How anime is created

Many of the Habrovsk citizens, and indeed IT specialists, watch anime. He saw him even more out of the corner of his eye. But how is it created?

It all starts with an idea. It happens that a brainstorming session takes place, where only one is chosen from a whole pile, but the best one. It happens that the whole management decides. But anyway, this is the very first and most boring stage. After choosing an idea, the composition of the team that will be engaged in its implementation is decided, sponsors are sought. The anime is actually quite an expensive thing - the cost of showing 52 episodes late at night on 5-7 television channels is approaching 50 million yen (about 21 million rubles), and showing the Fullmetal Alchemist anime at 6 pm was 10 times more expensive!

The following couple of steps are optional if the anime will be drawn on a comic book manga. Such anime is generally the majority, and it is justified. According to whether the manga was successful or not, you can find out in advance whether the anime will be successful, and just save some penny. In fairness, it is worth noting that it happens and vice versa - the manga is drawn according to the anime. For example, this was the case with FLCL .

The second stage is to come up with a general concept - who, how, why and why. Characters are invented, the main storyline, some first drafts are made. As soon as this is ready, scriptwriters and artists begin their work. A detailed script is written, characters and backgrounds are drawn, and then an approximate storyboard is made.

Everything is usually drawn in the old manner, in pencil on paper. Characters are drawn in different angles and moods, in different clothes and with different objects.





Translation of these sketches into digital form can be done in two ways. Either pencil sketches are covered with mascara or a hard pencil for greater contrast, and then scanned:





Or they are scanned first, and then contrast is added on the tablet. It turns out basically the same thing.
After the characters are ready, sketches of the entire storyline are drawn. This is also done in pencil on paper, with comments, at intervals of a second.





Separately from all this, a background is drawn. Moreover, it often happens that it is not drawn from scratch, but from some photographs. Therefore, do not be surprised if you see familiar places while walking in Japan.



However, the background can be drawn later, in the process, especially if it is distant and you do not need to draw detailed shadows from the animation on it.

Finally, we move on to the next part, finally connected to the computer. This is where the biggest and most difficult work begins - animation, coloring and layout. First, artists draw several frames of character animation, between ready-made outline sketches of the storyline. For television anime, usually 12 frames per second is drawn, but sometimes it happens 24 or 8. This is done exactly the same as before - the outlines are printed on paper and converted to digital form. This is really hellish work - imagine how much you need to draw for a 25-minute series!

Then other people (though maybe the same ones) smooth this animation so that everything looks natural and jerky. And finally, others colorize this animation. Besides all this, there are also effect artists. They add all kinds of sparks, stars and more. As a result, after adding the background, you get an almost finished piece of anime.

The whole process is monitored by an art director (animation director) who checks frames, makes corrections, and sometimes redraws something entirely with his own hands. Therefore, this position is usually assigned to one of the animators, with great experience.

It is worth noting that in recent times the life of animators has been greatly facilitated by three-dimensional graphics. For example, Makoto Shinkai actively and very fruitfully uses it in her works.. But still, most of the anime is still drawn by hand.









Then comes the turn of sound. Actors seiyuu pronounce their cues and perform songs. From the side it can look very funny. Most of the voices of anime boys are actually female - men have a lower voice and do not look like children’s, and for some reason no one takes children to voice acting.





The voices are processed, additional sounds are superimposed - rustling leaves, walking, etc. Finally, background music is added, and the production of the anime enters the final stage - the show.

How to get money from anime? Advertising and selling merchandise. In the middle of the series, an ad unit is placed on television. Sometimes directly in the anime they draw the names of sponsoring companies or their products (for example, all characters use the phones of one company). Anime is published on DVD. Numerous posters, figures and more are produced. Well, we are just watching it.

Sources:
Anime Production - Detailed Guide to How Anime is Made and the Talent Behind it!
Steps in Anime Production
How Anime is Made I

apologize for possible errors and inaccuracies.