TV Animation Development Work Part01

As I mentioned in a previous post, I occasionally get to do some development work for TV animation projects that are at the pitch stage. This tends to involve coming up with characters, locations and styles for a project that might be at the script phase or earlier. One of the first things that needs to be produced when pitching a show is the pitch bible. This consists of the synopsis and treatment of the show, outlines the info about target audience and format, contains production, direction and art direction notes and introduces the characters. Some bibles will also have story outlines and possibly some sample scripts. The visuals must then sell the project, showing the final look (or as near as possible) of the characters, some locations and overall art style. More often than not a finished still or series of stills must be comped together showing the final look of he show.

So, how do I begin this process? Well, the first thing I do is go through whatever materials are available. Sometimes this will be a rough version of the bible outlining what the series is about or if the TV project is based on an existing IP (intellectual property), I may have access to the original books etc. At this stage its good to have some discussions with the producer/creator and get a feel for what they are looking for. Once all this info has been digested and  i'm familiar with the project, I find its good to produce a list of deliverables for the project and clearly define with the producer what they need from me?

The sample project I'm going to show was based around fish, so my deliverables for this project were 2 coloured Fish characters, a visual design for an interstitial aspect of the show and 2 final production stills of the final look for the episodes.

Reference

Once all this work is out of the way, I can begin with the visuals. My first step is to source as much reference material as possible. Not only am I designing characters but I 'm responsible for defining the art direction for the entire project. I need to source reference that inspires my vision for the project and this process is just as important, if not more so, than sitting down and beginning to draw with no direction or clear intent.

The process of choosing reference materials and building mood boards immediately helps to define the project. These early decisions are narrowing my focus, giving me inspiration for design, colour and feel while allowing me to see the show as a collage of imagery without even putting a pen to paper or screen.

Sample Mood board for an the unnamed Fish show

Sometimes its necessary to show these mood boards to the producer for feedback but more often than not, these will only be seen by me and I will constantly reference them for the duration of the project. These days, I find applications like Evernote a great time saver and resource for accumulating image reference. You can easily source images online and its a simple drag and drop to collect your reference. Pinterest is also a great resource for collecting libraries of images to reference.

I would create a whole series of these mood boards on different aspects of the show such as mood boards just on particular fish consisting of live action photography or mood boards on film posters with aquatic themes to see what graphic design elements were used.

In the next post i'll talk about beginning the character design phase and the wonderful world of design approvals and fixes!