 Remember
this figure from the opening animation at the November 2000 Aka-Kon in
Vancouver, B.C.? The Aka-Chan character was created by Aka Animation of
Vancouver, the company that also backed the convention. This page was able
to show the character and the costumer, but this is the first look at the
drawings that made up the short film. The drawing and other examples of
what goes into making a short film were brought to Ohayocon for fans to
enjoy. |
 Bringing
the artwork was Amanda Tomasch, who runs the Aka studio and the convention.
She gave fans a primer of standard animation technique, covering the walls
of a meeting room with examples of the shorthand that animators use to
create a film. Animation is like baseball or football in the number of
inside phrases used to describe character movement and changes inside a
frame of film, from head bobs to pans and fades. People who get into the
business need to know this language, and Tomasch said the best place to
learn is in Vancouver, home to one of the top animation schools in North
America. |
 Animation
lent this technique to live-action films: the storyboard, the layout of
frames that shows what movement will happen in each shot of an animated
film. It's simple, but it's important to getting the finished product right
- and, according to Tomasch, it's lucrative work. Artists can made up to
$60,000 for a finished storyboard, and that's the kind of skill that can
be useful in all aspects of filmmaking. |
 Storyboarding
is also one of the few places where artists can be certain to make a decent
living from the animation industry, Tomasch warned. Jobs are few, budgets
tend to be tight and jobs last no more than a few months on TV shows and
major projects. Many animators end up doing "cleanup" work on jobs farmed
out by larger studios, making small wages as they wait for big chances
to arrive. And those big chances likely will be on shows that are not run
under union protection, she cautioned. |
