Firdaus Ala Latifa Radifan Cahya Pradana

[XII IA 6/09] [XII IA 6/21]

What is Animated Cartoon?

Animation is the process of creating continuous motion and shape change illusion by means of rapid display of a sequence. Cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing intended for satire, caricature, or humor. In the world of cartoons what we see when we view the finished product is just that, finished. What we don't see are all the things that go into making a cartoon.

Animation Then and Now

There is a lot of Animated Cartoons nowadays, they are basically started by famous animators like Tex Avery, the creator of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes universe, and Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse and the Disney universe. Back then, the classic cartoons were made by drawing on paper one at a time, but now, the process of creating new age animation is using computer by drawing on a one layer at a time, just as tedious as back then, but slightly easier.

Classic Animation

Ongoing New Age Cartoon/Anime

The World of Cartoon

In the world of cartoons what we see when we view the finished product is just that, finished. What we don't see are all the things that go into making a cartoon.

Story Writing
So the first thing to be done is the core of the animation itself; the story. The story is written by a team of writers that of course going to take a lot of ideas and inspirations from their heads. The story concept and plot is written in usually less than 2 pages of paper. It is the same as writing a really short short story.

Storyboarding
The next step is called storyboarding. The storyboard artists draw small drawings of the story so the animators could catch a glimpse of how the story should be animated. A storyboard, is literally a giant sized comic strip. As the story is developed, the artist team adds new drawings to the storyboard. Sometimes the entire story is known beforehand and other times it is developed as they go along. These drawings are pinned into a cork board so it is very easy to make changes as they go along.

Example of Storyboards

Voice Recording
Before the drawing of the characters even begins, the voices of the characters are recorded. The actors that performs the voice over are called Voice Actors or casts, though that there are some animated cartoon characters that used synthesized voice instead. The voices is fed through a sound reader and every syllable is recorded on an exposure sheet. This is required in order to perform the synchronization between the sound and the picture. Each frame of film must be synchronized separately. This is extremely time consuming, and usually every voice actor need to record at least three times to pass quality control. Music and Sound Effects are made in this process too.

Voice Actors

Voice Actors

Drawing
Finally after all this, the hard work begins. Every second of film consists of 24 frames with as many as 24 different drawings which in it consists of multiple layers. That means that an hour animated film can contain as many as 86,400 drawings. Even though that the process is using computer now, the artist still need to hand-draw all of the characters layers with pen tablets. Note that these drawings are all in black and white.

Layers
The drawing is usually drawn in layers. There is a layer for background. And each character has their own transparent layer called cel. Putting cels on top of each other creates a scene or frame.

Animating
After all of the drawings have their quality controlled. All of the drawings are colored, each by hand, from background to character layers. This is the longest process in animation and it usually takes place in animation studios. After all the drawing is colored, the layers are flatten into one frame and played for 24 frames a second.

Example of Animation Studios

Sound Check and Rating

It is the last process of animating. Character voices, music, and sound effect. Timing is crucial in this step because all of the sound needs to be synced perfectly to the image. After all of that, the cartoon is finally rated by the TV company, some scene may be deleted due to ratings, but after it passes, it should be aired within a short period time.

The Result