Best wishes for animation production

With the blessing of sugar water, the efficiency of YUKI studio has reached a higher level.

Anyway, just listen carefully...

In short, "Little Witch Academia: Magic Parade" is only one step away from the V series. The distributor has been decided, but the specific release time has not yet been decided. The relevant publicity and distribution will also need to be discussed with Mr. Osawa from the figure manufacturer Small, another investor in the animation. The audience will have to wait for a while to see it.

However, "Little Witch Academia: Magic Parade" can be completed within the construction period, and other things are just trivial matters. After Gu Xue has been tracking it for a while, the focus has completely shifted.

During the month of writing the script for "Embracing a Better Tomorrow", Gu Xue went to the CDD Animation Workshop to attend many meetings.

For example, preliminary meetings to determine the overall direction of the work, art setting, character setting related meetings, etc.

However, this is a manga adaptation, and it is much better to confirm these things than when Gu Xue started working on "Little Witch Academia" from scratch. Because there is a reference, it is not difficult to determine the overall direction of the work. The original work is there, no matter how you do it, it is impossible to make it into the retarded style of "Blessings for a Better World"...

As for the relevant settings, the manga drawn by the manga author, Shirakawa Rina, is equivalent to the original project. The creative staff only need to change the relevant settings in the manga to suit animation production and animation performance based on the actual situation.

The same goes for character design.

Gu Xue took over the character design of the animation, and the changes were not very big. Apart from the usual reduction of lines, the characters were made less beautiful.

Anyway, the original author is not here. If Gu Xue thinks this is appropriate, then it is appropriate.

The end of the month.

Gu Xue came to the CDD Animation Workshop again and participated in the script meeting. The script that is now completed is mainly the first two episodes of the series that Ye Huo is responsible for. Gu Xue took a look at it and found that there are some problems, but it will be fine with a slight change, and the impact will not be very big.

The next step is to post the storyboard.

Gu Xue needs to make it clear to the person who draws the storyboard what kind of image she wants to convey. In short, she needs to state her creative intention.

However, Gu Xue needs to be responsible for the storyboarding of the first episode, and she also plans to perform in the first episode. So she thought about it for a while and put aside the issue of storyboarding for the time being. Taking the completed script, she ran to the spot reserved for herself in the CDD Animation Workshop, planning to draw the storyboards for the first episode first.

Although general supervisors do not participate in too specific production work, it is common for them to be responsible for the storyboarding and performance of key episodes, such as the first episode, the last episode, the climax or turning point in the middle, and so on.

This can serve as a good demonstration and can also establish the overall style of the work from the beginning, or the supervision style.

At this point, Gu Xue is certainly not immune.

She plans to be responsible for the storyboarding and acting of the first, sixth, and final episodes, if nothing else happens.

But if nothing unexpected happens, to put it nicely...how is that possible?

Gu Xue drew the storyboard and encountered a problem on the first shot.

on the table.

The completed script was opened by Gu Xue, and it was clearly written on it.

"Seaport City."

"Under the setting sun, the male protagonist ran to the hillside and stood there, bathing in the afterglow of the setting sun, looking into the distance with a smile..."

Just two sentences.

The scene where the male protagonist is, the relationship between time and space, and his demeanor have been explained.

It seems like just following the painting will be fine.

But the actual situation cannot be like this.

There is no specific lens language involved in the script.

For example, the above two sentences explain the time and space relationship between the main characters and the scene, but what angle is used specifically, close-up or telephoto lens, how the protagonist runs, and the smile shown after standing still is specifically on the screen. What does it look like?

These are not written out, and determining these is the work of storyboarding.

Originally this was a comic adaptation, so it would be easier to draw storyboards, because when cartoonists draw comics, the storyboards they use can theoretically be copied or copied with slight modifications.

But Gu Xue... maybe because of pride, she didn't do this.

After reading the script several times, Gu Xue picked up the pencil and started drawing the first scene after more than ten minutes.

First, the camera initially focuses on the protagonist's swinging legs, then it zooms out to a telephoto lens that includes the hillside and the running protagonist, and then it moves to a telephoto lens where the protagonist stands still, holding his knees and panting. Next, there is a close-up of the protagonist. He looks ahead (the camera), his face bathed in the afterglow of the sunset, showing a confident and happy smile, raising his hands, shouting hard into the distance, venting his happy mood...

All beginnings are hard.

Things got much better after the opening, and Gu Xue drew the shot smoothly.

After outlining the last scene, Gu Xue added notes next to it, explaining the mood of the protagonist when he shouted, and especially emphasized the point of confidence.

Then, Gu Xue dropped the pencil, picked up the stopwatch on the table, looked at the first shot, and pressed start.

After waiting seriously for a few seconds, she pressed the pause button on the stopwatch, turned over the stopwatch and looked at the time.

More than three seconds.

Gu Xue thought about it for a while, started over, pressed start again, looked at the storyboard and imagined for a while, and pressed the pause button again.

After confirming that the final time was not much different, she picked up a pencil, filled in the time, and filled in the number of card 1 in the first column of the storyboard.

This is the process of storyboarding.

Unlike the original painting, which can be drawn without stopping, Gu Xue must determine the time of each shot. The length of an animation episode is fixed. In the storyboarding step, the time must be roughly determined.

To determine the time, you can only rely on your imagination.

Rely on the human brain to imagine how many seconds it will take to complete the action in the storyboard to determine the time of one card.

After all the storyboards are drawn, you can roughly determine the time of an animation episode by adding up the time of all the shots, and then delete or add shots based on this.

In addition to the shot time, what needs to be determined is the length of time the character speaks lines, the BGM style to be used in different shots, various requirements, etc.

Although the storyboards can be very sloppy and many details can be ignored, it is really not an easy task to draw.

After Gu Xue drew a few shots, she was a little worried about whether she could finish it on time.

But as she continued painting, she gradually felt relieved.

The speed is quite fast.

Although calculating time and writing notes are troublesome and time-consuming, Gu Xue can draw very quickly.

Ever since he finished drawing the first scene, Gu Xue felt as if he had opened up the two channels of Ren and Du, with a steady stream of inspiration and basically no pause.

The only trouble was the BGM. Gu Xue had no idea what music to use at certain critical moments.

I don’t even know the general style.

When she was working on "Little Witch Academia" before, she knew exactly what she wanted, but this time it was different...

What style of music do you want...

What kind of music style do you imagine when you read comics...

Gu Xue frowned, put down the pencil temporarily, picked up the script, and turned to the last page.

The series of shots at the end of the first episode are the most important to Gu Xue. She wants to create a 'feeling of adventure' and a 'battle is about to begin'. The pictures alone will definitely be a bit weak, but the matching music and the The picture effect will be better.

Suitable BGM.

Gu Xue looked at the description on the script and thought hard for a while.

Adventure, dungeons, evil dragons, the battle is about to begin...

etc.

Gu Xue flipped the script forward, glanced at it, and suddenly thought of a BGM.

...The progressive BGM seems to be a good choice.