How does a large animation studio like Pixar maintain consistency when dozens of people with varying artistic tastes are working on a single project?
In: 1426
Basically any creative endeavour with multiple people working on it needs to have a single person in charge of the artistic direction of the project.
That person is referred to as a director. In animation, the director is the one who supervises the entire process – concept sketches for how the characters look, storyboards for how major scenes will look, and also things like what the voice actors sound like and what the music sounds like.
That’s what art directors are for. They direct the artists on maintaining a specific artistic style. Of course in the case of hand drawn animation there was some variance between frames and scenes, either due to different artists working on different scenes or even from the same artists. This usually could be seen as lines and shapes “flickering” a bit as lines were not drawn in the exact same way.
CG movies like the ones made by Pixar however have a relatively easier job in maintaining consistency since the models they use are digital so all the animators do is move them between each frame. Certain scenes or facial expressions may be drawn by hand but those drawings are only used for reference for how the model will be animated.
I think you’re confusing “taste” or even personal style with skill. The illustrators/animators doing the work have the skill level to consistently reproduce the style of the project, regardless of what or how they like to create on their own.
That’s the job.
They create guides for characters that all the other artists need to reference and follow when assigned to doing any animation. They usually have the characters in different positions, angles, perspectives, outfits, etc. There are also usually levels of review and editing by people who control the design before it’s signed off as production ready.
Everyone is also professionally and extensively trained in their role. They’ll be capable of following the guides/directions if they are going to remain employed.
Depends on the workflow. If it is 3D animation there usually a group of persons working on the 3D Models, one group for rigging the models (basically turn them into a digital controllable puppet) and another team that uses these puppets to animate the sequence.
As for 2D Animations most Studios create a sort of master sheet where you can see all character parts from every necessary angle. These can then be copied together sort of like digital Lego.