Our author Justin Leach. Photo by Kazunori Suga.

A Typical Work Day
Every morning at about 10:00 a.m., I ride my bike (about ten minutes) from my mini-sized apartment to my mini-sized studio. Although the typical workday at the studio officially begins at 10:30 a.m., most of the senior level creators roll in between 1 to 4 p.m. and work late into the early morning. There is sort of this easy going spirit here at the studio as the work always seems to fall magically into place. The work week is from Monday to Friday and every other Saturday is a required work day. As in the United States, many of the employees here are extremely dedicated to their jobs and often people will work 12-14 hour days and occasionally even sleep at their desks.

The animation director's room at I.G.

The Animation Production Process
As in the West, once a concept has been established, a great deal of research is done. At this time, the director and his key creative staff work together to decide the look and style for the film. After the influences have been identified, the director's staff travels around the world gathering photo reference and information related to the story. After returning from the research trip, the director will finalize the script and create the storyboards (called "ekonte" in Japanese) for the entire film (usually in about a month's time). After the storyboards are finished, the director will add notes, and estimate number of frames per shot. From this point, the director may decide to make an animatic but is not really considered necessary for production. During this time the character designer, mechanical designer, weapons designer and layout designers begin to create work based on the research and director's input. Next, the final approved designs are handed to the 3D and 2D animation staff and the production begins. Once the animation for the shot is approved, it then goes to digital ink and paint. Once the colors have been added, the shots will continue to undergo various tweaks and fixes. After the final animation has been approved, it goes into post-production where the music, sound fx and voice recordings are added to the film. In Japan a great deal of respect is given to the film's director who has a major influence on all of the final creative decisions.

Animators Ryuji Mitsumoto (left) and Kazunori Suga.

CG Production in Japan
In Japan, computer animation production is usually made by a team of "CG creators" who are generalists responsible for handling all aspects of a shot from beginning to end. In addition, off-the-shelf software is usually used, with the software packages of choice being Lightwave and 3D Studio Max. While most major animation studios in the West typically divide the tasks among a team of specialists in an assembly line fashion, Japan usually has many people assigned to many different types of jobs. For example, although I originally came to Production I.G. as a technical animator, I have done many different types of jobs such as editing animatics, designing Web pages, assisting in international business and documenting production. I think the reason for this generalization by employees is mainly a result of having to work within very restricted budgets.