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How to Make Animated Films 432 until graduation, as the value of this is undeniable, both academically and professionally. As soon as I began to become a part of this program (by teaching traditional principles of movement through 2D hand-drawn animation to the freshman classes), I was overwhelmed by the quality of artists that were being produced through this program. At the time the school had not graduated anyone in the BFA program, and so all I could do was rave about the program to outsiders without actually having any of the  nal material to show. However, in 2008, the school saw its  rst graduates in the spring, and the work I can now show is quite remarkable. Some of this masterly senior work, and much of the remaining school work from freshmen to juniors, is evidenced by a large proportion of the material contained in this book. I think each of these pictures truly does speak a thousand words! I have no hesitation in saying that I believe that the current program at DigiPen is the best animation program in the country, or will very quickly establish that status if the current evolution of teaching practices consolidates and evolves. A quick examination of the school’s web site at www.digipen.edu will detail the school’s various programs and the BFA in Production Animation program in particular … in addition to science, game design and programming. The art department gallery page will more than con rm what I have said about the quality of the student’s animation work. Already the industry is becoming acutely aware of the phenomenon that is DigiPen with many of the current senior students interning at such signi cant games studios as Arena Net, Bungie, and Microsoft. Our  rst-time 2008 graduates are already employed full time at many of the major games companies in the Paci c Northwest, and other students have begun to spread further, with one student snapped up by Rhythm & Hues in Hollywood. DigiPen pioneers the way that all great animators should be taught, and I believe its eventual in uence in the animation industry around the world will ultimately be signi cant. Students of DigiPen are not only prepared extensively for obtaining a job in the industry when they graduate but are additionally expected to be major “ movers and shakers ” within the industry when their imprint intensi es. We expect nothing less of a DigiPen graduate. All this is why I am particularly proud of being the Program Director and Dean of Fine Art and Animation at DigiPen. I am proud, too, of working with so many amazing faculty members, each of whom is truly outstanding professional in their own right (and thereby undermining the myth that “ those who can’t … teach ” )! Together, I hope we are currently preparing a new Appendix 4: About the DigiPen Institute of Technology 433 generation of artists and animators whose work, in their own way and in their own time, will ultimately rival the wonderful achievements of Disney, Warner Brothers, and Pixar. This particular book-based course in traditionally based animation is very closely allied to the 2D and project programs that from just a small part of the full DigiPen BFA program in production animation! This page intentionally left blank 435 Appendix 5: Exposure, Exhibitions, and Festivals How to Make Animated Films 436 ” If you animate it, they will come! ” Now that you have made your  lm, you of course want people to see it! There are a number of exhibition outlets for animated  lmmakers these days, but you have to have some degree of perspective on what you can expect. Clearly, unless you have made the most fabulous, feature-length movie that is of the highest professional standard, you are unlikely to attract serious cinematic distribution. Some short  lms occasionally get a theatrical run with a full- length mainstream movie, but the opportunities are too few to even discuss right here and now and more than likely they are produced by the makers of the main  lm anyway. Pixar short  lms are a perfect example of this. Therefore, as an unknown yet emergent  lmmaker, I advise you to focus on genuinely attainable opportunities for now, to avoid the pain of rejection later on! For those wishing a greater depth of information, I have focused more fully on the distribution side of animation in my book, Animation from Pencils to Pixels: Classical Techniques for Digital Animators . However, here are a few potted ideas that may inspire you to research and perhaps take advantage of speci c market areas from the get-go. Short Film Distribution There is a market for distributing short animated  lms but it is very limited. Spike and Mike have cornered a market share here, as have the National Film Board of Canada and the AWN-backed “ Show of Shows ” that tours the USA Appendix 5: Exposure, Exhibitions, and Festivals 437 each year to bring the best of animated short  lm production to an eager public. That said, it is reasonable to suggest that you may have trouble  nding a distributor for your  lm if it has a running time of something around 20 minutes or less. Nevertheless, it would not hurt for you to investigate possible short- lm distributors via the Web, and then see if there is any interest with them for what you intend to o er. Currently, there are a whole number of sites that will screen your  lm and may even o er you a small fee for every time it is seen! Television Unless your  lm is about 26 minutes long (i.e., a TV half-hour “ special ” length), there is also little potential for you to exhibit your  lm in the mainstream. The best chance you have if your  lm is really short is to  nd a slot with a more established program that allows for these kinds of short  lms to be featured. (For example, “ The Simpsons ” phenomenon started as a small animated insert in “ The Tracy Ultiman Show ” !) Alternatively, some lesser-known cable stations might possibly show programs that only broadcast animated short  lms in the  rst place, or else they may have “  ller ” spots between their programs that your  lm might  t into. The reality is that only half-hour TV specials, TV movie- length productions, or long-running 26–minute animated series productions are likely to bring a rewarding opportunity, and a smile of satisfaction on the face of the animated  lmmaker! DVD Sales and Distribution The best chance of getting your  lm out to the public, and perhaps make a little money at the same time, is by releasing or distributing your  lm on a self-published DVD. That said, if your  lm is much less than 30 minutes, there is realistically little chance of you selling a DVD version of your  lm in great numbers, unless it is a top-draw, award-winning production with an international appeal. You could include it with a larger, animated  lm compilation release, where you and other  lmmakers could each donate a  lm to the common cause and share the spoils if it happens to take o later. Alternatively, if your  lm is good enough and has appeal to a larger audience, then perhaps if you added bonus features, such as a live-action “ making of ” documentary and an interactive “ library ” of the  lm’s artwork, it might generate enough interest or value-for-the-money appeal to get enough people to buy your product. I-Pods, PDAs, Cell Phones, and the Web How to Make Animated Films 438 Today, there is de nite mileage in downloadable entities (such as short animated  lms) for owners of I-Pods, cell phones, and similar kinds of PDA devices. Everyone these days seems keen to download material from the Web that they can carry around with them and watch in their quieter moments. So your  lm might just  ll that bill for them if it is of su cient unique interest. You would have to initiate this process, however, by setting up your own custom- made web site, where visitors can preview a clip from your  lm, purchase it with a credit card, and immediately download it to their various PDA devices via your computer. This is a costly process, of course. But if you are creating a product that the public really likes, it could well be an insightful investment to make on your part. Festivals The really best way of getting exposure for your short  lm is by entering it into the numerous festivals that can be found around the world. There are a whole new generation of exciting festivals for animated  lms, in addition to the evergreen classics such as Annecy, Ottawa, and Zagreb. My own 2D Or Not 2D Animation Festival attracted over 30  lms in 2006, its inaugural year, and then over 65 in 2007. This number of entries went even higher in 2008. Most of these  lms were clearly worthy of exhibition, and so we were able to screen the vast majority of them to an enthusiastic public. On top of this, our Golden Pencil awards gave eight animated  lmmakers increasing status, meaning their  lms now have a higher pro le and pedigree attached to them when they are seeking further exposure through television, DVD, the Web, and the other distribution avenues available. Multiply these eight by all those in the other animation festivals out there, and you’ll soon see how attractive festivals are to  lmmakers in terms of exposure and word-of-mouth reputation. Additionally, many festivals o er a marketing option, where  lmmakers can sell copies of their  lms to the general public through just giving a small percentage of the sales to the festival organizers, who have given the  lms the chance of exposure and sales opportunity. Consequently, for all kinds of  lmmakers who wish to seek this kind of exposure through  lm festivals and  lm festival awards, I highly recommend Withoutabox ( www.withoutabox.com ) for providing  lmmakers with a unique and incredible service. By opening a free annual  lmmaker account with Withoutabox, you give yourself instant access to the majority of  lm festivals around the world throughout the entire year. Upon joining, you upload all your production information to your account, including “ press packs ” and other similar promotional material. Then, by simply clicking on a “ submission ” link for every festival you wish to enter, your information is automatically sent to that festival, con rming your entry. Then, once you have paid your entry fee via the Withoutabox web site at the same time, you simply have to mail 439 1 Source: From White, T. Animation from Pencils to Pixels: Classical Techniques for Digital Animators. Boston: Focal Press, 2006, pp. 349 – 359. Reprinted by kind permission of Focal Press. Appendix 6: Exposure Sheets and Production Folders 1 Exposure (Dope) Sheets and Production Folders Although the digital age of animation has well and truly arrived and the traditional processes are pretty much long gone now, except, of course, the importance of pencils and paper, I still  nd two elements of the past worth clinging to: dope sheets (known as exposure sheets or x-sheets in some quarters) and production folders. It is a popular belief that animators just sit and draw funny cartoons all day long. Well, of course, animation is a lot of that, but it is so much more about time and project management too. A good animator needs a good organized mind as well as an ability to draw. Now that animation scenes can run at a variety of di erent  lm speeds, through a variety of di erent screen formats, and using an in nite number of action and special e ects layers in the digital environment, it is so necessary to have your thinking processes working well and consistently. Contemporary animation is now, at its core, an art, a science, and a business management operation all rolled into one! There are other practical information elements that have to be implemented too. For example, every drawing, layout, and background have to have speci c information added so they are not lost or misplaced, creating potential chaos to the production. The necessary information required in these cases would be the sequence, scene, and drawing numbers if it is a series of animation drawings or a layout (with each key also containing the required in-between chart); the sequence, scene, and background numbers, if it is a background; then all this, plus much more, if it is a production folder! Animation paperwork can be scary or tedious when you  rst see it, but, once explained, dope sheets and production folders can actually become your best friends! How to Make Animated Films 440 The Dope Sheet The dope sheet contains all the necessary information about the scene. It might serve as a “ note to self ” for the animator, but it also is a crucial communications tool for the assistant animator, scene compositor, and anyone else in the project’s production line. The dope sheet (often, more than one page per scene) includes the sequence, scene, and page numbers information; phonetic soundtrack breakdown; the scene start and end (cut) points; the animator’s action notes; animation layers; drawing order; in-between timings; detailed shooting/scanning instructions; etc. The dope sheet is the one place where you can clearly organize your thoughts and then share them with others in the team. The following  gure shows a section of a typical dope sheet. The top of a sample dope sheet. Although dope sheets can di er from country to country, or even studio to studio, the essential information presented on them is pretty standard. The  rst thing to realize is that the dope sheet is comprised of many vertical columns and even more horizontal lines. However, once these columns and lines are understood, the dope sheet soon becomes a friend, rather than an enemy. The top section has space for the sequence, scene, and page numbers information, together with additional space to write in the scene title, where relevant. Each of these sections needs to be  lled in every time a new dope sheet is used. That way, if the dope sheets ever get scattered or mixed up, this basic information makes it easy to identify and reassemble them without much fuss. That said, it is the remaining information on the dope sheet that is most necessary in the animation process. Appendix 6: Exposure Sheets and Production Folders 441 Broadly speaking, the narrow, horizontal lines beneath the top information represent every frame of  lm in the scene. The vertical columns, on the other hand, represent the layers of animation, including the background. Speci cally, from left to right in the next  gure, these columns indicate your personal notes column, the dialog breakdown column, six columns for the initial animation layers (with digital animation there could be an in nite number of columns but the six represent the maximum levels possible for the old cell animation approach, including background artwork), and then the camera instructions column. The various areas of a dope sheet. Frame Lines The number of frame lines representing the scene to be animated will depend on the speed and the kind of  lm being used. (If  lm is even the medium to be used!) Filmicly, there are 16 frames in every foot of 35 mm projected  lm and 24 projected frames for every second of  lm time. Therefore, if the animator is working in 35 mm  lm, every 16th horizontal line on the dope sheet is printed heavier, to identify each foot of  lm. Additionally, as 24 frames make up a second of  lm time, each second of  lm is often represented by a double line. When marking up a dope sheet on any scene I am about to animate, I always indicate each second in a circle on the left column (see the following  gure). [...]... subsequent layer reduces the illumination of the image below Digital animators requiring more than five layers of animation will have to create their own custom-made dope sheets or cut and tape two sheets together 445 How to Make Animated Films The next figure shows a partially completed layers section Defining these layers from right to left, we can see that the first, the lowest, is the background Each.. .How to Make Animated Films How I mark each second of film on a dope sheet Note You’ll need to modify the number of frame lines if you are working in any other film format or a digital environment Most digital software defaults to 29.97 fps (frames per second) but should be taken as 30 fps for convenience sake Remember, too, that whereas U.S (NTSC format) TV can broadcast films that are... visual interpretation of a character who is to be animated Charts: Drawn indicators, written on the key drawings by the animator, to show the assistant animator (or inbetweener) where the required number of in-betweens need to be positioned 454 Copy: Written material contained in an advertising script Copyright Agreement: Legal document that enables filmmakers to work with intellectual property that is... day after the animation artwork has been shot Photo-rotos: Photographic prints, taken frame by frame, from live-action negative to enable the animator to register animation drawings to the movements in a live-action/ animation film combination S Pilot Film: Short presentation sequence of finished animation, created specifically to show potential investors what the overall film will look like Safe Titling:... Always specify the field and field center on your dope sheets 449 How to Make Animated Films This field guide clearly indicates that the scene starts as a 12 field (12 F.C.) and then tracks-in to a 10 field on the same center line The Production Folder Each scene of animation artwork requires a means of keeping everything together and showing all the detailed requirements of that scene In 2D animation,... another live-action or animation background later Boiling: Used to describe the kind of flickering that occurs when a number of animated images that contain differing textures are filmed together in an animation sequence 453 How to Make Animated Films Boiling can also occur when there is extensive cross-hatching involved from drawing to drawing, or if the lines of each drawing are vastly different... speed, I only have to add the front number(s) ahead of them each time A sample of the top of a completed dope sheet for Endangered Species, which was animated at 24 fps throughout 443 How to Make Animated Films I number my frames throughout the scene for easier compositing later Audio Breakdown The next column is the audio breakdown column This column contains information that the sound editor has supplied—a... arrangement that allows the filmmaker the right to use an existing book, or published story, for the basis of a film script Live Action: The filming of actors or natural scenery in real time as opposed to drawn or animated artwork Location: Place where filmed action takes place M Mag Track: Soundtrack that is recorded onto magnetic film stock that is the same size as the film stock used for the picture (e.g.,... distributor need not pay the film’s producer any money until the final negative is delivered NTSC: TV broadcast system used in the United States and other countries (525 lines) O Optical Track: Visual soundtrack stripe that is found along the edge of an answer (or combined) print 457 How to Make Animated Films Option Agreement: Negotiated legal arrangement that allows the filmmaker to purchase the right to. .. artwork, might need 447 How to Make Animated Films Rules for Dope Sheets Regardless of design or production format, it is extremely important that the information indicated by the dope sheet is both clearly thought out and neatly written The dope sheet is the most important paperwork the professional animator has to work with, as fundamental to animation as a music score is to music As a result, the . Digital animators requiring more than  ve layers of animation will have to create their own custom-made dope sheets or cut and tape two sheets together. How to Make Animated Films 446 The. to add the front number(s) ahead of them each time. A sample of the top of a completed dope sheet for Endangered Species , which was animated at 24 fps throughout. How to Make Animated Films 444 . interest or value-for-the-money appeal to get enough people to buy your product. I-Pods, PDAs, Cell Phones, and the Web How to Make Animated Films 438 Today, there is de nite mileage in downloadable