This is the second time this year that I have completed an anime film. I am not accustomed to producing two films in the same year, due to the time and effort it takes, but since the audience loved the police animation, and it received more interaction than any other work, I was encouraged and decided to complete a work. It is new, and here it is in front of you now, and I will take you on a tour in which I will tell you how I completed it, as usual,
The idea
This animation is a “remake” or a reproduction of an animation I previously made in 2019, and this time I decided to reproduce the anime, but in a better way, since I have improved over these years, and learned many things about drawing and animation. I do not say that it is professional work like studios. But it is much better than the old version.
Watch the video of the old version of the anime from Here
The story included new details, in addition to changing what was present in the old anime
The sketch
For me, drawing a draft of all anime shots has become a necessity, and I can never do without it, as this helps me a lot in arranging the shots and numbering each shot, after I put it in a table, in which I specify the number, and a description of the direction and the characters’ dialogue.
As you can see here, the shot number is marked in red, the sketch number is also the same number, and the background and dubbing numbers also have the same number, and this coordination greatly facilitated my work, and helped me arrange my affairs.
This picture above is of the character file of the story’s hero, which I sent to the dubber, and since we are dubbing before animating, I sent him the story board, with an explanation of the shot, and I defined his character’s dialogue in yellow, and I defined impressions such as happiness, anger, and others in color. Red, and this helped the dubbers, especially since they did not watch the video ready, and this table helped them to imagine the viewers during dubbing.
Scheduling your story is very practical and will make things easier for you
Backgrounds
For the first time in my life, I used artificial intelligence to design my own animation backgrounds. I have always found it very difficult to draw landscape backgrounds, so this time I was lucky to try it in order to design distinctive backgrounds.
First, I would quickly draw the background in a drawing program, then add it to the artificial intelligence sites available on the Internet, and then several options would appear for me, from which I would choose the one closest to my drawing.
Someone might say that this is not official or that it is not fair to use a machine in our work, and in this regard may say that as long as websites and programs save us time, why not? I mean, I don't see the need to spend weeks or months drawing backgrounds accurately, when intelligence can do that in seconds.
The second reason is that I did not bring a ready-made background from the Internet and put it in the anime, but rather I added my touch and drew the image before improving it, and here it can be said that I actually drew, but with the help of the machine, and this is not wrong in my opinion, and let us not forget that I used it for scenes. Only natural ones, while the backgrounds of the palace and castle were completely designed by me
Using a ready-made background from Google will show the difference between your drawing and the background, and it will not look realistic at all
Draw quickly and with few details, and artificial intelligence will improve it greatly
Animation Toon Boom
In this work, the entire animation was “cut out,” meaning by cutting, which means that I drew each part of the character in a separate layer, in order to animate it later with the animation bones, and I also designed the prince and drew him from all sides, as well as the rest of the characters, in order to I don't have to draw again, but rather draw it once, and save it in the program, in order to use the characters required for the scene.
As you can see at the top, this is the prince’s friend, and on the right you see him and he is in the library. I added him to the scene, put the background and the voice of the voice over, and started moving him directly. I did not need to draw him from the beginning, and this saved me a lot of time. Time passed, and I started to finish animating many shots in one day.
Draw the characters from at least three positions, such as the front, side, and back, if you do not want to draw them from all sides.
Before And After
These are pictures that I wanted to share with you, where I show you the pre-animation stage “on the right”, in which you see the sketch drawing, and how I drew the characters with few details, numbered them, and marked in red the name of the person standing in the middle, and you see them placed in a table, as I mentioned earlier, with the same sketch number, and on the left is the character’s dialogue, which the dubbed will perform.
As for the left, you see the final result of drawing inking and coloring, and then moving the desired person according to the scenario, with the background that appears in the scene. In the montage stage, I added the voice of the dubbers and sound effects, and this is how the scene will be complete with us.
Here you can see the “Prince” dialogue. I did this so that the dubbing artist would be able to recognize his sentence, from among the texts in the file, and in red are the impressions required here, whether it was in a tone of fear or joy...
Sometimes during the animation phase, I do not adhere to what I wrote in the story board. If necessary, I just change what I want.
Dubbing
In this animation, I took a new step, which was dubbing before animating, something I had never done in any film before. I would animate and finish all the scenes, and then send them to the dubbers, but the difficulty was for the animator and the dubber. It was matching Lips, or what is known as "lipsing", which is for the dubber to speak when the character begins to speak, and to stop at the same time. Here was the problem with me, as sometimes the phrase is longer or shorter than the movement of the character's lips, and therefore the dubber may have to delete some Words, and sometimes in some scenes the lipping is not compatible with the movement of speech.
Therefore, I found a solution that will make things easier for both parties, which is to send the story board, where he will see the character drawn with few details, and next to it is a description of the scene, and the dialogue highlighted in yellow, for the appropriate dubber. It is true that he will dub without watching the video in front of his eyes, but I, as an animator, will Later, I can match the lip movement myself, where I draw the hero, for example, speaking as the dubber speaks, and when the dubber finishes speaking, I draw the hero’s mouth closed, and thus the lipping will be perfectly correct.
Most of the dubbers were truly creative, and they understood that they would be recording without video. It is true that some found it new, but they were able to perform as if they were watching an anime in motion.
Do you know why we may not be familiar with dubbing from an image without the video?
Because we are accustomed to taking Japanese anime and American cartoons and dubbing them while watching the video, and this is what we have known for years.
The other reason is that we do not have an animation industry, as most of what is dubbed into Arabic is foreign-made.
Abroad, the dubbing process usually takes place before animation, and they are accustomed to dubbing before animation, in order to match the movement of the lips, which is always precise.
ماذا تفضّلون بالنّسبة لأعّمالنا؟
0%التّحريك قبل الدّبلجة
0%الدّبلجة قبل التّحريك
ُEdite
The video editing stage was more difficult than I expected. All I thought I would do was collect the scenes and add the sounds and we were done. But no, it was not easy at all, as the number of shots was many, and more than I had worked on previously, in addition to the research. Adding sound effects took effort and time.
During the montage stage, I added some animated backgrounds to the scene, such as moving clouds or a river, and the thing that made it easier for the “producer” was that I had added dubbing for each character during the animation stage, so I did not need to add it to every shot in the montage stage.
Software
Word: A program for writing and scheduling texts
Toon Boom Harmony: To move the characters
After Effects: Animating elements “Water, Fire, Clouds...”, visual effects, and animated backgrounds
Clip studio : drawing sketches and backgrounds
Audacity: audio engineering
Filmora: Editing
