6 ms·

A long time ago I saw a rather good behind the scenes of Aladdin. I was quite surprised to see that after writing the script they had stand-in actors do the en

A long time ago I saw a rather good behind the scenes of Aladdin. I was quite surprised to see that after writing the script they had stand-in actors do the entire script, which they then did animatics (storyboards times to the recorded audio) to, after which they edited the story. Only then did final actors record. Then redo animatics and editing before doing final animation. Imagine my surprise watching the documentary on Hayao Miyazaki, where he has a 100 animators working on final animation, while he is still storyboarding, undecided on the ending of the movie and hasn’t even casted the voice actors!

tomphoolery 5y ago
This goes back to the days of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty! One of the pieces of old footage Disney likes to show off is animators sketching the movements of a girl dancing around the room and then merging that into the final product for Sleeping Beauty where she's in the dress and it's spinning around.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hammock 5y ago
>I was quite surprised to see that after writing the script they had stand-in actors do the entire script, which they then did animatics (storyboards times to the recorded audio) to, after which they edited the story. Only then did final actors record. Then redo animatics and editing before doing final animation I have no experience in animation, however that process is not unlike the common process in music production: a song is written, a demo is cut by the songwriter, a "scratch track" is cut by the chosen lead vocalist and an instrument or two, then the arrangement is recorded by the band (to the scratch track), then final vocals are cut to the band's backing track, and often after that tweaks to the accompaniment are still made.
- lc9er 5y ago
  Yup. I've recorded several albums, some in small home studios and others in pro environments. It's always been scratch track -> drums (me) -> guitars/bass (bass almost always direct to console) -> vocals.
ntkachov 5y ago
Its basically like writing code. Aladdin was prototyped, Proof of concept, then put into production. So if anything needed a complete re-write, it wouldn't affect final production. Hayao seems to doing continuous refactoring, so as long as you don't need to edit too many scenes already drawn you can potentially come out with a good final product while giving production as much time as possible.
oDot 5y ago
Japanese anime is dubbed, compared to western animated content which isn't
- felipemnoa 5y ago
  I'm confused, isn't all animated content "dubbed"? It isn't like the animated characters themselves are talking.
  - KerrAvon 5y ago
    I think they mean “western” animation typically records the voices first and then animates to them, where anime records the voices after the animation is complete. But I’m not familiar with either production practice, so this is just a guess.
    - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
      I think this article about the wildly different scripts to the English and Japanese version of Batman Ninja goes a long way towards explaining: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-batman-ninja-in-english-is-so-different-from-t/1100-6458513/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-batman-ninja-in-englis... >"My first exposure to the anime process was working with [Hayao] Miyazaki on Spirited Away," Chu said. "It was just very interesting watching him do the story. Like, he kind of thinks up the story, and then you don't really write it, you start sort of thumb-nailing out like, what key visual moments might be, and then you start storyboarding and then you start animating. > >"And I was like, 'OK, but what are you animated to?' He's like, 'Oh, we just make the mouths move.' And then I was like, 'But is there dialogue?" And he's like, 'No, no. We add the dialogue at the end.' And you're like, 'Oh, that's really weird.' And people always complain about, 'Oh, I'm going to watch the original Japanese version with English sub, not the English dub version,' but the truth is the Japanese version is dubbed as well."
      - kiliancs 5y ago
        > 'Oh, I'm going to watch the original Japanese version with English sub, not the English dub version,' but the truth is the Japanese version is dubbed as well." At least personally, the voice acting seems just so different. My preference is not related to the differences there may be between dubbed or not.
laddershoe 5y ago
Modern Disney filmmaking (Pixar, WDAS) is much closer to the Miyazaki approach you describe than you'd think. It's very, very iterative; each film goes through 5-6 screenings, during which the story structure can and does change dramatically. People are very definitely working on the final product while the story is still being worked out. One pretty common pattern: with 8-9 months left to go until release, the entire third act has to be scrapped and reworked, and often big chunks of the first and second act reworked to match. Voice actors for the main characters are involved throughout, and often come in many times to record new pages of freshly written dialog. If all this seems chaotic, it is. It leads to untold stress as the release date looms closer and closer and the ending still isn't figured out, which compresses the schedule for each department to deliver a finished product. Very very rarely, the release date is allowed to slip (see "The Good Dinosaur" for example) but that's really the nuclear option, as it involves shuffling the release schedule and incurs a ton of cost. This is a big part of why these movies cost so much: compressing the schedule means hiring tons of people and paying them tons of overtime. Source: I worked the better part of a decade at WDAS.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  I have a few friends in the industry and their whole process just seems nuts. They earn good money from overtime but I'd just be so annoyed doing so much throwaway work even though a lot of it just seems like it could be avoided with planning, time management and more honest pricing when it comes to sub contracting.
  - pchristensen 5y ago
    The willingness to throw away work that, no matter how well done, is in service of a less enjoyable movie, is why some movies are great while others are, well, just movies. Producing 90 minutes of animation is a heck of a lot cheaper than producing 90 minutes of animation that hundreds of millions of people will cherish for generations.
    - stevage 5y ago
      Yeah. That amazing scene in terminator 2 with Sarah Connor's actor's twin sister is a great example. Just wasn't necessary to tell the story, movie was better without it.
seanicus 5y ago
I love love love watching animation reference ftg - https://twitter.com/NickTyson/status/1129904441153376256?s=20&t=vYULdCQHIY-fP3vCWxKbFQ https://twitter.com/NickTyson/status/1129904441153376256?s=2...
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  Why even link to the tweet? https://vimeo.com/336117214 https://vimeo.com/336117214
  - dom96 5y ago
    fwiw vimeo requires login to watch that
    - solarmist 5y ago
      I didn't need to login using safari on desktop.
sandworm101 5y ago
It might sound odd, but it is not abnormal for a movie to be rewritten deep into production. Some infamous movies for this include Die Hard and Stripes, the endings for which were not written until after filming had begun. Given the much longer process for animated movies I'm not surprised this happens at Disney too.
- stargrazer 5y ago
  Apocalypse Now was written on the way up the river, based upon the documentary.
karmasimida 5y ago
Go and watch Frozen II BTS docseries, it has the whole thing explained throughly Plot twist: 6 months prior to the final release date, they are still rewriting the biggest reveal of the entire movie ...

tomphoolery 5y ago

This goes back to the days of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty! One of the pieces of old footage Disney likes to show off is animators sketching the movements of a girl dancing around the room and then merging that into the final product for Sleeping Beauty where she's in the dress and it's spinning around.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hammock 5y ago

>I was quite surprised to see that after writing the script they had stand-in actors do the entire script, which they then did animatics (storyboards times to the recorded audio) to, after which they edited the story. Only then did final actors record. Then redo animatics and editing before doing final animation I have no experience in animation, however that process is not unlike the common process in music production: a song is written, a demo is cut by the songwriter, a "scratch track" is cut by the chosen lead vocalist and an instrument or two, then the arrangement is recorded by the band (to the scratch track), then final vocals are cut to the band's backing track, and often after that tweaks to the accompaniment are still made.

lc9er 5y ago
Yup. I've recorded several albums, some in small home studios and others in pro environments. It's always been scratch track -> drums (me) -> guitars/bass (bass almost always direct to console) -> vocals.

ntkachov 5y ago

Its basically like writing code. Aladdin was prototyped, Proof of concept, then put into production. So if anything needed a complete re-write, it wouldn't affect final production. Hayao seems to doing continuous refactoring, so as long as you don't need to edit too many scenes already drawn you can potentially come out with a good final product while giving production as much time as possible.

oDot 5y ago

Japanese anime is dubbed, compared to western animated content which isn't

felipemnoa 5y ago
I'm confused, isn't all animated content "dubbed"? It isn't like the animated characters themselves are talking.
- KerrAvon 5y ago
  I think they mean “western” animation typically records the voices first and then animates to them, where anime records the voices after the animation is complete. But I’m not familiar with either production practice, so this is just a guess.
  - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    I think this article about the wildly different scripts to the English and Japanese version of Batman Ninja goes a long way towards explaining: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-batman-ninja-in-english-is-so-different-from-t/1100-6458513/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-batman-ninja-in-englis... >"My first exposure to the anime process was working with [Hayao] Miyazaki on Spirited Away," Chu said. "It was just very interesting watching him do the story. Like, he kind of thinks up the story, and then you don't really write it, you start sort of thumb-nailing out like, what key visual moments might be, and then you start storyboarding and then you start animating. > >"And I was like, 'OK, but what are you animated to?' He's like, 'Oh, we just make the mouths move.' And then I was like, 'But is there dialogue?" And he's like, 'No, no. We add the dialogue at the end.' And you're like, 'Oh, that's really weird.' And people always complain about, 'Oh, I'm going to watch the original Japanese version with English sub, not the English dub version,' but the truth is the Japanese version is dubbed as well."
    - kiliancs 5y ago
      > 'Oh, I'm going to watch the original Japanese version with English sub, not the English dub version,' but the truth is the Japanese version is dubbed as well." At least personally, the voice acting seems just so different. My preference is not related to the differences there may be between dubbed or not.

laddershoe 5y ago

Modern Disney filmmaking (Pixar, WDAS) is much closer to the Miyazaki approach you describe than you'd think. It's very, very iterative; each film goes through 5-6 screenings, during which the story structure can and does change dramatically. People are very definitely working on the final product while the story is still being worked out. One pretty common pattern: with 8-9 months left to go until release, the entire third act has to be scrapped and reworked, and often big chunks of the first and second act reworked to match. Voice actors for the main characters are involved throughout, and often come in many times to record new pages of freshly written dialog. If all this seems chaotic, it is. It leads to untold stress as the release date looms closer and closer and the ending still isn't figured out, which compresses the schedule for each department to deliver a finished product. Very very rarely, the release date is allowed to slip (see "The Good Dinosaur" for example) but that's really the nuclear option, as it involves shuffling the release schedule and incurs a ton of cost. This is a big part of why these movies cost so much: compressing the schedule means hiring tons of people and paying them tons of overtime. Source: I worked the better part of a decade at WDAS.

barbazoo 5y ago
I have a few friends in the industry and their whole process just seems nuts. They earn good money from overtime but I'd just be so annoyed doing so much throwaway work even though a lot of it just seems like it could be avoided with planning, time management and more honest pricing when it comes to sub contracting.
- pchristensen 5y ago
  The willingness to throw away work that, no matter how well done, is in service of a less enjoyable movie, is why some movies are great while others are, well, just movies. Producing 90 minutes of animation is a heck of a lot cheaper than producing 90 minutes of animation that hundreds of millions of people will cherish for generations.
  - stevage 5y ago
    Yeah. That amazing scene in terminator 2 with Sarah Connor's actor's twin sister is a great example. Just wasn't necessary to tell the story, movie was better without it.

seanicus 5y ago

I love love love watching animation reference ftg - https://twitter.com/NickTyson/status/1129904441153376256?s=20&t=vYULdCQHIY-fP3vCWxKbFQ https://twitter.com/NickTyson/status/1129904441153376256?s=2...

wodenokoto 5y ago
Why even link to the tweet? https://vimeo.com/336117214 https://vimeo.com/336117214
- dom96 5y ago
  fwiw vimeo requires login to watch that
  - solarmist 5y ago
    I didn't need to login using safari on desktop.

sandworm101 5y ago

It might sound odd, but it is not abnormal for a movie to be rewritten deep into production. Some infamous movies for this include Die Hard and Stripes, the endings for which were not written until after filming had begun. Given the much longer process for animated movies I'm not surprised this happens at Disney too.

stargrazer 5y ago
Apocalypse Now was written on the way up the river, based upon the documentary.

karmasimida 5y ago

Go and watch Frozen II BTS docseries, it has the whole thing explained throughly Plot twist: 6 months prior to the final release date, they are still rewriting the biggest reveal of the entire movie ...