7 - Lead Animator

The lead animator is one of the first person integrating the artistic team. His name is Patrick, a young and athletic gentleman coming from "Les Gobelins" school of animation in Paris

The lead animator is a the chief of the animators The animators are a strange tribe composed of semi adult women or men. They are usually polytheists, praying for either Mickey Mouse or SpongBob.

So Patrick's work was to make sure that the animation of the film was coherent and the same style for each of the animators. Each animator has its own sensibility, and each animator makes a character move with its own acting style, like a real actor would play his rôle. In a way, it's like if Patrick had to work with 10 different actor but each of them would have to play the same rôle.

Let's imagine that Bruce Willis and Woody Alllen decided to become animators. Of course they would both draw Ernest their own personal way. Bruce would draw energeticly, Woody would draw more gently

So Patrick is telling them how to draw Ernest in a certain way

This way, Bruce and Woody will draw Ernest the same way. Patrick is also the one who will decide which animator will receive which scene. Dynamic scene will go to Bruce Willis, more sensitive scene will go to Woody Allen.

At first, Patrick made some short scene in order to see what the animation style would look like. Here is some samples...

Ernest negociating with Celestine

Ernest escaping from a bis mass of mice

Once the production starts, Patrick is the one who will also give the intentions of acting I want for the characters to the animators. In order to do that, we used to meet and talk about it. Here is how it used to happen.