Steps-In-The-Making

AURORA PRESENTS A DON BLUTH PRODUCTION

STEPS-IN- THE-MAKING

    If the audience sees the brush strokes the artist hasn't done his job. However, making an animated film is a long and complicated process. Here's the general procedure:
    --STORY SELECTION AND SCRIPT ADAPTATION. Classic stories are the best, ones that have a message that is, in some respect, timeless. Such stories, often found in book form, must be adapted not only for the screen but for the animation medium as well.
    --CASTING. The producers of "The Secret of NIMH" Listened to hundreds of films and voices to find the ones with the proper qualities for their characters. The selection of Dom DeLuise as the voice of Jeremy the crow happened one night when all three producers, unknown to each other, were watching a televised performance of DeLuisels film, "The End." Phones rang back and forth and before the film ended, the decision to contact the actor had been made.
    --STORY SKETCHES AND STORYBOARDS. The entire film is put into sketches which are tacked up in order on bulletin boards and filmed, with the same approximate timing given to each scene as is planned for the final film. This is the first time the movie is filmed.
    --LAYOUT. This is where the scene is staged. Decisions are made now as to whether this will be a close-up.or lonqshot inside or out, daytime or nighttime. Formal layouts go to background artists and to animators at the same time.

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    --BACKGROUND. This is the set design and scenery of the film. The paintings give a three-dimensional illusion and are meticulous in detail as to color and period of furniture,
architecture and props.
    --ANTMATION. Animation artists get the character from here to there, doing this and that and staying within the
character's personality. Full, animators do "key poses," while in-between" artists do all the drawings of action between the key poses, and clean-up artists make sure each line is sharp and clear. Each scene is filmed after it is drawn and after it is cleaned-up.
    --XEROGRAPHY.    Here each cleaned up drawing is put onto plastic sheets called "cels" by a special electromagnetic process which is much refined from its early days for "The Secret of NIMH."
    --INK & PAINT. Each cel is sent to this department where the cel is turned over and the xerography lines are smoothed
out. Here, too, according to color charts, each cel is paintedfrom the back.
    --PRODUCTION CAMERA. This actually marks the fourth time each scene is filmed, but it marks the first time it is done in color and when it is finished, it means that this part of the film is done.

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    --RECORDING SESSIONS - MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS.
These are recorded separately.    music for "The Secret of NIMH" is being composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith with musicians from the London National Philharmonic Orchestra.
    --FINAL DUB.     Here the tracks from the recording sessions are added to the film, replacing the temporary tracks used as reference to this date.
    --COLOR LAB. Here the color is corrected and evened out, and brightness is adjusted. Scratches that might have occurred are polished away. The final result is the Answer Print, from which hundreds of prints of "The Secret of NIMH" are made and sent to theaters.
    "The Secret of NIMH" is an Aurora Presentation of a Don Bluth Production, and will be released in the United States and Canada by MGM/United Artists Distribution and Marketing this July.

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