run the job directly through the New Mexican agency. "No, no!" they said! They didn't want any contact with the business guys. They insisted that I talk to the client and broker the job to them. "Are you guys nuts?," I asked! "Do all the work yourself and keep all the money". "Nope, nope!" They didn't want to hassle with the "suits". So, I took the job, gave it to the two artists and pocketed an agreed upon fee for the service.

That was the day I decided to become a producer.