We had two animation supervisors and one background supervisor in Taiwan for the duration of the production. They worked very closely with the Taiwanese directors in a collaborative way, not as bosses but as co-workers. There was a conscious effort on the part of both Wild Brain and Wang to create a joint effort. We believe that our combined efforts, careful planning and close working relationship were responsible for getting a great looking film for the time and budget. We were a team.

Scripting
If the script is weak then even the best animation can't engage the audience, so we decided to play on our strength as storytellers in the scripting process rather than rely on expensive production techniques down the road.

A good script must read well. The story arc must have its high points and low points building up to a finale where the viewer is truly interested in what will happen to the central characters. An erroneous assumption is that animation will make the characters more likable and believable; that when the characters are in motion, the clichès of the dialogue and plot will disappear. This is wrong!

We capitalized on our studio's collaborative approach to production while simplifying the original script in ways that would best benefit the animating teams, design teams, and color designer. We opened our twice-weekly story meetings to all studio personnel: directors, animators and designers. During six weeks of "open door" brainstorming sessions, we made the story objectives clear: straightforward, action-driven sequences and sympathetic characters with depth. We also aimed to establish character development through visual means and not rely solely on dialogue.

We eliminated sequences too complicated to be animated on our schedule. If there were action sequences, we prioritized our location designers to start on these areas first. These were our first storyboards. The diverse story team also kept us from falling into stereotypical "cute" solutions. As soon as we nailed a sequence, we put it into storyboard.

We could not afford to wait until we had a complete script, so we had to start storyboarding right away. We knew that storyboarding before the script was complete would result in some re-do, but we had no choice. We were racing against the clock. In the end, we were pleased with our risk-taking and we did not have too much re-boarding to do.

A storyboard panel from FernGully2. Also included with this article is a supplement of several more storyboard panels

Storyboard
The storyboard is the visual blueprint of the film. Whatever strengths or weakness appear in the storyboard will almost certainly show up in the finished film. If you want to see it in the film, it must be in the boards, every pose, every expression, everything.

We were careful to cast the board artists to compliment their individual strengths. We gave the preliminary script to all of our board artists as early as possible. They got to spend this additional time familiarizing themselves with the whole story. Whenever possible, the artists made requests for sequences they were most interested in working on. This was helpful in the long run because they usually got the sections that they felt most comfortable with and the end result was great. When an artist is happy and feels that their contribution is making the picture better, they're willing to go the extra distance when you really need them to.

We concentrated on strong character expressions that told the story in an uncomplicated way. Rarely does a bad storyboard expression, weak pose or off-model character end up looking better after it is animated. It is most important to keep your characters in the storyboard on model and the expressions correct.

Background Color
Background artwork contributes greatly to the overall warmth and emotions of a film, as well as adds richness to the final product. Color tends to dominate the frame. All background color has to be determined before the production facility starts painting. We roughly painted the storyboard to give us the general color direction. We solved almost all of our location color styling using this method. Working directly on the storyboards allowed us to experiment with different color schemes before hiring top background painters. Once we were set on the colors, we then had background artists paint small, highly rendered location backgrounds which were then shipped to Wang to be used as guides in the actual production. This was done for every location, day and night, that would appear in the film.