Once the proposal has been finalized, a draft script of the plot of the series is written up by the series organizer. While the script is being written, meetings are held with directors, scenario writers, and producers to help polish up the script and to ensure that the scenario fits within everyone’s vision of where they want the series to go. These meetings occur roughly 3 to 4 times before a final draft is agreed upon. When the overall series plot is finalized, the series organizer then tasks the scenario writers, which often includes themselves, with writing scripts for each episode.

With the storyboards completed, production and animation meetings are held to ensure that nothing has been forgotten and to divide up the main tasks at hand amongst the staff. These meetings are run by the series director, who then assigns the episode director, animation supervisor, and art director. He also assigns tasks to the assistant directors.

During these meetings, the animation supervisor and main artwork staff (chief animator, art director, and key animators) use the storyboards to check the overall feel of the series, including the positions of the characters, angles, light direction, and shadows, etc. Scenes are also divided up amongst the key animators and layouts of these scenes are decided upon. The chief designer will also create “design packs” of the various characters and items, distributing them to all of the animators during the meeting.

In this image we can see that the girl on the left has been given a necklace, some of her hair has been extended over her chest, and her breast has been corrected. The girl on the right has had corrections made to the way her hair sits, the angle of her right arm, her legs have been tucked in, and the tilt of her upper body and head have been changed.

Once the revisions are finished, it’s checked first by the animation supervisor and then by the chief animator. Once the revised layout has passed inspection, it’s time to start work on the key art.

The key art, like the layout, is again checked by the chief animator and animation supervisor. It should be noted that although the talent of the finishing touches artist is important to the overall quality of the final image, it is really the key artist who either makes or breaks the scene. Beyond this point, the animation supervisor has no other roles, as he is merely in charge of key animation. After this stage, the chief animator is in charge of checking and overseeing the remainder of the animation process.

Once the animation art is complete, a replica of the image is painted onto a clear celluloid sheet (like the stuff you use on overhead projectors at school) by a finishing touches artist. First the black outlining is etched, and once it dries the color paint is applied to the back of the cel, basically just filling inside the lines like you would in a coloring book. At the same time, special effects are created to finish off each scene with additional detail.

While the animation art is being completed, scene backgrounds are painted by artists who specialize in a style more reminiscent of traditional canvas painting (which is essentially what they’re doing, except on paper instead of a canvas). Unlike cels, painting backgrounds is usually a very long and difficult process, due to the artistic qualities of each background. Therefore it’s not uncommon to re-use the backgrounds throughout the animation, or even in future episodes. The background art is overseen by the chief designer and art director.

A more common problem is “jitter”. If one frame happens to be photographed too high up in contrast to the last frame photographed, the end result will be that the frame appears to jump as the animation is running. Although traditional cel animation generally has a much richer and deeper look than digital animation, its one true downfall is occasional poor photography, which results in shaking animation.

(In case you’re wondering, the orange box represents the original master, while the yellow box represents the new telecine master used for the DVD release).

To the direct left of the images you may notice a lighter colored strip along the film. This is actually the soundtrack, which just plays along with the animation in the same fashion as a cassette tape would play music. The soundtrack can be muted on the film, and an original master of the soundtrack is kept on separate cassettes.

When it comes to television broadcasts, there is a set format; opening, program, commercial (eyecatch), program, ending, and next episode preview. The episode must be cut to match the set broadcast times (counted in seconds), and even a 1 second lag is unforgivable, so it is necessary to follow this format to the letter.

In addition to the voices of speaking characters, other voices, such as people in the street and background chatter, are recorded. Sound effects and new background music are also recorded at this stage.

Often, it is the images that are most emphasized in animation, but with the addition of sound it becomes possible to express things which images alone cannot represent. Sound effects can make things sound more powerful, music can bring life to a scene, and the voices give characters personality, making the role of sound vitally important.

Since the 16mm footage goes into protected storage, the master copy essentially serves as the “first generation” copy, with all additional copies made based on this new cassette. Although many DVD releases, like the Dragon Boxes, are now going all the way back to the original 16mm film for their primary source.

A typical 36-inch “tube” TV will likely cut out 5% of the image, while a larger projection TV might only cut out 3%. However, thanks to digital TVs and particularly computers, we can now easily see 100% of the image by simply adjusting the size or position of the screen. The lower image is a screen shot from the finalized episode showcasing 100% of the frame.