Stripped to the core

The world of animation is quite a mystery for the ordinary man. We enjoy the cartoons projected on the big and small screens, but achieving the effect is a complex task, better left to the experts. Given a chance, there would be few who would not show an interest in this tedious and time-consuming process.

Who has not heard of Tweety, Sylvester, the Flintstones and Scooby Doo? Tom and Jerry is an all-time favourite, not only with kids but also adults. And all these animated films have been produced by the famous Hanna-Barbera production.

Wallen Pabericio, currently working at the Book Stop library in Dubai, has worked for Hanna-Barbera as an animator for quite a few years. He now teaches art, especially cartoons, to adults as well as kids.

Pabericio has worked for Fil Cartoons in the Philippines, which is a subsidiary of Hanna-Barbera. Based on his experiences, he shares the procedure of producing one of the greatest sources of entertainment.

"We can divide cartoons into two main kinds, the cartoon strip and animation," said Pabericio. He went on to explain that the comic strip is a simple method of putting an idea across, a matter of a single drawing with a caption on it, whereas animation is a motion picture consisting of a sequence of drawings, each so slightly different that when filmed and run through a projector, the figures seem to move."

Animation can be classified into two styles - the one followed by the American artists and the other by the Japanese. In the American style of drawing, thick and thin outlines are used to create shadowy effects whereas in the Japanese style, figures are outlined in a constant line of the same thickness, or rather thinness. While the Americans use an average of six to seven colours, the Japanese use around 11 to 15 colours to compensate for the effects produced by a constant sized line.

"If one wants to see the difference, a common example of American cartooning is Archie and Japanese or European is Tin Tin," explained Pabericio.

The amount of hard work that goes into animation is evident by the fact that one second of a film is made up of 24 drawings. So, if you calculate, a 30-minute film would require 43,200 drawings.

"But in animation, each drawing is filmed twice, so a one second frame would actually consist of 12 drawings, each repeated twice," said Pabericio. It would be only fair to say the task is monotonous."

The process of animation can be divided into a few major steps:

- Once a story is approved, the characters are designed. The Character Strip is made and this involves characters featured from all angles - front, sides and back. The strip also comprises the innumerable facial and body expressions of each character. This is done to maintain the characters' consistency, in terms of facial expressions, actions and postures, no matter who draws them.

- The storyboard comes next. It is like a comic strip but a bit more organised and neater. Many pictures are drawn, all of the same size. Below each picture dialogues are written neatly plus a few lines on all the technical aspects involved in filming that particular drawing.

"When you look at a storyboard, you see a whole story unfolding in front of you, complete with instructions for the cameraman," explained Pabericio.

- Once the storyboard is okayed, voice-over artistes come in to lend their voices to different characters. This is the only step in animation where one can feel some human presence.

"Hanna-Barbera once had a guy named Mel Blanc who worked with them and lent his voice to many favourite cartoon characters, like Sylvester and Tweety. Unfortunately, he is no more now," recalled Pabericio.

- After the recordings are complete, the storyboard, character sheet and voice tapes are then transferred into exposure-sheets or X-sheets. Animators using the storyboard and X-sheet then create the actual animation.

- A few animators lead a huge team of assistant animators, more commonly known as "in-betweeners". "Because they make all the transitional drawings between the beginning and the end posture of an action performed by the character," explained Pabericio. "In fact, they are the ones adding actual animation to the film."

They do this with the help of the X-sheet and character page. While the X-sheet provides the beginning and end posture of an action, the character page provides the different facial expressions of the character. The X-sheet also provides timings for the mouth openings to be matched with the recorded cassette.

This is a complex and elaborate task as minute and very important details, like the motion and speed, have to be considered.

"Observe yourself when you pick up a glass from the table... the motion would be fast-slow-fast," said Pabericio. "We have to give the same effect in the animation. Distance between the drawings represents the motion of the character. Slow movements have small gaps in-between drawings and faster ones have larger gaps."

The final X-sheet, after all the drawings are complete, contains the beginning and the last part of an action and also all the drawings in-between.

"The assistant animators have mirrors in front of their desks. In case they are having difficulty with a particular drawing, they act out that part," explained Pabericio.

- After all the pencil drawings are complete, an animator keeps them one on top of the other and checks them out by flipping the whole bunch with speed. Sometimes the pencil drawing is also filmed. This is called the pencil check.

- Pencil drawings are then photocopied onto plastic sheets called CEL and handed over to the colouring department where they are coloured on the back. The colours used are latex based, like rubber, and are thick enough to block any light that might come through.

- The drawings are then transferred to another section that creates backgrounds. Several drawings are placed one after the other and filmed on the same background. Here, the reason for making the drawings on plastic sheets becomes evident - for the background to show through.

"Some time back, Walt Disney had invented the process of dividing one drawing into several sheets and keeping them at different heights, merging the scenery. This process gave the picture a three-dimensional effect and is now followed globally," said Pabericio.

- The voice and other background sound-effects are then added. Once the film is complete, it is then canned. "When I used to work at Fil Cartoons back in the Philippines, the X-sheets were prepared in the American Hanna-Barbera production house and then sent over to us. We used to do the in-betweening and send the completed and canned film back to the U.S."

Interestingly, the word "canned" is used because the film is packed in cylindrical cans, explained Pabericio.

"It is true that nowadays animation is being done on computers with the help of innumerable software. But, this kind of animation is being followed since a long time, and is still the most common way for producing cartoons, with no computers at all," concluded Pabericio.

Seeking talent

The Yomiuri Shimbun, a newspaper in Japan, is seeking entries from professionals and am