Editing Animation (section)

==Production==
[[File:Joy &amp; Heron - Animated CGI Spot by Passion Pictures.webm|thumb|''Joy & Heron'']]
The creation of non-trivial animation works (i.e., longer than a few seconds) has developed as a form of [[filmmaking]], with certain unique aspects.{{sfn|Laybourne|1998|p=117}} Traits common to both live-action and animated [[feature film]]s are labor intensity and high production costs.{{sfn|Solomon|1989|p=274}}

The most important difference is that once a film is in the production phase, the [[marginal cost]] of one more shot is higher for animated films than live-action films.{{sfn|White|2006|p=151}} It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more [[take]] during [[principal photography]] of a live-action film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators (although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animation).{{sfn|Laybourne|1998|p=339}} It is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling five-minute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film.{{sfn|Culhane|1990|p=55}} Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where [[storyboard artist]]s develop every single scene through [[storyboard]]s, then handing the film over to the animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole.{{sfn|Solomon|1989|p=120}} While live-action films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards (i.e., real-time improvisation).{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}{{sfn|Laybourne|1998|pp=100–01}}

Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in a consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film.{{sfn|Canemaker|1996|pp=xi-xii}}{{sfn|Masson|2007|p=94}} Since the early 1980s, teams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created feature-length animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult.{{sfn|Beck|2004|p=37}}

This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before the animation begins.{{sfn|Canemaker|1996|pp=xi-xii}} While animators must "sacrifice their personal drawing styles so that the work of many hands appears to be that of one", visual development artists are allowed to "create new worlds, new characters, and new entertainment possibilities in their own individualistic graphic styles".{{sfn|Canemaker|1996|pp=xi-xii}} Character designers on the visual development team draw [[model sheet]]s to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=34}}{{sfn|Culhane|1990|p=146}} On traditionally animated projects, [[maquette]]s were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=34}}{{sfn|Williams|2001|pp=52–57}}

Unlike live-action films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond the synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film.{{sfn|Laybourne|1998|pp=99–100}}{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  The traditional approach worked for several decades because prior to the 1960s, no one except Disney was attempting to regularly produce feature-length animated films.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  All other animation studios, with occasional exceptions, were producing [[short film]]s only a few minutes in length.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  For short films, it was enough for the storyboard artists to work up a few [[visual gag]]s and then string them together to form a crude plot.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}

In 1960, [[Hanna-Barbera]] pioneered the longer [[animated sitcom]] format for television with ''[[The Flintstones]]''.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  Hanna-Barbera and the other early television animation studios soon discovered that storyboarding was far too inefficient to fill up a half-hour episode on the extremely tight budgets typical of television.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  During the 1960s, these studios experimented with a more efficient method for developing story material: a [[screenwriter]] is hired to draft a written [[screenplay]] which is approved and handed over to the storyboard artists for storyboarding.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}} This method creates significant tension between screenwriters and storyboard artists, in that some artists feel that people who cannot draw should not be writing for animation, while some writers feel that artists do not understand how to write.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  Despite that tension, it has become and remains the dominant method by which animation studios develop both feature-length films and television shows.{{sfn|Marx|2007|pp=3-4}}  

Ironically, the Disney studio was relatively slow to adopt this method.  The first Disney feature animated film to have a complete screenplay written and approved before storyboarding was ''[[One Hundred and One Dalmatians]]'' (1961).{{sfn|Peri|Docter|2024|p=195}}  However, ''101 Dalmatians'' was "a short-lived experiment"; the next Disney film to follow this method was ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'' (1986).{{sfn|Peri|Docter|2024|p=195}}

Finally, another key difference is that actors traditionally record vocal tracks for animated films in separate individual sessions.<ref name="Hayes_Page_176">{{cite book |last1=Hayes |first1=Derek |last2=Webster |first2=Chris |title=Acting and Performance for Animation |date=2013 |publisher=Focal Press |location=New York and London |isbn=9781136135989 |page=176 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4z0qBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176}}</ref>  Actors usually schedule sessions in the [[recording studio]] around their live-action work.<ref name="Hayes_Page_176" />  In live-action filmmaking, it is very common for actors to drop out of projects due to scheduling conflicts, while in animation, recording actors separately makes it possible to "get a lot more stars into one movie than" would be possible if those actors needed to be physically present on the same set at the same time.<ref name="Hayes_Page_176" />