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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My son’s an animator and tech director for a big animation studio, he works on a bunch of Adult Swim content; his GF is an animation Art Director. Her gig is to set the tone and style and look and so on, based on what the director/client is looking for.
In movies, prop directors, set designers, costumers, hair and makeup – they’re all part of a hierarchy where an overall art director and the film’s director approve choices and (hopefully) set a consistent tone, and all those choices often “say something” about characters or the overall sense of time/place and the mood of the story. Things like bright red doors in “the Sixth Sense” were planned little easter eggs, to subtly give you clues about what was really going on (watch for red doors in the flick for and see what’s going on). So all kinds of thought goes into it.
With gigs like Pixar, where the animation isn’t drawn – everything is a 3D model and textures, colors and so on are all designed sort of like the motion-picture hierarchy, but those elements all exist on file servers. So if your gig is to animate scene #253A, all the visual stuff already exists and it’s more about lighting, camera angles, and character motions and facial expressions. And much of the character work is done with motion capture, actors in suits with tracking markers and helmets with facial capture – the director directs those performances, but then that data is translated to the 3D models – so the points of, say, an actor’s smile have to be translated to the geometry of the 3D model, and again, that translation, amplifying or modifying movements, translating a normal human form’s motion points to something like a “Shrek” model – all of that is tested and directed for conformity and the director’s vision for the scene.
Artists can change usually paint in several styles. Certainly each one has their own style that they are best at / like the most, but they know very well how to draw in other styles aswell.
Furthermore, there are sheets with the characters „base model“, so to speak, and descriptions of the character to keep expressions uniform.
For a professional artist, art style is a preference or signature style, not a limitation they can’t break out off.
Having an art style does not mean not being able to draw other art styles. There are some tools to keep style consistent, but for the most part you should expect all artists involved to have practiced the art style the movie has settled on and to be perfectly capable of adhering to it.
Even when they keep things uniform, lots of animators stick in their own unique touches. Ever heard of the Milt Kahl Head Swaggle? You’ll recognize it in dozens of classic Disney films once you recognize what it is
I cannot speak for all studios, but where I worked there was a lot of ‘examples’ of what characters would looks like for the artists to follow.
Then a manager would approve the work along the way to try an unify the look and, finally, the director, director of photography and so on would have the final say.
More often than not there would be changes requested along the way if the art did not match the vision.
I used to work with Disney animators and artists (I was on the product side and also led upgrading the animation workflow from sketches and camera tables to digital within our group). Animators are commercial artists, decent one’s can emulate whatever style you need. If the work didn’t fit in seamlessly with everyone else’s they wouldn’t be in the building. There are a few ways this happens, style books are created and distributed for new properties and for old properties you could go to the library at Imagineering and look at the original style guides going back to the 1930s. There were also sculpted statues (maybe a foot tall) called maquettes all over the place. I’m sure it happened, but I can’t remember having any artists that couldn’t give you what you were looking for. The standards are pretty high.
While animators may have their own style, a huge part of the job is being able to adapt art styles. They also have character model sheets for reference and a lead animator to reign in the discrepancies.
Also, with computer animation, both 3D and 2D, it is easier to stay on model. This is both a blessing and a curse, because depending on the rigging, it can mean less expressive characters and posing (Look at the Simpsons in the 90s vs the Simpsons since 2007 when they began animating digitally).
BUT It’s also worth noting that, with 2D at least, there is often more variation in the character design than you might realize. Here is a good twitter thread on the history of this:
You know. I have been wanting to take on this subject a really long time and I think this person has finally given me the space to do it. So lets school a bitch ~cracks animation history knuckles~ https://t.co/F64Asi7sZS
— Kasey Gifford (kaseygifford.bsky.social) (@Killskerry) March 14, 2022
Think of it like this. Say you’re shooting your own short with your own phone. And in one shot you’re walking normally. And in the next, you’re walking with giant steps and you’re like, “wow, this isn’t consistent and it looks weird.” So you set up some rules about how you walk. And you shoot your shots again. Now everything looks consistent. And you’re not paying attention to how weird the walks are. You’re paying attention to the story.
Same with animation. Your project leads will create some characters that follow some precise rules. They’ll make expression sheets that show how someone should look when they’re happy, sad, confused, etc. They’ll talk about things the characters do when they move. Basically, they’ll set up rules for everyone to follow. And so long as every artist down the line follows the rules, it looks the same. Because the goal isn’t to stand out as an individual like if you were doing your own short, but to collectively pool your talents to make a larger vision come to life.
In a 3D film, they create a 3D model that the animators work off of, so everyone has the same character to start with. In 2D, you have a model sheet or a rig, and you have to use your expertise to stay in the style of the project and keep the look consistent.
And within those rules, you’ll find animators have their own style and touches that make them unique, though it’s very subtle. Another way to look at it: when you walk into Best Buy, you know the employees because they’re wearing a blue shirt. Everyone has their own flare, but what matters to everyone walking in looking for help is seeing someone with a blue shirt. The artists are just wearing the blue shirt of Pixar’s style or Dreamworks’s style.
Also I recently learned that Pixar movies can take up to two years to render even when Disney has access to what can be considered some of the most powerful render farms in the industry. How does this workflow allow them to release multiple movies a year? Curious about the scheduling, does the movie get cut into sections and rendered and edited piece by piece? Or do the animators model and shoot the entire movie and then just send it off to render and begin work on the next one?
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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