The 2D Animation Pipeline Overview
Who does the animation start for a TV show? How many scripts are written for a single episode? What even is an animation pipeline? These are some questions one might ask wondering how a 2D animation episode is made. In this blog post, I’ll be giving a brief overview of the animation pipeline for a 2D show. The animation pipeline can have a ton of moving parts happening simultaneously. It can be confusing to understand how the pipeline works and every studio has a slightly different pipeline from one another. To make matters a bit more difficult to explain exactly what the animation pipeline is, within each studio, every production functions differently as well. If you work on different shows, you’ll soon find yourself re-learning the pipeline designed for that specific show. What I will be explaining below is a general pipeline that a 2D show roughly follows. This will give you a basic understanding of animation and how a 2D episode is created from inception to completion.
For the visual learners, you can find the video version of, “The 2D Animation Pipeline Overview” below.
1. Writing
The animation pipeline for a 2D episode starts with the writing. The only exception would be if it’s a storyboard-driven show, in which we start with the storyboards. This will be determined by the show’s EP (executive producer). A writing staff can consist of 4-8 writers, a script coordinator who help set up meetings and take notes, and a story editor who’s in charge of the writing team and works closely with the EPs to understand their vision of the show.
Premise
The first step of writing is to create a story premise. A premise is no longer than a page and it summarizes the episode. It’s basically a brief overview of what the episode’s story will be about.
Outline
If the premise gets approved, the writers move on to an outline. An outline (also known as a beat sheet) consists of paragraphs detailing the story beats of the episode. I like to think of an outline as figuring out how many scenes there will be in your episode. Once you know that, we’ll turn each scene into a paragraph detailing what is going to happen in that scene, with whom and where. Having a solid outline will help make writing your first draft a lot easier.
The 4 Scripts
Once the outline is approved, it’s time for the writers to get to work. The writers will end up writing four different drafts of the script.
The writers start with a first draft. A first draft is a rough sketch of what the episode’s script will be. It is written without a lot of editing and is essentially just turning your outline into a script format with dialogue.
The second draft is where the writers edit the script. This can include edits such as changing story structures and correcting spelling.
We move on to the record draft. By here, the script is pretty much done. The voice actors will use the record draft to record dialogue and be sent to the board artist to start boarding.
Our last script is the shipping draft. This is the final draft of the script. The shipping draft will be sent to the overseas studio and the voice actors and board artists for any updated material.
A lot can be cut or added between the second draft and record draft, but once production gets a copy of the record draft, production flags potential new characters, backgrounds, or props to get ahead start on concept ideas if needed. This is called “breaking down an episode.”
If writing sounds interesting to you, I’d recommend reading the book “How to Write for Animation” by Jeffery Scott. There’s a ton of great information in there with example scripts and valuable information about the business of writing. I was able to get a used copy on Amazon.
2. Record
Once we have the record draft of the script, we move on to the record portion. Usually, the EP, story editor and script coordinator attend the recording to give the voice actors direction. This is one of my favorite parts of the pipeline. It’s amazing to see the voice actors work their magic. I attended a few recordings at Nickelodeon and Dreamworks, with the first being during my internship at Nickelodeon. They allow interns to sit in a live recording at least once during their internship. I’ve been lucky enough to have seen the greats like Rob Paulson, Seth Green, Eric Bauza, and I even provided some walla (or background filler noise) for the movie Penguins of Madagascar.
3. Boarding
Technically, we’re still not quite done with recording at this point. So while the voice actors are still working their magic with the record draft script, we also start storyboarding with the record draft script. A storyboard is the visual representation of the script. It includes a ton of panels with drawings that will bring the script to life. The boarding is helpful to see how the scene will look, regarding where the characters are staged and camera movements. Usually, one storyboard artist will handle an episode, but there can be multiple depending on the show. In addition to the storyboard artist, there is a storyboard revisionist that helps a board artist fill in the gaps between scenes.
4. Animatics
Once the boards are finished and we have most of the recordings from the voice actors, we then move onto the animatics. This is where the editor collects the storyboards panels and recordings of the voice actors and puts it all together using an editing program, like Adobe Premiere or Avid. Final Cut Pro is less common in the animation industry now. The editor will add music and SFX (sound FX) to the boards. Most importantly, the editor will sit with the director to figure out the timing of the episode. Timing is very important in animation.
The animatics will usually go through four iterations. Similar to the script, we have
First Animatic
Second Animatic
Lock Animatic: Locks in the time duration for the episode. We also send this to the EIC (executive in charge) for any notes they may have.
Shipping Animatic: What production ships to the overseas studio so they can start animation.
5. Black & White Designs
Once we have the lock animatic, we can start handing out BW (black & white) designs. We start with the backgrounds first since they are usually the biggest and take the longest to complete. These are done by the BG (background) designs. There’s usually around four or five BG BW designers on a show.
After BG, we handout designs for new characters or special poses. Special poses are those wacky faces you see from a character. This helps the overseas studio design the character’s special pose to how the EP would like it to be. These designs are done by the character designers. There’s around 4 character designers on a show.
Finally, we handout designs for props and FX. These can be anything from a treasure map to a lighting strike. The prop designers will handle these and there’s usually about two prop/FX designers per series.
6. Color Design
After all the BW designs are approved, we move on to color design. Similar to BW design, we again start with the BG color designs first as this will take the most time. The color stylist will handle the rest of the designs including character, special poses, props, and FX. There’s usually around two color BG designers and two color stylist on a show.
7. Shipment
Shipments are being sent to the overseas studio after a completion of a caterogy. For example, once the designers finished all of BW designs and it has been reviewed and approved by the EP, production will send a shipment to the overseas studio. The same goes for all color designs.
After we get the shipping animatic from the editors, we’ll start packing our last shipment for the episode. The last shipment includes the shipping script, the shipping animatic, director notes, TOD (time of day) notes, and any lose designs. We’ll also send them a “callout” sheet, which details each and every assets or designs that we sent them. This helps make sure that they recieved all of the materials successfully.
Fun shipping fact: Back in the day, studios would send physical shipments to the overseas studio. Today, it’s all done digitally.
8. Animation
After we send the overseas studio our last shipment, the animation begins. Today, most of the animation is done overseas and not in-house. We give them everything that they need to animate the episode. However, throughout the animation process, qutestions and clarifications are bound to arise. The overseas studio will send production any clarification questions to us so our EP and director can answer them. They can also send a request for a specific design that they may have trouble with. During this process, we are there to answer any questions they have and provide any material they may need to produce the animation.
9. Post Production
Once all the animation has been reviewed and approved by the EP, we then move to post production. During post-production we color correct, add the music, finalize SFX, and address any retakes in-house. We also address any ADR (additional diagloue recording), which is the process of re-recording the audio from the voice actors to get a better take or record an updated line from an updated script. A lot happens during this stage that deserves a seperate blog post.
10. Delivery to Network
After post-production is squared away and the EP approves of everything, the last step of the pipeline is to send the finished episode to network. The network will decide when the episode will are. All that is left to do is to enjoy the episode when it becomes available.
From start to finish, a 2D episode will take about a year to complete and air on TV.
If you’re a college student looking to land an animation internship, check out my book, “How to Get an Animation Internship” where I provide the resumes and cover letters that helped me land three major studio internships in one year! Also, you can now watch my cartoon short with Nickelodeon, The Outsiders on YouTube!