AniPages Discussion Forum

[St. Toledo]

[GATSU]

St. Toledo: It might have worked, if they got Pitof or Proyas to direct.

[H Park]

[Peter_Chung]

Thanks, H, though my current projects are going keep me busy for the next couple of years at least.
If you got the Cyber X cliip, I take it you used to visit the Aeon Flux board? To those who have asked, I will not discuss Aeon Flux here, just my thoughts on the topic at hand.

I've visited this site occasionally and have been impressed with Ben's range and depth of knowledge about the current Japanese animation industry, the names and credits of individual animators, particularly the latest rising talents.
There's a lot of misinformation about Japanese animation floating out there. Anipages is the one place where I've found the information to be sound and the fans earnest about appreciating the artform, so I decided to post here. There is even a lot of misconceptions on the part of American animation professionals regarding Japanese animation, but also the other way around. It blows Japanese animators' minds when they're told a feature film made in the U.S. can cost over $100 million to make.

I'm making comparisons between the U.S. methods and the Japanese because it's hard to describe what makes Japanese animation different otherwise. (Different from what?)

On the tiny mouths of characters, to be more accurate, it makes the fact that there are fewer poses less noticeable.

When it comes to the job of the animation director, there is a very big difference between TV and feature animation in the U.S. Not so much in Japan. In Japan, current feature animation production is basically the same as their TV production, but with a higher budget.
In TV, American directors write down all the timing instructions on their x-sheets before sending the scenes to the animators (usually to Korea). In American features, the system is not really standardized, and will differ according to the studio and the particular individuals involved. There was a tendency towards "directing animators" rather than "animation directors" (when they were still making 2D features). That reflects the emphasis on character, since "animation director" is too general.

In Japan, animators start with completely blank x-sheets. The sakkan's job is to be the "fixer" after the animator finishes his part. His main role is to maintain consistency in the drawing, that is to put the characters on model. The system is very standardized across the industry. If you look at the end credits to Japanese features, you will see the involvement of a lot of different studios contributing everything from layouts to camera. For all the studios to be able to work together, there has to be a universal consistency in methods. This is also the reason why the Japanese industry was so slow to make the transition to digital. They all had to change together, including their subcontractors in Korea and China.

There is no "always" in art. Specialization increases quality, but costs more. The Japanese understand that, but resist it for the sake of freedom and efficiency. (When possible, they do choose animators best suited for particular scenes.) Organizing by specialization takes longer to produce animation, therefore costs more money. Costing more money means that the films have to be more popular. That in turn means that creative freedom is restricted. Many Japanese studios and directors would prefer to have lower budgets and more freedom than higher budgets with less freedom. It seems that many American directors feel it is their job to make films that appeal to the maximum number of viewers. They would say that specialists are critical to achieving that goal.

Richard Williams is unusual in his stance in favor of top pegs. Almost all American animators use bottom pegs nowadays. The fact is, that a good animator can work either way. I'd recommend beginners to learn on bottom pegs first. For me, it makes the process more enjoyable, but for that reason, it can become a crutch. You can end up needlessly rolling your drawings back and forth. These days, I use top pegs. I find it forces me to focus harder and I can work faster.

The pay for key animation varies wildly, depending on the show. 2000 yen per cut sounds like the lowest end of the range, not the average. Probably shows like Anpanman do pay on that level. In Korea, American shows pay by the foot. (A unit that is meaningless today, but persists as part of the traditional professional lingo). Key animation on Nickelodeon's Avatar pays about 11000 won per foot ($11 currently). A 2 second cut is 3 feet (1.5 ft/sec). Most cuts are much longer. You can see why Korean animators don't want to work on Japanese shows.

On the other hand, 200 yen per sheet of douga is about the current average as far as I know.

[St. Toledo]

[St. Toledo]

[Peter_Chung]

Some more thoughts on the sakkan system.
I always serve as my own sakkan on projects I direct. I can tolerate the process because I start by choosing my animators carefully. I consider it both a challenge and an opportunity to learn from the methods of other animators. I couldn't do it as a regular job.

Many Japanese animators, as they get recognized by the studio, will get tapped to do sakkan work. They will take on the job for the higher pay, the challenge, the added prestige and the chance to influence the entire production. Many of them go running back to doing genga after the end of a season. A sakkan feels like he's being dumped on. He is the guy who has to clean up the mess. The majority of animators will do sloppy genga as quickly as possible just to collect their pay. They know their work is going to be corrected anyway, so they don't bother to draw on model. The sakkan wants to send the genga back, if for no other reason than to let the animator understand his mistakes and not to repeat them. Usually, the studio can't afford to do that, so the sakkan is stuck fixing the same stupid errors again and again. He can't enjoy the animation process any more because all he sees are the mistakes. Meanwhile, the hack animator gets paid whether his work is corrected by the sakkan or not. This, in turn, keeps the average wages low, as studios are reluctant to pay good wages to animators whose work will be discarded by the sakkan. Good animators who have proven themselves to be reliable are paid special rates. Unfortunately, because of the shortage of animators, many substandard people manage to keep working precisely because of the sakkan's efforts. When the key animation is done in some foreign country, the sakkan can feel especially helpless.

Other animators may sometimes resent the sakkan's messing with their work too. At times, an animator may do his best, spending a lot of effort and time making very detailed genga, only to find that the sakkan has totally redone it in his own style. That only has to happen a few times before the animator decides it's not worth working so hard on a scene. It can become a vicious cycle if not carefully checked. Morimoto is notorious for being a hard director/sakkan to work for because of his impossibly high standards. Other animators don't want to work on his projects because they know, no matter how hard they try to do their best, their animation will likely be discarded. In some cases, the reason for this may be more a matter of the sakkan's particular taste than anything innately wrong with the animator's work.

[Peter_Chung]

[Huw M]

Thanks for your input Peter, its quite cool to have a seasoned pro sharing their knowledge of such a niche topic, especially one that has virtually no coverage in english-language media apart from aniPages itself.

200 yen for a sheet of douga? I thought a really good inbetweener could do about 1000 sheets a month? Pretty unsatisfactory pay. Also, you said a while back:

[Peter_Chung]

I can see how that sounds confusing. I'm talking about from the studio's perspective. If an inbetweener spends 10 minutes or 2 hours drawing one sheet, it costs the same to the studio. The tendency therefore is to load up on detail on each sheet to maximize production values. More sheets equals more cost for the studio. The inbetweener tries to work as fast as possible, naturally.

American studios pay artists by the hour. They do not want inbetweeners spending time on each drawing. In this case, more detail equals more cost.

The animator specifies the number of inbetweens in a cut. The director keeps track of the cel count. Animators have to self-police themselves on using too many inbetweens. If they call for too many, the director will change the timing himself without consulting the animator. Before all that, the director will explain to his staff where the animation needs to be fullest during the hand-out process.

I don't want to address your other questions about the future of 2D animation here. That's a completely different topic best left to another thread.

[Ben]

Thank you for joining the board, Peter. I'm honored by your presence, and very glad to have someone here with intimate knowledge of the workings of the system in Japan. I've pieced together things, but my understanding is still full of gaps and not first-hand like yours. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Huw, regarding who decides on the inbetweens, my understanding is that in Japan, at least, the key animator indicates exactly how many inbetweens are to be used, and how, for his or her shots. This is done on a so-called "time sheet" that accompanies all key animation by the key animator. The time sheet is where the all-important element of the timing of the movement is determined - how long a drawing stays on the screen before being replaced by the next one. People like Masahito Yamashita and Yoshinori Kanada were known for creating strange movements by indicating unusual, uneven timing on the time sheet.

On the time sheet is a grid with columns labelled "A" for the first (bottom) layer, "B" for the next one up, etc. Each row indicates a single frame, or 1/24 of a second, so that there are 24 rows for a second of animation. I think each studio has their own version of the time sheet and they probably differ from one another to some extent. The key animator writes the number of the key drawings in the boxes accordingly - e.g. "1" in the first box, then skip two boxes and draw a dot or a dash or the like in in the fourth box to indicate to the inbetweener where an inbetween is to come, then skip two more boxes and draw a "2" for the second key drawing, etc. That would be a movement in "threes". Kenichi Yoshida used to have the keys and time-sheets for his shots in the Gainer opening up on his home page that made it very clear how this worked, but unfortunately those have since disappeared.

I don't know at all how this is handled in other countries like the USA or Korea, so I am grateful to Peter for discussing this topic comparatively as he has been. I never fail to be amazed when reading through the credits of US productions at the sheer variety of different posts that are needed in western animation as opposed to Japanese, where everything basically boils down to three people - the key animator, the animation director and the inbetweener. Of course, there are miscellaneous other posts such as "sou sakuga kantoku" or chief animation director, sometimes a separate layout person, sometimes a "nigen" or second, etc., but as Peter has indicated, it's a very different system. These days I've noticed it seems increasingly common to see ni-gens in particular. I'm unsure of the precise nature of their job, although I gather it must be something akin to cleanup of rough keys.

Regarding who decides what kind of timing should be used, I believe that shots are typically assigned to animators in what are called "sakuga uchiawase" (typically shortened to "saku uchi"), meaning animation meeting, which is where I guess the director would make any comments about the content or frame count of the action. One thing I've never been sure about is: Who assigns animators? I figured it was probably the director, because the animation director is just there to correct things, but I was never sure. In cases where the director, enshutsu and ekonte are different, who chooses? Is it the person who drew the ekonte? In some cases I've heard of ekonte being drawn a certain way with a certain animator in mind, which seems to suggest that the storyboarder chooses the animators in cases where the enshutsu and ekonte are not done by the same person.

Anyway, enough rambling. Just some random thoughts. Sorry if any of this is inaccurate.

[St. Toledo]

[Huw M]

Thanks, Peter and Ben, for your responses. Certainly makes things a lot clearer.

And you're right about the topic of the future of the animation industry being best left to another thread, Peter. I'll probably go make one sometime in the future.

Keep up the good work guys, we all appreciate you taking your time to answer our questions, especially when you are so busy.

[H Park]

I've read that Key Animator handles timing for his own cut. Does Sakkan check KA's timing other than correcting drawings?

Ben mentioned "ni-gen", or Second Key animation. Is it a some kind of key animation?

[Manuloz]