After reading the SakugaBlog post about “The Layout Crisis” in the Anime industry, I realised that I didn’t really understand the significance of how important the role is to creating flowing animation. The post itself does talk about how, over the years (in particular since the widespread adoption of computer animation), the role has seen itself merged into other roles, tasks being combined, and the job itself especially in the Japanese anime industry isn’t quite the same as it once was.
The role of Layout Artist involves “working from storyboards… [using] a film’s characters, sets, props and cameras to stage, block, and shoot the film, shot by shot” It seems like the kind of role that is largely forgotten about but is incredibly important to making sure films look the best they can! It’s every bit as much of a creative process as any other part of the pipeline, requiring artistic vision, patience to reiterate, and bits of knowledge from all aspects of the animation process.
Regarding “The Layout Crisis”, I personally couldn’t tell you if the role has been downplayed in the last couple of decades as a result of technological upheaval, but I can certainly see the case in point, especially in the anime industry. Maybe I just have my rose-tinted specs on, but a significant portion of the shows I’ve seen lately don’t hold a candle to the imaginative and evocative series from between the late ’80s to the early ’00s. Perhaps it’s a result of limited budgets, or maybe it’s to do with the integration of jobs into other jobs. I don’t think it’s indicative of animators and artists being ‘worse’ now, but I think the trend has been improving over the last few years.
It certainly seems that 3D animations have an advantage in that it’s easier to try new camera positions and adjust background elements on the fly, but I don’t necessarily think that means the role is any easier – there’s still a lot of skill involved and having the right eye for what looks good is still critical to being a successful layout artist. The main thing I’m likely to take away right now is just how important the skills layout artists have are, and how they can be transferred across multiple roles. Maybe I’m wrong but they seem like they’re the middleground between storyboarding and compositing, needing to know a little about everything to pull a sequence together.
Despite that I think the role is interesting – it’s something I’ll make sure to consider when I’m making my own work, but I know that I’ve never been a particularly good background artist (which is probably why I should try harder to learn more about it!). Focusing on making shots interesting through cinematography, placing characters and camera movements that cement the work produced in storyboarding, these are things that I should be considering to really push my art to the next level.