ABSTRACT
You have now offi cially ended Pre-production. The fi lm is fi nished; the production is about to begin. Layout, background painting, modeling, rigging, texturing, character blocking, rough pass animation, fi nal tie down, backgrounds, color, texture, lighting, special eff ects, compositing, fi nal render, musical track, sound design and edit, fi nal mix, digital formatting, export … Production and post-production work actually shows on the screen. But it won’t make a coherent fi lm without good storyboard, design, and direction. When you work in pre-production, you are scripting, designing, casting, and directing the animated movie. Your work gives production artists something to get their teeth into. You may even shift over to production once pre-production is fi nished (as I have done on many fi lms). Story problems are dealt with in storyboard stage so that the picture won’t need to rework the characters, settings and animation after the animation is 40 percent completed (and there are fi lms that have achieved this dubious distinction). Changes can and will continue to be made to story if you are working on a commercial production. Sequences may be added or more likely dropped if directors and producers and budgets demand it. A well-run feature project will have some sequences in production while others are being revised, so that the fi lm can be completed out of sequential order.
