Here's something that may interest you guys.
A French article about the production of DB Super. Here's the info I got from the article via google translate. I've interpreted a some of the information in the article a bit differently only because the translation wasn't the best. The stuff in bold is info I consider very enlightening:
- There are
7 animation teams working on Dragon Ball Super. In comparison, Studio Pierrot has 11 animation teams working on Naruto.
- Naoki Tate's role in the episode 5 Super Dragon Ball was
not to animate or draw scenes but to correct the drawings of other animators.
- Tôei Animation studio is known for having very few animators to work on an episode. In the 80s and 90s, they employed 4 or 5 more rarely. Usually these days,
they do not exceed 10 animators unlike other studios.
- Episode 3 of Super Dragon Ball was
animated by a single person, as was Episode 24 of Go! Princess Precure. In comparison, Episode 27 Go! Precure Princess had only three key animators. Which is still not a lot.
- Episode 5 of Super had
over 18 key animators. With this many key animators, this means
there was clearly a very tight schedule and the budget was a non factor. There was good animators in this episode, though. Examples include the Kamehameha that was launched by Goku Super Saiyan 3 which was drawn by Ken Ôtsuka.
- Because of lack of time and tight schedule, Naoki Tate had to make a choice of whether
he should give priority to second half of the episode where there is more action, specifically where Goku was a Super Saiyan 3, and then abandon plans where Goku was in different scenes and not in action. The second half of the episode had almost no reproach unlike the first half. Naoki Tate had done just that 3/4 of his job for that episode, and he ultimate chose the easy way out,
and provided more animators to scenes where there is less action to correct the most possible scenes.
- The animation in the strict sense, where the images were moving, was not so bad. What was ugly, however, was the lack of uniformity during the fighting scenes and in the background.
- It is also important to note, that the animation director must wait until the animators finish the drawing, as
the animation director is the person who works last.
- The pace of production has changed since the day that Toei animation painted cels,
as with the arrival of colorization using computers, delays in the process of animation were reduced.
- Many people like the anime producers, directors or designers and production assistants are paid during the manufacturing process, planning is very punctuated to limit the overall cost of production. However,
the majority of employees in the animation are freelance, as he cost to internalize facilitators and animators would be too unbearable. The only studio that could afford to do such a thing is Studio Ghibli. But the problem is not the fact that the studios are stingy.
Japanese animation studios are small companies which still struggling with the budget allocated by customers. They do not have rights. In general, they do not make big profits and are not in a position to invest their own profits in an original license.
-
Japanese animation in budgets are extremely low. In the 60s, to be successful producing weekly episodes was seen a crazy idea but a necessary one. Osamu Tezuka asked the animators to make many sacrifices: work very hard to pay a pittance.
The standard period is always the same 50 years later.
- On a series of television production,
a animator is usually paid around ¥5,000 to animate a cut (from the layout to the animated key).
- The people responsible for in-between animation are paid around
¥250 per drawing. To live survive by this standard wage,
the animation leaders must work fast and can not afford to work exclusively on a single animated cut. Many animators are therefore freelancers working for several studios simultaneously.
- The problem is still the same today,
as Japan's animation industry produces too many projects at a rate of an indecent speed. There are not enough talented and experienced animators to oversee production and train new young animators.
The studios have no alternative but to work with animators from a low level, sometimes even amateurs who do it as a hobby. They also have no choice but to outsource certain functions in other countries, not only to contain costs but also to deliver the episode in time. In this industry, everybody is all the time is extremely busy, but also especially talented. But even the most mediocre animators, however, are solicited to regular intervals.
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It is fairly common that nobody starts work on an episode until the very last moment because they are already struggling on their deadline on another production. In this situation, it is quite common to hear about "miracle" when an episode airing in time.
Sometimes the animation for an episode can begin only two weeks before the broadcast and the episode is finalized a mere few hours before before it has to air TV. The quality may be rotten, but what counts most is to have something on the screen.