Tuesday 28 April 2020

Why Animators Need Colour Scripts

Finding Nemo Colour Script.
Colour Scripts are an important part of the animation process; they allow the director to get a feel for what the movie will look like, long before the animation and lighting is complete.

Our second year animation undergraduates are currently working on Studio Project Module PR5001, where students collaborate to work together on group projects.

Colour Scripts form an important part of the development of a short film.

"Animal Lover" directed by Anastasia Gurova
PR5001
Module PR5001 is a film-making module, the culmination of the second year of study at Escape Studios.

In this module students work together in teams, and the skills involved are just as much about film-making as they are about animation. 

Colour Scripts
Sequence by sequence, and shot by shot, colour stylists plan the mood and look of a film as part of the pre-production process.  Production designers usually begin with mood boards, which help to establish the look and feel of the film.

"Moon Rockz" directed by Molly Babington
"Animal Lover" and "Moon Rockz"
You can see colour scripts from two of our student films, "Animal Lover" and "Moon Rockz", above and to the right.  The colour scripts are an essential first step in deciding what the textures and final lighting will look like. Without colour scripts, the lighters are working in the dark (excuse the pun) and don't have a coherent road map of where they need to get to.

Colour Design
Based on the mood board, colour stylists develop a coherent palette for the project as a whole, showing the overall flow of the colour design sequence by sequence. Colour scripts inform the lighting style and design of the film, which in itself is also an important part of the storytelling process.



Colour design for animators
On big studio productions, animators are rarely involved initial look development of a project, and don't usually get called upon to do colour work like this. But for animation students working on their own short film projects, an understanding of colour theory, and how to achieve an attractive colour palette, is essential.

Adobe Colour - Free Colour Palettes
Adobe Colour - Free Colour Palettes
Looking for a useful colour script? Check out Adobe Color, an excellent resource to help aspiring character designers find a working colour palette.  Adobe Color gives you colour palettes for free. Say you wanted to design a character using military colours - you might try this army colour palette here.

Examples of colour scripts
To see some useful examples of colour scrips, follow these links:
Film-making Resources
Colour Keys from "Alma"
For more information on making animated short films, follow the links below:

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2022, follow this link

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