This is my animation work area. It's a combination of traditional animation board and computers for scanning my pencil art and importing into Toon Boom Studio. It's not glamorous, but it gets the job done.
Seen below is my animation drafting with my old Filmation disc. This can handle both 12 field and 16 field paper.
I've had this Acme Peg registration punch since 1987. I use it to punch cheap paper for my rough animation. I save the pre-punched Ingram Bond for my clean-ups.
Here are my 3 Computers: Moe, Larry, and Curly!
Moe (on the left) is a Mac G3 I've had since 2001 (along with an Epson
Scanner); Larry is a Mac Quadcore Tower (on the right) I've had since
2008; and Curly (in the center) is my iMac I bought in 2009.
My 15 year-old Epson Scanner...I call it Shemp (for those of you who know the Three Stooges and understand the inside gag)
Animating a figure moving away from camera into the distance is not as easy as it looks.
Here are the drawings, rough background, and x-sheet for the Joker running away in perspective. The final color version in the commercial was tilted counterclockwise approximately 15 to 20%. It was also a little shorter at the end, cutting just before the Joker lands after he clicks his heels. (see the Joker commercial clip in my post from Saturday, July 30, 2011 "Batman Zellers Commercial Series")
Study the x-sheet. You'll note that the original timing had the Joker taking 8 frame running steps. However, that was too slow and the Joker could not possibly cover much distance at that jogging speed for the time allotted in the scene. So, I animated him running at twice that speed (4 frame steps).
Note that I originally timed him to kick his heels together on drawing 40 & 41. I changed that in the animation to heels clicking together on drawing 38 and seeing him "float" in the air with drawings 39 to 44. The heel clicking is a passing "squash" into the "stretching" of the legs apart for 6 frames, which is what sells the action.
An interesting timing exercise is to: 1) expose all the drawings on 2 frames (doubling the scene duration); 2) expose the drawings in combinations of 1 frame and 2 frame exposures. You can expose all the drawings where the Joker lands on the ground for 2 frames and also do the same for the "floating" drawings.
You will see how the action will feel different with these varied timings. How you expose the drawings will have a subtle but definite effect on the scene.
X-Sheets, Exposure Sheets, Dope Sheets...these are various ways I have heard them referred to over the years. However you call them in your country, these are of extreme importance.
Here are the X-sheets for the Hank the Spider Monkey scene I've posted in the past. This is how a director can tie together all the elements of a scene.
The elements are: Music (as represented by the "Beat" notation in the "Action" column every 16 frames; Action (as described in the "Action" column); Voice (as indicated in the Dial[ogue] column); The animation drawings (in whole and on separate levels); Camera moves (as indicated in the "Camera Instructions" column)
The far left hand column with the heading "FR" is for the exact frame count in the entire sequence this scene appears in. This starts with number 881. The red numbers that I wrote on the right hand side of the "Action" column indicates the number of frames of this particular scene. I might redesign this X-sheet, replacing the next column heading "SB" (short for "Storyboard") with "ScFR" (short for "Scene Frame").
Using this method to plan out an entire animated film is no different than a composer writing down all the notes of a symphony to be played by a 50 piece orchestra, and giving indications as to how each note is to be played by the musicians.
In planning out my animation, I describe all the particulars of the action, coordinating it with the beat. For example: I call for hitting a specific pose on the beat (Fr 935) 6 frames ahead of the word "Africa" that starts on frame 941. I then have a four frame "Magic Fingers" cycle that works within the 16 frame Beat.
It's being this specific that saves a lot of reworking of the animation after the first pencil test.
Some may ask, "What do you leave up to the animator?" My answer: "Depends. How good is the animator?"
But no matter how talented the Animator, the exposure sheets are still the Director's plans for the entire picture, tying everything together for all departments to see and coordinate with each other.
To illustrate the results of my use of X-sheets (and even bar sheets for the "West Side Story" sequence), here's a link to my first directorial assignment at Nelvana (August 1979). This is the middle section of "Easter Fever" one of the TV Specials that Nelvana produced and were aired during the late 1970s. Perhaps in a later post, I'll describe the backstage efforts it took to do this TV Special. Or if you have specific questions about the piece, I'll incorporate my answers as part of my post.
