Ask John: Exactly What Do Certain Anime Production Staff Members Do?

Question:
I was looking over the Otakon guest list and found several roles in anime production that puzzled me, including chief animation director, key animator, producer. What I would like to know more about is the role these persons play in making an anime: what they do and how much it affects the show. Do these pepole hold as much weight in production as more defined roles like seiyuu, director, or character designer?

Answer:
A chief animation director literally supervises the animation production for an anime. A director is in charge of overseeing the animation, selecting voice actors and voice recording, selecting a soundtrack, approving the script, editing, and many other aspects of seeing an anime production through to completion and release. Since a director doesn’t have time to carefully, personally supervise every drawing and frame of animation that artists produce, an animation director is appointed to make certain that animation gets finished on schedule and looks the way it should. A series director oversees the entire production from conception through release. The animation director supervises just the physical animation process.

An anime consists of thousands of hand drawn images. It’s too difficult and time consuming for a single animator to draw every frame of movement in an anime, so drawing tasks are divided among many artists. A key animator is responsible for drawing the major frames in a particular sequence, for example, the first frame and the last frame. Regular animators then draw the frames that come in between the “key,” important shots. For example, a veteran key animator may draw a character with his arms at rest, then the same character with arms raised. Novice or lower ranking animators fill in the incremental frames of the arms moving from down to up.

A producer is superficially the person who acquires funding for an anime production, but a producer’s role can be much more involved and influential. A producer is the medium of communication and balance between sponsors and animators. A producer convinces investors to contribute the cost of producing an anime. Then the producer is responsible for making sure that the director keeps the production on schedule and within budget. The producer also mediates compromises between the requests of the investors and the wishes of the director. Producers often don’t get much credit in anime production because they’re not artists and don’t personally work on anime themselves, but their role is vital to ensuring that anime gets made.

For more detailed information on a greater variety of positions in the anime production industry, read animator Jan Scott-Frasier’s article Various Positions in the Anime Industry. Japanese production Studios AIC and Sunrise also host English language introductions to the various roles involved in creating anime.

Sunrise’s “Making of Animation” Part One, Part Two

AIC’s Introduction to Anime Production

Thanks to John C. Watson for the links.