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Who are they?

The Line is a BAFTA-nominated animation studio based in London, with a portfolio that boasts a wide variety of animation styles, primarily focusing on 2D animation. They started as a team of 6 animators working freelance, before growing into a fully functioning studio with clients and collaborations that range from Blizzard to Riot Games, and Chobani to Gorillaz. Their style is incredibly versatile, and they deliver consistent work of very high production quality, clearly reaching their goal of elevating everything they touch (The Line, 2024).

Exploring their work

They have an impressive portfolio that heavily favours 2D frame-by-frame animation, which is something I rarely see in studios these days. With 3D animation becoming more and more accessible and efficient, 2D frame-by-frame techniques have begun to take a backseat to its more efficient counterpart; vector-based 2D puppet animation. The Line still keeps strong with their commitment to traditional digital 2D techniques, and this is what drew my eye to their work in the first place.

Their project for Chobani caught my attention way before I knew anything about the studio, but it was a more recent project for a Marvel game that prompted me to track down the studio. The music video transitions through multiple nostalgic comic book styles, with a narrative that is easy for those who aren’t fans to relate to, yet ties in well to the characters in the Marvel universe that feature in it.

From these stills, you can get an idea of how vibrantly different the visual styles are and the techniques that have been used. Image 2 is clearly inspired by early X-Men TV shows of the early 90s, while Image 3 features a risograph print style that is reminiscent of early halftone-printed comics. This scene was animated in 2D, and then each frame was printed and scanned to ensure an authentic effect. This kind of experimentation shows a deeper understanding and value for the material of the brief; they know their client’s story and know how to present it best.

This project, among other incredible productions in their reel, really warmed me up to the option of commercial work. Personally, I would prefer to attach myself to a studio that focuses on stories for film or TV, however, this type of work has its own attractive qualities. The wide array of styles and subject matter is appealing to me as I believe it will keep my attention, and also push me to be more versatile in my style and creative approach. While work for clients is generally thought to be more stifling and has its restraints, seeing what The Line can do with these parameters is greatly inspiring.

Behind every memorable animated character lies the intricate work of a lead animator, a creative who does far more than simply draw moving pictures. These artistic directors are responsible for establishing the visual language, emotional depth, and physical performance of entire animated worlds. It is the role almost every animator covets, and I too fall into this category.

Star Animators

A lead animator is essentially a conductor of performance. They don’t just animate individual scenes, but define the entire movement vocabulary of characters. Glen Keane, a legendary Disney animator who brought characters like Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beast in Beauty and the Beast (1991) to life, is a great example of success in this role. Keane didn’t just draw these characters; he breathed psychological complexity into their every movement, making them feel genuinely alive.

His work earned him praise for the force and weight he brought to the grizzly, as well as the visceral feel of the scene.

(Walt Disney Archives, n.d.)

This excerpt from the Disney Legends dedication to Keane describes how he brought the antagonist in The Fox and the Hound (1981) to life with such intensity and attention to the demands of the narrative.

The magic of lead animation becomes most apparent in moments of subtle expression. Andreas Deja, another Disney master, similarly transformed characters like Scar in The Lion King (1994) into unforgettable personalities through careful attention to movement and acting. His work goes beyond technical skill – it’s about understanding character psychology and translating inner emotions through physical performance.

At least the personality seems to be coming through.
Scar was evil, but also intelligent. And that’s a dangerous combination.
And he sure enjoyed being bad.

(Deja, 2011)

The role of a lead

The lead animator’s role is incredibly complex and multifaceted. Besides drawing, they must be storytellers, performance directors, and technical innovators. They work closely with directors, character designers, and entire animation teams to ensure that every movement tells a story. Each gesture, each subtle shift of weight, and each facial expression must communicate character, emotion, and narrative progression.

The role requires an extraordinary blend of artistic sensitivity and technical prowess. Lead animators must understand anatomy, performance, storytelling, and modern digital technologies. They are part artist, part psychologist, and part technical engineer.

Conclusion

As animation continues to evolve, lead animators remain the unsung heroes transforming imagination into mesmerizing visual experiences that captivate audiences worldwide. They are the invisible architects who construct entire worlds, one carefully crafted movement at a time.

It would be a dream to expand my skills enough to fit the giant shoes a role like this requires. Lead animators orchestrate the performance of their characters, and contribute immensely to the overall weight of the story as a whole, and this role is incredibly enticing as it is demanding.

Sources:

Deja, A. (2011). Scar Pencil Tests. Deja View. Available at: https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/09/scar-pencil-tests.html.Walt Disney Archives (n.d.)

Glen Keane. [online] D23. Available at: https://d23.com/walt-disney-legend/glen-keane/

Introduction to the role

Storyboard artists are crucial creative professionals in film, animation, television, and other visual storytelling media. Their main role is to interpret a script or narrative into a series of sequential drawings that outline key scenes, camera angles, and narrative flow for a project. They are responsible for converting scripts into visual sequences, composing scenes to enhance emotional and narrative beats, determining the pacing and rhythm of the project, and collaborating with the director, head of story, and other team members to ensure the vision of the project is achieved, among other things (Deguzman, 2022). They are important for the pre-production stage of most creative projects, as the information they provide on the boards will go on to support the rest of production.

Importance of a storyboard

Storyboards are more than just visualisations of what the end media will look like. While they can range from scribbles and doodles to detailed layouts, they also communicate a variety of other important information to the production crew. Storyboards usually include directions for camera angles, cinematography techniques, and sometimes even sound and music cues. This information is important to lock down before production begins as it saves time, energy and money, especially when studios send their boards out to external companies for the animation stage.

This board is a great example of a balance between detailed artwork and scene information. But while direction and information are important, storyboard artists must keep in mind how their choices affect the emotions and narrative of the story. Complex camera angles and cool transitions can make animations seem interesting and novel, but it will all fall flat if audiences don’t connect with the story or the characters. Framing, pacing and composition all contribute to how well a scene conveys its intentions to its viewers.

During storyboard screenings, while everyone is watching the episode, the story artists are watching the viewer’s faces. We watch to see if they laugh when we hoped they would, and if they cried when we expected them to.

Interview with India Swift (Hynes, 2021)

Storyboarding in the industry

A storyboard artist rarely works alone in a production pipeline in modern studios, and a TV show will have multiple artists per episode and a few teams in rotation. This can make work harder for artists when trying to maintain continuity in the style of humour and narrative interpretation, but it does speed up the process, which is important when working on tight deadlines for larger projects.

Generally, I find a 22-minute episode will have between 2 and 4 artists. Any given TV show will have 3 to 5 teams that work in rotation. That way production can lean on one of the rotating teams to support launching a new episode every week

Interview with Tim Hodge (Hynes, 2021)

Conclusion

My research into the role has solidified my existing admiration of the contributions storyboard artists make towards creative projects. Their hard work enables the rest of production to work smoothly and ensure the story is communicated to its audience in the most effective way possible. While I love animating, I do feel drawn to the pre-production stage of animated projects, as I think I can contribute more to the storytelling aspect from there. If I were to choose another role besides animation, I would love to be a storyboard artist.

Sources:

Deguzman, K. (2022). Inside the Job — Everything Storyboard Artists Do. [online] StudioBinder. Available at: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-storyboard-artist-job-description/.

Hynes, E. (2021). A Typical Day in the Life of a Storyboard Artist. Toon Boom Animation. Available at: https://www.toonboom.com/a-typical-day-in-the-life-of-a-storyboard-artist [Accessed 17 Nov. 2024].

Veesenmeyer, D. (2014). The Art of Dan Veesenmeyer. [online] The Art of Dan Veesenmeyer. Available at: https://dansartwork.com/storyboards [Accessed 27 Nov. 2024].

The Year 2 student I was paired with was Zhimeng Zhang. Before I received any files from her, I managed to find her Instagram account and was immediately in awe of her work. Her smooth 2D animation and riveting art style captured my attention instantly, and I knew we’d work well together.

Zhimeng was extremely punctual and responded to my email way sooner than I expected, considering how busy she must have been. She was eager to share her storyboards and creative explorations for her film, and I was eager to help in any way I could. She offered to let me assist her with some roughs for a scene, and I gladly accepted. According to an annotated storyboard, I was to animate the roughs for the “Grandpa” character over

Within the following week, I sent her updates as I worked and she offered her feedback where necessary. She was always quick to respond and encouraged me to ask questions when I needed to. This ready and open communication was great to work alongside, and her feedback was always concise and helpful. I was excited every time I worked on her project, and really wanted to make sure I did it justice.

Her character has a more complex form than most things I animated for my own projects, and the angles she had for some shots were an extra challenge. Still, I was excited to push myself and see how well I could manage to execute her vision.

In both these, it’s clear there isn’t much in terms of pacing, as I wasn’t entirely sure how slow or fast she wanted the film to go, but I tried my best to give her a decent base to work off.

This is the only minor setback I can think of- the lack of detailed direction in the storyboard. While she had provided me with a working file complete with the frames of her storyboard inserted as “keys” for the timing of the shots, I still felt a lack of precise direction. Since I was to merely carry out her vision for the film, I found myself unsure of how to pace the roughs without any real keys for guidance. However, since she was readily available for questions, I was able to make good progress.

All in all, though, this project was really exciting and presented a welcome challenge. I hope it was useful progress, even if it is a tiny blip in the workload Zhimeng has for the film.

Practice-based research

For this project, I chose to animate a classmate’s clown character, Pyrite. Pyrite is a creepy clown who is part of a homicidal clown cult, yet he struggles to participate in the violent acts that are expected of him. To incorporate this facet of his personality, I played around with story ideas that would play on his inability to intimidate despite being a scary clown.

Board 01

I started the project with the idea of Pyrite trying to scare a puppy, only to end up finding it cute and falling in love. However, when he tries to squish the puppy in a hug, he crushes it. This board didn’t have enough of a build-up or a good payoff. It also lacked an understandable beginning and storyline. The dog character was unexplained, and Pyrite’s reaction to it and subsequent actions seem too complicated.

Board 02

In this version, I try to replace the dog with a mannequin. Pyrite attempts to intimidate the inanimate model and ends up scaring himself when it just falls over. This was more straightforward compared to the last, but still had some of the same problems as the previous board.

Board 03

This is the final board I ended up going forward with. This version establishes Pyrite with his juggling, and allows the dog to enter and interact with the clown, thus prompting the ensuing action. The ending I end up going with isn’t finalized here, but it roughly follows this board.

Expressions and Keys

MORE… EXPRESSIONS AND KEYS

Here I attempt to add a reference for expressions beside the keys I’m working on, however, none of these get used in the final version as I drew Pyrite’s head WAY too small. There was no room to neatly add the detailed expressions I tested here.

Moving forward, I would make a note to frame my scene better so that the character is of a decent size. This way, tiny details like Pyrite’s cap and his clown facial details could be drawn in clearly and not have to be simplified like I ended up doing for the final.

Also, I would explore more open poses, and exaggerate the fluid movements between them. My timing, and the rhythm of the shot, need to be worked on a lot, so I would pay more attention to that as well.

Stop-motion animation boasts a fascinating history that has evolved over more than a century. It is an enthralling process that requires painstaking manipulation of tangible characters, props, and sets, resulting in unique movie magic, crafted almost entirely by hand. Starting in the late 19th century, stop motion’s early experiments were pioneered by visionaries like Eadweard Muybridge and J. Stuart Blackton. Muybridge’s groundbreaking work involved using a sequence of still photographs to study motion, while Blackton produced one of the earliest stop motion films, “The Humpty Dumpty Circus,” in 1898. These early endeavors set the stage for the development of stop motion as a cinematic art form.

The silent film era marked a significant period for stop-motion animation, with Willis O’Brien emerging as a key figure. His work on “The Lost World” (1925) showcased the potential of stop motion in feature films. O’Brien reached a milestone with “King Kong” (1933), featuring iconic stop-motion effects that captivated audiences. Concurrently, Ray Harryhausen, inspired by O’Brien, became a prominent figure in stop-motion animation, contributing to classics like “Mighty Joe Young” (1949).

As cinema continued to grow, stop motion found its way into television during the 1950s and 1960s. Shows like “Gumby” (1955) and “Davey and Goliath” (1960) utilized stop motion techniques, bringing animated characters to the small screen. Simultaneously, the film industry incorporated stop motion for special effects, with Harryhausen’s work in movies like “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958) leaving an indelible mark.

The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the rise of “Claymation,” a term coined to describe stop-motion animation using clay figures. Aardman Animations, founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, gained recognition for their claymation characters, notably Wallace and Gromit. This era showcased the versatility of stop motion, as animators experimented with different materials and styles to bring their visions to life.

The 1990s marked a transition into the digital age, where advancements in technology opened new possibilities for stop-motion animation. Henry Selick’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) exemplified the potential of combining traditional stop motion with cutting-edge techniques. During this period, Laika Entertainment emerged as a powerhouse in the industry, producing visually stunning films like “Coraline” (2009) and “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016), blending traditional stop motion with modern digital technologies.

In the contemporary landscape, stop-motion animation continues to thrive as a respected and beloved form of storytelling. Filmmakers explore diverse styles and themes, pushing the boundaries of creativity. Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs” (2018) and Laika’s “Missing Link” (2019) are notable examples that showcase the enduring appeal and versatility of stop motion in captivating audiences across generations.

In conclusion, the history of stop motion animation is a captivating journey through time, from its humble beginnings in the late 19th century to its current status as a sophisticated and versatile art form. As technology has evolved, so too has the artistry and creativity behind stop-motion animation, making it a timeless and enduring medium in the world of filmmaking.