Fitting their title, being a film director entails overseeing their respective project as a whole from its initial stages of pre-production until it’s filmed, edited, and ready to distribute to the public. They direct the course of the film, in other words. And throughout Hollywood history, several popular directors have tried their hand at animation.
Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, and Tim Burton are among just a few of the big-name filmmakers who have dabbled in this realm on various occasions. But several directors have exclusively released animated features in their careers: take Hayo Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, or Pete Docter of Pixar for instance. Those are two massive names of the industry from Japan and America respectively, and they’ve directed some of the finest animated films the industry has ever seen.
But those filmmakers stand out for directing their own projects. Most captains at the helm of animated ships have co-directors alongside, steering the wheel just as frequently.The Lion King(1994),Toy Story(1995),Shrek(2001) — nearly every major player in this regard wasdirected by two people, if not more. On a given project, one may be in charge of animation, while the other focuses on all the other aspects of filmmaking, like screenwriting and casting. This is due to the involved nature of production opposed to live action. But either way: every movie starts with the script.
The Basics: Workshopping and Storyboarding
These are the first two steps to any screenplay: workshopping and storyboarding. At the heart of every movie is the story, and at the soul of each story is character. The workshop phase of production sees the director aligning each plot element in their head to ensure that the screenplay is as solid and fool-proof as possible. No plot holes, no tedious sequences.
Without a proper workshop, your story is bound to fail. Engaging dynamics and palpable development re: your characters are essential for an engaging script — the same thing goes for television, literature, and even mediums such as video games. Every story from start to finish should feature tangible growth and entertaining rapports for and between its characters. Of course, there are several other story elements for the director to hone during this phase, like individual plot points andoverall thematic resonance. But once workshop is complete, this phase of blueprinting continues on.
Whether you draw your scenes out with stick figures and minimal background details, or you go all-out, hire a talented artist, and render your storyboard as professional as possible — each script must be broken down into scenes that are then drawn into individual panels. These storyboards are used as outlines or sketches of the film’s individual scenes, allowing the filmmaker to shift their focus to the animation side of the production spectrum.
Animating and Voice Recording
Once the storyboard is finished, each panel is then cut and pieced together to assemble what’s known as an animatic. With the possibility of including voiceovers, scratch music, diegetic sounds, and of course sketches, the animatics stage essentially develops into a blueprint of the project itself. That’s when directors find their cast and record the dialogue before jumping back into the realm of technical animation. That’s usually the order of events.
However, famous Japanese filmmaker Hayo Miyazaki goes in reverse, first animating the film before recording the voices. But he’s an exception to the craft, as he’s arguably the greatest director of animated films to ever live thanks to projects such asNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind(1984),Princess Mononoke(1997), andSpirited Away(2001).
It’s common practice to animate the film after completing the work ofthe voice actorsso that the animators can match the characters’ facial expressions to their respective intonations. Those are generally the sequential steps. From there, the step of pre-visualization entails the first model of three-dimensional visuals. Animators next present their work to the project’s respective director(s), who then collaborate with the film’s director of photography to establish a keen cinematic style with lighting, blocking, staging, camera movements, and depth of field.
The Final Stretch: Post-Production
Once the animation phase is complete, the next step in production would be choosing music — either an original score or a curated soundtrack — and implementing sound effects: wind and rain in the environments, car horns blaring in the backgrounds, any interactions with inanimate objects that may produce a sound.
Related:The 20 Most Underrated Animated Movies Ever Made
The director plays a prominent part in that phase by conveying to the composer the nature of the story at hand to produce a collaborative tone with the music being played. And once the dulcet effects are taken care of, the team moves onto the process of color grading. This is where strong,carefully curated color palettesare key, allowing the directors to elicit specific emotions when the audience sees something red, for instance.
Of course, animated films are typically more dynamic in their visual style, with vibrant colors and lively features around every corner of their respective, well-crafted worlds. And of course, the visual style — not just the colors, but also the style of animation — is where discrepancies in creative freedom comes into play re: directors and their live-action counterparts.
Directors Known for Animated Movies
Creatives such as Linklater, Anderson, and Burton are more known as live-action directors who have dabbled in the realm of animation — they’re not primarily filmmakers thereof. However, plenty of well-known names in the industry are synonymous with animation, like the aforementioned Hayo Miyazaki. There’s also Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and Pete Docter from America, Mamori Oshii of Japan, Sylvian Chomet of France, and dozens of noteworthy others such as Joel Crawford, Kirk DeMicco, Andrew Adamson, and Dean Deblois.
Those names were at the forefront of projects such asToy Story,Ghost in the Shell(1995),Shrek, andInside Out(2015), each putting their stamps on the respective projects. Take the aforementioned director Richard Linklater, for instance. When he makes an animated film, he utilizesa specific technique called interpolated rotoscopingto render his projects more realistic in movement yet hallucinatory in style. There’s also Wes Anderson, who exclusively makes stop-motion features in this regard.
Then there’s traditional animation opposed to the digital variety, mixing 2D animation with 3D, combining animated sequences with others in live-action, and the existence of motion capture. You may have expected endless, labor-intensive steps when learning about animation. But truly, it’s an art in itself, and it requires years of dedication and practice to master. Hopefully, this is a good start.
