Creative works: making a cartoon – Part 2
In the previous article, we talked about the steps to create a cartoon.
Today we are going to be talking about the professionals working in the animation world.
According to the complexity of the animated project and the available budget, there are can be different professionals involved. We are going to let you know the main ones.
Professionals of the creation of a cartoon
Writer
First of all, we need to write what we want to tell. In each project that we want to do, there is a story behind it. We talked about it in this article, in which we have deepened how the narrative influenced the creation of our culture.
Writing for a cartoon means articulating a series of screenwriting techniques that give the basis of a story intended to be filmed or animated. If you have children who delight in writing, acknowledge that in the not too distant future, new worlds could be born from the fingers and the imagination of your little writers.
Film director
Sometimes coinciding with the writer, the role of the director is to articulate in scenes the written story. The director needs a series of narrative techniques from the world of cinema to give a sense and a visual continuity to the story, with the aim to entertain and transmit different messages. Many children are small directors when they invent their world while they play and deciding facts and events.
Character Designer
As in any story, there’s the need of the protagonists, antagonists, and many other characters that give life to the story through their adventures. In the animation world, the role of character creation goes to the character designers who translate into images what is described by the writers, giving life to characters that did not exist, providing them a shape and features to delineate their personalities. The character designer also draws the poses and expressions of the character, foreseeing its use in the various scenes. If your children love to draw, a very fulfilling artistic career that they could pursue is the character designer.
READ ALSO: Cartoons: Their Importance In Kids Development
Background Designer
As well as a character designer, there are those who specialize in background design, that is the one who creates the backgrounds and everything that surrounds the characters and within which the facts of the story take place. Drawing the environment is essential to understand the context in which the characters move. According to the lights, the colors, the shapes in a background design, the director conveys specific messages and sensations.
Storyboard artist
When the director thinks of a story, he thinks about how to express it to the public. The storyboard artist helps the director to visualize through drawings the different actions within the scenes that make up a cartoon.
Animatic and editing
Before starting with the animation production, we need to see if the flow of the pictures has a logical sense based on the director’s visualization. That is why we create the animatic, a rough film made from sequenced storyboard drawings. Moreover, in this part, we can have the idea on how to edit the scenes.
Ideally, this is the stage where it is better to make any modifications, to optimize the workflow, the production schedule, and the budget. In fact, if this part is well defined, the work of the animator is facilitated.
Animator
Finally, the animator, having as its guideline the storyboard and the animatic, gives life to the characters of the story, trying to merge into each one the personality that the author or authors have thought. The animator will be able to translate a clumsy, funny, sad, happy character into moving images.
As you will have understood, to make a good animation project it is crucial to have good teamwork, a skill that today is significant for work.
There are workshops for children, aiming at developing soft skills, related to the sphere of communication, the development of critical thinking and problem-solving. Look for those that are close to the creation of cartoons, of video games or similar: Kids won’t just boost their creativity but can learn how to work together with other towards one goal.
READ ALSO: Makers: The Digital Inventors 2.0
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katrin Ann Orbeta – Mash&Co
“I was born in the Philippines but grew up in Italy. Living two cultures I saw the beauty and differences: people and especially children do not have the same rights and opportunities. I truly believe educating children is the best way to create the basis for a fair world. Hence Mash&Co, digitally animated story that introduces children to positive values. My contribution to a better world starts with my love for drawing, animation, and technology.”
