Unit 1: Pre-Production (games & animation)

Unit 1: Pre-Production (games & animation)

In this report, I will be explaining how games and animation industries get ready to make new forms of media.
I will be covering the topics; finance, personnel, contributors, facilities, materials, location, time, and codes of practice and regulation.
Finance:
Once you have the idea for a new game/animated media, you pitch it to a company. This involves having to showcase your plot/idea for the media, and present it to the (depending on the company) executives and producers. For example, Frederator Studios are happy for anyone over 18 to send them a pitch, in the form of a Beatboard, Pitch bible, or Script for your cartoon, while Sony Pictures Animation, since it is such a large company, have set dates when people can pitch their idea. Sony will whittle these pitches down to 10, then play them at a panel full of PlayStation and film industry professionals, and will then pick five ideas to be produced as pilot episodes.
If you’re chosen, and your idea is greenlit, the company will invest money so you can make the game/show, and once the game or show is released, you can (hopefully if the market watch/buy it) return the profit to the company.
Personnel:
When hired, the company will make sure you already have skills and knowledge in the area they are interested in. They will want you to have prior experience, for example, Ian Jones-Quartey started out making comics, then slowly built up experience, working as a storyboard supervisor, art and animation director on Adventure Time for a few years, then going on Steven Universe to be a co-executive producer, supervising director, storyline writer, and storyboard artist, before he could pitch his own show on Cartoon Network, and create the animated series, OK K.O!
Contributors
Sometimes, some studious will go out of their way to hire certain people with specialist skills, for example Sir Patrick Stewart was personally requested to play the voice of the Poop Emoji, in the Emoji Movie due to him being already well known as a talented actor and voice actor. Another example is the game Hiveswap, the Creator Andrew Hussie invited fans to help with the music and animation/art direction for the game.

Facilities, Location & Materials

Once the characters and environments are decided on in the concept art, the staff can start working on storyboards and scripts, this includes quick sketches and written text, which will describe the concept, scene and characters.

To do this, the staff are usually given studios or rooms to accommodate their technology and equipment to create their game/animation. The facility must be large enough for all the team to work in, some companies even have multiple facilities for one project so that staff can easily access it if they live far away, and some companies, for example Cartoon Network has a studio in Korea where they send their concept art and references so that their animations/cartoons can be made quicker and cheaper. (Although I question the morality of these studios).

In animation, the staff need to have the right materials to create their animation. Depending on the animation, some studios need a scanner to upload the 2D drawings online, however nowadays more and more studios are using graphics tablets and pens to draw their animation straight onto the computer.

Time:

This differs between companies, and what type of media they are producing. 

With cartoons on TV, the whole process of having an idea for a new episode, story-boarding, animating, extra effects, voice acting and lip-sync it takes about 9 months for them to produce 1 episode (Futurama)

Animated movies and games, after the initial pitch... 

Announce a release date

Game developers are more open to pushing back the release date, as many bugs can sometimes unexpectedly pop up, and recently it is becoming more common for them to reschedule the release date to fix these issues, even in professional game studios, and well known game franchises aren't afraid to prolong games.

Codes of practice and regulation:

Before signing up you must agree to the companies rules and regulations. All professional companies make you sign a contract, and legally own the right to the media you have created. For example, the cartoonist Amy Winfrey had created a web-series called 'Making Fiends' in 2008. It was picked up by Nickelodeon and Winfrey got to create it into a TV show, however Nickelodeon had only aired two episodes on Nicktoons, then dropped the show. Winfrey can never create any more web episodes, because they hold the rights to it thanks to the contract she signed.