I once wanted to as an independent animator step into the industry, so I collected lots of information about independent animators. Therefore, I find the talented animator Masanobu Hiraoka and the necessary requirements of an independent animator.
Compared with commercial animations produced by the team, creating an independent film requires comprehensive skills in production. For example, in storyboarding, character design, colouring design, animatic, clean up, and even colouring, independent animators need to address these whole things themselves. Of course, some of the work can also cooperate with other artists such as sound designers, but the mainly animations should be made by animators because the independent films represent the animators themselves, unlike the commercial works belonging to all groups who are engaged.
Hiraoka Masanobu faced an essential choice between graphic design and visual animation in his university senior year, and he decided to join the animation industry in the end. However, he had never been trained as a professional animator, so he determined to learn hand-drawn animation on his own. He started by rotoscoping live-action videos and accumulated a strong personal style through his continuous efforts in creation.
Now he is an independent animator without hiring by an animated studio and is active in the Japanese motion graphic industry. His works are widely seen in commercial advertisements, music videos, animated album titles, and many film festivals and art festivals.
The photo of Masanobu Hiraoka
Returning to his works, most people’s first impression of Hiraoka’s works are the delicate hand-drawn paintings with smooth transitions and bright colours. The dynamics are reminiscent of the visual impact of pulling textures and exploding flesh in the movie “Akira”.
He is good at using the constantly changing flow of shapes and lines, and alternating between movement and stillness, interspersed with dynamic changes such as expansion and explosion, foaming and evaporation, cracking and dissolving, disappearing and reappearing. His motion design sometimes reminds me of a kaleidoscope, they are quite gorgeous and varied.
In terms of production, Hiraoka often creates alone, so the work process is much simpler and more flexible. In the early stage, he will draw rough storyboards or visual concept drawings, and hand-drawn animations will be completed one by one in Photoshop. After finishing the animation in Photoshop, and then using After Effects for editing and integration.
Overall, I learned that need to spend lots of time and energy to produce animation as an independent animator because animators need to do any work process alone even editing. The most important thing is animators need to have a strong and memorable art style, otherwise, it will be difficult for animators to stand out among the many exquisite animated films.
I research different kinds of roles in the animation industry, and then I try to reflect upon my findings and which roles suit me. I realized I still lack lots of indispensable skills for engaging in this industry, and I prefer to join the bigger team to create commercial films. Even though creating independent animations is intriguing, I would like to it be a creation in my leisure time rather than as a job. Eventually, I think I more enjoy joining the work process in big animation films, because they will make me feel a sense of achievement.
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reference :
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6121912/
https://cvr-stg.com/masanobu-hiraoka/
https://anilist.co/staff/133786/Masanobu-Hiraoka
https://animapp.tw/blog/insight/people/1995-hiraoka-masanobu.html