Animation director

An animation director is either the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated film or television, and animated segment for a live action film or television show, or the animator in charge of correcting layouts and drawings. The difference between the two is largely the difference between the western animation industry, and the eastern animation industry.

Responsibilities[]

Western production pipeline[]

In western animation, such as Disney, the responsibilities of an animation director include directing the storyboards, character designs, background animation, and other technical aspects of a project's animation. Some animated film productions may split the duties between an animation director, who focuses on the creation of the animation, and a director who oversees all other aspects of the film. A supervising animator is commonly in charge of all aspects of the design and artwork for a single major character. The supervising animator oversees a group of animators who complete the entire scenes in which a particular character appears.^[1][2]

Eastern production pipeline[]

In the eastern production pipeline, most notably in the anime industry, the role of an "animation director" is significantly different from its western counterpart in the animation production pipeline. Rather than overseeing all of a project's animation, an animation director (作画監督, sakuga kantoku), known as a sakkan (作監) for short, acts more as a sort of 'drawing director' who corrects key animation drawings and layouts.^[3] These corrections can range from the sakkan literally correcting parts of the animation that are off-model or not up-to-par, to changing some of the drawings into their style, or simply maintaining a level of quality while allowing for free expression from the key animators.^[3] Above an animation director in Japanese productions is the chief animation director (総作画監督, sō sakuga kantoku), shortened to sou sakkan (総作監), whose job is to maintain a level of uniformity across an entire series.^[3]

Although these roles are meant to be encompassed by a small number of animators maintaining high-quality work, the state of the Japanese animation industry has shifted the roles, with sou sakkans appearing in multiples across singular episodes at times, which is largely due to the lack of animators and lack of time or bad scheduling which vastly limit the possibility of only a few sou sakkans appearing across an entire work.^[3]

Although these terms and pipeline originated in Japan, the Chinese animation industry has a similar production system with more-or-less the same roles, such as the chief animation director (总作画监督) and animation director (作画监督).

References[]

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