In a Flash: Animation Production in Flash Growing
The task of producing animation has flipped many a time since the first artists stacked their drawings under a camera. Production processes created in the golden age of animation would be as foreign to the modern studios as the silent movie process compared to digital filmmaking. However, the basics remain and that is how artists, producers and studios have been able to make shifts such as inking to Xerography or in-house to foreign production. And now studios are moving to Flash.
As the year progresses, more and more studios and networks are jumping on the Flash bandwagon. Just a few years ago series like ¡Mucha Lucha! and Atomic Betty were unique as TV productions done in Flash. Now the list of such productions is long and growing every month. Such series as Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Yakkity Yak and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends are all produced via Flash. They will be joined by such new and upcoming series as Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Pucca, The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers, Yin Yang Yo!, Shuriken School, Rintindumb and El Tigre.
What makes the switch to Flash a slightly different conversion is the lack of a direct path in changing. When studios moved from black and white to color or silent to sound, or even hand ink to Xerography, it was usually a studio wide move in which all productions would partake. But with Flash, a number of studios continue to deal with series based on animation pre-production for overseas completion while other series are being produced in-house via Flash. This means that almost everyone at the studio must switch back and forth to accommodate the production mode for a specific series.
Another difference is that previous production changes created an earthquake-like shift from the previous, often costing established jobs and departments while creating new ones. Moving from standard overseas to Flash is more like a shift for daylight savings time. In fact, unlike some changes that caused a loss of employment, a change to Flash can actually increase the body count at a studio.
The good news is that the productions for Flash and common have much the same origination steps. Both need writing (usually scripts or outlines), storyboards, voices, designs and colors. Both processes also have the same conclusion with post, music, ADR and other technical wizardry. It is the subtle differences that make for challenges in the transferal.
For the creator, such changes can have the most lasting affect. Animator Bob Miller has been involved in the business for more than two decades, doing everything from storyboards, to layouts to effects animation to writing. He was involved in one of the early Flash series, LarryBoy. I grabbed him for a few comments about the artist’s side before looking at the production needs.
Miller related that the concept behind Flash is not totally unique and not a lot different for the board artist. “If your series is limited animation, or ‘planned’ animation as it was called by Joseph Barbera, then it’s virtually the same amount of work for the storyboard artist. Examples of limited animation would be Crusader Rabbit, the early Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons, Roger Ramjet, most Filmation series, a lot of Japanese TV animation and Powerpuff Girls. All could easily have been done in Flash.” In fact, for a number of years, a number of folks actually thought Powerpuff Girls was done in Flash!
“The storyboard artist stages the action to either minimize or imply character movement, while keeping viewer interest with strong posing and expressions for the characters. The reuse of stock footage (walk and run cycles), designs and backgrounds is encouraged. It’s vital that character designs are simple and not detailed. The entire production team should be experienced and animation-savvy so they know what visual short cuts to take. All of this is necessary to keep the production as cost-efficient as possible. This, of course, should be true for both Flash and non-Flash series. In Dragon Tales, a conventional series, the same story panels would be used for Max and Emmy popping off to Dragon Land — with variations, depending on the script.”
As for the artist switching from a standard TV animation board to Flash boards, Miller said, “it’s virtually the same, in my experience. This may not be true to new board artists coming onto a show. They need extra time to learn and apply the stock animation poses and backgrounds to their boards. So a ‘ramping up’ time should be factored in as they acclimate themselves to the series and learn what drawings they can recycle.”
But from a producer’s viewpoint, there is a definite shift in how one handles a standard production and one in Flash. In standard animation, the production crew needs only track a script, a board, a basic design pack and directing elements. The average episode’s elements could fit in one or two standard shipping boxes that are then sent to the overseas studio. The crew then concentrates on the next episode.
For a Flash series, the elements that would go overseas are, instead, now distributed to another division in the studio. More like feature animation, the production force must track every image, audio bit or element through the completion of the episode.
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