Animated movies often trigger childhood memories and inspire us to mold our creativity into what it is today. The role of an animation editor is exciting, but here’s a question: What does an animation editor actually do? Can you even edit an animated movie? Yes, yes you can! An animation editor plays a key role in shaping the films we hold so dear to our hearts.
In animated films, the process of creating the film is backwards to a live-action movie as you edit first and shoot later. Animation helps develop the storyline of the movie as it’s heavily involved with telling the story of the film. During the process, a story board is created to give a basic sense of what a movie will look like once completed. It’s a time-consuming task as the sequences can take up to two years to complete!
The main difference between a live-action editor and an animation editor is that animation editors have more control with the movie creation and can get their hands dirtier in the process, which can be liberating. The animator is essentially the additional voice for the movie to get it to where it needs to be. While being an animation editor can be quite exciting, there can be tough spots in creating a film that a live-action editor would not come across. Editing an animated movie after it’s completed is a complicated process, as the scenes have already been locked. One must go through layout and then animation which makes it a bigger deal to go back and make a change, no matter how big or small, to a scene from the film.
At the end of the day, the job of being a live-action or animation editor is the same as both have to use an abundance of creativity and experimentation, and showing the emotion through the images of the movie. But for an animation editor, they must go one step beyond that. One has to keep in mind that making mistakes when editing is an essential part of the process that helps to create new ideas which is what editing is all about.
