When an animation studio like Pixar has multiple dozens of people, all with their own styles, working on a project, how do they keep everything uniform?
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Say you’re a lighting artist. You’re on a team with maybe a half-dozen other lighters, with one team lead and a couple of assistant leads. There are several of these teams that make up the lighting department of an animated movie. You’re given a shot that already has a background in place, along with models that have been animated already (or are in progress). Models and animation can still get updated while lighting is in progress.
The overall look of the sequence has been decided already with some concept art. The basic lighting rig for the shot has already been established by one of your leads. Your job is to set up lights on the character to make it look like A) They’re in the environment, and B) They look as flattering as possible, which sometimes means fudging the light setup a little bit to get it just right. Each shot is reviewed by the lead in a small team meeting where you can see what the other lighters are up to. The lead decides if it’s ready to be sent to dailies. When it’s sent to dailies it’s reviewed by people further up the chain. Each review checks to see that every shot looks like it’s part of the same sequence, with nothing standing out from one to the next. It should look like one person did every shot. If one stands out, it gets sent back to be adjusted.
It’s the same process in every department: animation, dynamic FX, hair/fur, matte painting, compositing, etc. At the top, the directors & concept artists set the overall look & tone for the film. It just trickles down from there, and every level of supervision as you go down just ensures that the tone/look is being maintained. Daily reviews & adjustments are done again and again and again until everything is to the director’s liking.
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