I am the Entertainment Tycoon

Chapter 122 First Day Of Interviews III

Theo also had to take care of the last part of the animation.

Composing and Editing!

This was an essential part of the production.

It is commonplace for the frames to be completed on a computer. 

After they are drawn and checked, they are digitized. Once they are on the computer, they are painted with a specified color palette by the painting staff.

They use the shading lines drawn by the key animators to do the shading colors. 

This digital equivalent of the 'ink & paint' stage of production, which used to be done by hand, has allowed some more interesting visual styles to come through in the coloring, such as the use of gradient shading or even textures. 

These would have been too difficult to do back in the day. 

It has also saved considerable time and money in the process. 

These become the final "cels" that go into the animation.

Once all the frames are colored and finished, they can be processed as animation using a specialized software package. "RETAS! PRO" is used for approximately 90% of anime currently aired in the Sakura Abode Country (for drawing sometimes too). 

Before the use of digital 'cels' (Digicel), drawings (printed onto cels) were actually filmed over backgrounds. 

Now, cuts are completed digitally, and the background art can be added to the computer. Initially, when Digicel was first being picked up by studios, it had real problems matching the fineness of detail in hand-drawn and painted cels. But nowadays, anime studios have really perfected the digital cel, producing animes with just as much detail and more vibrant coloring. 

The Digicel age has now streamlined the production process such that repeated cels and clip/recap episodes are basically a thing of the past. 

Some still prefer the rougher look like some animes from before 2000 in Theo's past life, but the mainstream was the streamlined modern animes.

While it doesn't use actual film, the compositing process of adding background art and capturing the animation digitally is still referred to as "filming". 

The CG characters and machines are also generally added to the composition during the filming stage. 

The use of 3DCG is also now commonplace in anime for mechanical things, like mecha, cars, or even background characters. Its role is expanding and becoming less and less intrusive. During the compositing, the effects are also applied to the cuts.

Effects! This might sound like a trivial thing when someone is talking about anime, but it can be a vital component of the visual style of a series because it incorporates basic things like ambient lighting, flare, backlight, the glint on a sword, blur, and many other things integral to giving depth and atmosphere to 2D drawings. 

Then there are all the flashy things most people usually think of when someone mentions special FX – magical attacks, explosions, and the like. 

These are typically hand-drawn but then rendered with effect CG for their glow/shine. 

These effects can be simply added to the compositions using digital masking. The ease of this step now has resulted in one of the biggest distinctions between anime a decade ago and the anime of today in the Sakura Abode Country.

In short, the digital age of anime where Theo was living(in most cases) has meant several things: physically filming cels is replaced by a computer-based composition of the hand-drawn frames/art, painting no longer has to be done by hand, and the more effective integration of CG and digital effects. 

All of these things have saved time and money so TV anime now use many more drawings and don't need to recycle cels or have clip/flashback episodes.

After compositing is completed for all the cuts, they have to be to the timing required for broadcast, so that the episode doesn't lag overtime. With the completion of the editing step, the episode moves out of production and into post-production. 

Which is essentially encompasses adding sound (dubbing), both the music and the voice recordings, and final editing (cutting the episode with space for advertisements). Visual effects may also be added at this late stage.

But Theo would produce that himself, he would also hire the dubbing actors from the Voice Acting Union.

After all, he remembered perfectly all the sound effects and soundtrack of the SAO anime.

Therefore, he wouldn't need to hire a team to make that.

Theo looked at the candidates seated in the auditorium with high expectations.

"And additionally, the people who stand out in the tests will have the possibility to get jobs with more importance." Theo smiled at them.

After thinking about the whole procedure of anime production, he needed capable people to assume some roles.

When all is said and done, Theo couldn't occupy all positions in the anime production.

Otherwise, he wouldn't need to open a studio to launch his animes.

The candidates were even more excited when they heard that.

It was their moment to shine!

This interview was their chance to truly work with what they liked.

The chance to be hired by a studio and have an important role in the production.

They were ecstatic that they took the bet of coming to another city looking for a job.

Their bet was paid off.

"The interview process will be done in 4 parts."

"The first one, you all will hand in your resumes, and each one of you will be asked some questions." Theo explained.

This procedure was to verify the veracity of their resumes, Sylph would receive their resumes and verify with her amazing hacking skills.

The result would be shown to the interviewers from the Umbrella Corporation.

As it was too many people, Theo couldn't interview everyone, so he used the employees from his management company to speed up the process.

Obviously, if someone lied in their resume, the person would be eliminated.

"If you pass the first procedure, you will be qualified to run for the second test."

"In this test, each one will have to draw in-between frames of an animation randomly." Theo explained again.

Even though in-between frames was the most basic job of animation, it was a pivotal part of it.

Theo could access the level of skill of the candidates with just this simple test.

He would be able to separate the talented from the normal candidates.

"After the second test, there is the third test"

"In this third test, teams will be made and each team will have the goal of animating a short story." Theo explained.

In the third test, the talented will be challenged to animate something from the scratch.

Theo wanted to see if any of them had talent and if they were hardworking and creative too.

It didn't matter if the person was only talented.

If he/she wasn't hardworking and creative, they wouldn't be able to move to the fourth phase of the interview.

"In the fourth phase of the interview, we predict that few of you will be able to get there." Theo said suddenly.

Everyone was already stunned by the level of difficulty of the three first phases.

Especially the second and third phases.

They may sound simple, but they were very challenging.

And hearing that the few of them would be able to get to the fourth phase was another blow to them.

But some of them had unyielding faces as they heard that.

"That's because for you to get to the fourth phase, you will get to do an outstanding job in the previous phases." Theo said with a smile.

"The fourth phase is where you will be evaluated if you will get the important roles in the production."

"For example, if we see that one of you is talented to be an animation director and you did an amazing job in the previous phases. In the fourth phase, this person will be tested if he/she is going to get the job as an animation director. But I have to remind you all that the difficulty of the fourth phase will be much higher."

"And if we see other people talented in other roles, these people will be tested for these roles." Theo explained.

"And after the end of the fourth phase, the results will be released." Theo smiled.

The candidates had a mix of feelings as they heard that.

On one side they were hopeful about getting an important role.

But on the other side, the difficulty of the tests scared them a little.

Some of them were scared but these people were even more determined about passing all phases!

The eyes of all candidates shined with hope and excitement.

They wanted to grab this chance to soar!