“Powerpuff Girls… 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!” Bob Miller reports. © Cartoon Network.

Vincent (Vince) Aniceto has produced series, specials and pilots for Cartoon Network. His credits include standard TV production (Powerpuff Girls) and Flash (Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends). I asked Aniceto for his thoughts on how handling the two formats differed.

“In the area of production, the biggest change is in the order of events. In standard overseas production, you put together and ship all the black and white art early on. This allows the overseas studio to begin layouts and animation. Then later you ship the color. But with Flash, you need to give the animators final color. Otherwise they will need to re-animate the material or re-color it all. Thus the pre-production process has to suddenly become one single step with all elements completed at once.”

As for the size of the production crew, Aniceto noted that, “for the actual production, we did not need a much bigger crew — perhaps one extra production manager. Part of that was due to the complexity of the show.”

“However, the art crew was obviously larger. Fosters is not done in a traditional Flash style. The series is still totally hand drawn on paper and then scanned into the computer and cleaned up in Illustrator.” Actually each model, prop and effect is “elementalized” (my word) with each part of the image cleaned up on separate levels. Hence on a character the arm would be cleaned up on one level, the body on another, the head on yet another. This way when it is imported into Flash it is already broken down.

Aniceto noted that, “by beginning in Illustrator the characters are allowed to keep their separate brushes. Viewers may note that each character has different brushes used. For example Coco’s hair [from Fosters] is really unique. This process is now being used on Nickelodeon’s new series, El Tigre.”

Echoing Miller’s comments, Aniceto explained that, “the series is quite challenging as a production, beginning at the board stage. Due to the nature of Flash, the boards need to be more two dimensional in nature. You have to get the artists to avoid using shots or movements. They need to think of it more as a left/right process.” (This was also true when working on the Garfield series of the 1980s. Due to Garfield’s creator, Jim Davis’s desire to keep the show looking like a comic strip, the artists had to continually be pulled back to a two dimensional world.)

The Flash style in Fosters (left) is hand drawn, scanned and then cleaned up in Illlustrator. Each character has a different brush. This process is now used in El Tigre. © & ™ 2004 Cartoon Network (left) and © Nickelodeon

“Another challenge is to keep the show from looking ‘Flashy,’ as we say around here,” continued Aniceto. “So many early shows, like ¡Mucha Lucha!, looked very flat and ‘Flashy.’ That is one reason we keep all the character elements separate. From the models, to the props to even the backgrounds, all are cleaned up in sections. This allows us to move things more fluidly. We put an emphasis on extra poses and expressions. Even the effects need to be more than a simple water drawing; we need lots of line work to keep the show less “Flashy. The advantage to all the extra drawing is that the show is able to have a lot of visual subtlety. We can play more with expressions and hair and other features. You usually cannot get very subtle things out of an overseas studio due to the limitations of the budgets and crew.”

But in keeping with the standard line of producing, once the board is done, it goes to sluggers and sheet timers. “Directing on Fosters also retains a classic stance,” notes Aniceto. “We are still directing the boards and sheets at 24-frames-a-second, treating it as film. This keeps the timing less ‘Flashy’.”

“Once it comes out of Flash, we composite the series in After Effects. Again, this helps keep the show from looking like a standard Flash production. By using so many programs, it really allows us the advantage of Flash animation, without some of the clichés of Flash.”

When asked if there were any perceptions one ran into while doing a Flash series, Aniceto had no hesitations. “Perhaps the biggest misconception about Flash I hear is that it saves money. We spend as much on Fosters as we do on other shows at the network. The difference is that we spend all the money over here, instead of splitting it between the studio and an overseas animation house.”

Aniceto has recently moved onto yet another up and coming model for animation production, producing the new Transformers series for Cartoon Network. The series is being written and recorded over here, with key models created. The actual boards and models will be done in Japan. “It is odd going from a small art staff on previous shows, to a whole studio with Flash, to almost no artists on this new series.”

Though having an in-house animation department may be novel to the modern TV studio, it is not so new to those doing features, commercials or special projects. Yet they have the same issues and needs when they convert from a building full of traditional, pencil-pushing animators to a group of persons placing pixels.