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Author

The source of creativity that gave birth to animation

“Author” refers to the original work that will be animated and the author who created the work. However, even if it is the origin of the idea, if the story and plot are significantly changed with intention, it will sometimes be called “original project” on the staff list. In recent years, with the popularity of cross-media animation, content from various media such as comics, games, novels, etc. are being animated as original works. The producer needs to interpret the original work in detail and learn the intention of the work through communication with the original author. The original producer needs to participate in the meeting and confirm whether there will be any discord in the image of the work by checking the animation settings, scripts, storyboards, etc. In order to create a synergistic effect between the original work and the animation, close communication between the original author and the producer is indispensable.

I really like the styles of Japanese animation and American animation, but they are totally different.

In unit 2, my drawing style is more like Japanese animation, but it is not what I originally imagined. I want to find a style between Japanese animation and American animation, which has both Japanese animation(anime) high-quality realistic painting and American animation smooth acting and exaggerated performance. I also want to understand the differences in industry running models between these two styles, and the possibility of combining them together. So I did research on the combination of Japanese and American animation and the differences in working models within the industry.

There are essential differences in the audio-visual language and narrative between Japan’s commercial animation series and American animation.

On March 29, Adult Swim in the United States released a 5-minute short film “Samurai & Shogun” from “Rick and Morty”, which attracted much attention with its unique style.

Different from the previous “Rick and Morty” short films, this “Samurai and the Shogun” is set the times in Japan’s Shogunate time. Rick became a samurai named “Rick WTM72”, and Morty became a young general on the run. To protect Morty, Rick fought fiercely with a group of ninjas.

Adult Swim has found the Japanese animation team Studio DEEN (representative works of “Rurouni Kenshin”, “Showa Genroku Rakugo “, “The Virgin”, etc.) to cooperate. The director/screenwriter is the new director Huaichi Sato who has made a name for himself at overseas film festivals, and the storyboard is handled by the experienced veteran director Hiroshi Watanabe (his representative work “Arrest Warrant”). Even the dubbing was done by the Japanese version of “Rick and Morty”.

Outsourcing project

As early as the 1960s, Japanese animators were already participating in the production of American animation.

In 1966, a TV animated series called “The King Kong Show” was broadcast on American television. This series is adapted from the famous American movie “King Kong”. Each episode is broadcast for 30 minutes. In addition to King Kong-related plots, it includes an additional series called “Tom of T.H.U.M.B.” (Tom of T.H.U.M.B.).

What few people know is that the producer of this American TV animated series is the American Rankin/Bass company. The script was also provided by the United States, but the actual production was all completed by Toei Animation in Japan. Participants included a large number of Japanese original painting masters including the “God of Japanese Animation” Mori Yasuji. This is also the first time that Japan has outsourced 2d animation series from the United States, which has ushered in Japan’s era as a major animation outsourcing country.

With the popularity of television in the 1960s, many people in the animation industry turned to television animation, and some emerging companies also took advantage of opportunities to enter this field.

Record my feelings after listening to the seminar and my further exploring of this topic.

In this seminar, the teacher mentioned the principle of storytelling, which reminded me of this picture I saw before, about the Rick and Morty's storytelling wheel.
It is the sum up how to tell an interesting story."the protagonist is in a zone of comfort>but the protagonist wants sth>enter an unfamiliar siuation>adapt to it>get what he/she wanted>pay a heavy price>return to the familiar siuation>having chaged."
It is not difficult to see that many well-known movies are told in this way, such as Kung Fu Panda, Despicable Me, and Wreck-It Ralph...

The teacher also mentioned the rhythm of the storytelling--story graph. I think there are two main graph in storytelling, one is the story intensity, the other one is the story mood.

Some of my personal feelings after listening to the Clean Up seminar and some further explore.

My personal feelings:

The line is the basic element that exists in the two-dimensional space like the point and the surface. It is also the first element used at the beginning of artistic creation. It runs through the artwork and is the skeleton and the medium to convey emotions. Line elements are used in different artworks, have different expression methods, and also have their own unique particularities and limitations.