Don Bluth's Classical Animation
 
Films Contact Us Animation Academy Back to Index page



storyboard
layout
bg
animation
inbetween
clean up
efx
editing
xsheet


Don Bluth's Animation Academy


Editorial


INTRODUCTION: Classical Animation Editing
"Classical Animation" is the term applied to the breed of full, rich animation that Don Bluth Films produces. It is the precision and care in each step of the production that separates our work from most other modern producers of animation. Editorial plays a critical role in helping to create this style. The Editor works with the Director to assemble a soundtrack for the film from which the storysketch artists work. The "soundreader's" frame by frame written log of the dialogue is the Animator's bible in evoking believablitliy and depth when the characters speak. As the production progresses, the Editorial crews remain constantly involved in assembling the sound and picture reels until they evolve into the finished film. From beginning to end, Editorial involves a concentration and accuracy directly reflected in the quality of the final product.
     The Editor records, transfers and assembles the soundtrack of the film, including music, dialogue and special sound effects. (S)he cuts and assembles the film picture to match the soundtrack and is responsible as well for the accurate "reading" of all dialogue, breaking it down to consonants and vowels on a frame by frame basis.
METHOD ANALYSIS - SOUND READING
  1. Report to the Editor for dialogue (dial) to be "sound-read".
  2. Run the soundtrack through the sync.
  3. You will need to run the dialogue through at a fast enough pace in order to listen to it at a speed close to the actual recording speed. This takes a little practice, but soon you'll be able to hear an actor's dialogue clearly and coherently. Run the dialogue through several times until you understand the entire sentence.
  4. You may be asked to break down the dialogue word by word. We call this "word placement". In such a case, you would go through the dialogue and write the dialogue words on the upper line of the "greys" (see below). The word being read is printed on the first line where it starts and an small line is drawn at the bottom where the word ends.
  5. Next, run back to the first word in the sentence and go through, slowly, word by word, deciphering and breaking down the words into their respective vowels, consonants and phonetics. This is called "close-up reading". You will print what you are reading in the "greys".
Continue to read the dialogue until you have read the whole reel. Then, using the aforementioned steps, continue onto the next dialogue reels.
METHOD ANALYSIS - TRANSFERRING DIALOGUE ONTO THE GREY SHEETS
After the actor's dialogue is read, broken down and printed on the soundtrack during the sound reading process, it must then be transferred to a paper log and divided into feet and frames which are called the "greys"
  1. At some point after the dialogue (dial) of a sequence has been read, the Editor will approach you requesting that the dialogue be transferred onto a "set of greys". The greys are a paper representation of the film.
  2. At the top blank space on the grey sheets print the abbreviation SEQ.(sequence) and the sequence number. Also fill out the day's date, the person who sound-read the dialogue, and the type of reading (close-up or word placement).
  3. Estimate how long a sequence is (the Supervising Editor will show you how this estimation is done) and number the grey sheets in the following manner. On the last, or sixteenth frame, of each foot, number the appropriate footage number in the right hand corner. Do this for each consecutive sheet until you have the required footage amount. In time, when you are used to the grey sheet's footage, you will be able to shorten the numbering by only writing the first and last footage of each grey sheet page.
  4. With the numbered pages, return to the editing bench and place the pad to the right of the synchronizer.
  5. Frame one of the gangshould now match up with the corresponding frame on the greys.
  6. Follow the counter on the synchronizer while writing the sound reading information from each frame of mag onto the corresponding frame of the grey sheets. Once the first sixteen frames have been read, the footage counter should read '1' and its onto the next sixteen frames.
  7. Always be attentive to the exact reading on the footage counter. Often, the counter can be misread, resulting in a wrong transfer onto the greys. A wrong footage reading can be aggravating when you consider that the pages and pages of greys are now useless and need to be retransferred.
  8. Along with the transfer of close up reading onto the greys, you should always print the actual word being transferred to the left of the first frame of the word.
  9. Leave enough room on the greys for more than one column of dialogue to be transferred. Many times, two or even three characters will speak at one time.
  10. When you are done transferring all the dialogue in the first reel, have your Supervising Editor check the reel against the greys and, if all is correct, proceed with the next reel of the sequence.