The process of producing anime is like that of producing any regular movie, at least in as far as the production team is involved. There are certain people that must be on the set for the team to be considered complete. The team may vary slightly where some professionals serve multiple roles, but the team remains the same across most productions. Let us take a look at what a dream production team is supposed to be composed of.
The producer and the production desk
Typically, producers on a set are usually employees of the production company. Producers are kind of the overall managers on production sets in that they handle all general tasks. They are the one that are responsible for spotting stories that have potential and lining up how it will be made into a movie or some kind of media. They deal with both original stories as well as adaptation of already extant works.
Producers re the ones that go out there to find and solicit project for the companies they work for. Producers usually carry a lot of weight in the production process of any project. That means that part of their job is approving all decisions that relate to production.
The production desk in a studio is the command center of a studio and it is where you will find the production manager and all the production assistants working on a set. The job of the production manager is to handle logistics, financing, and scheduling of the series. They are responsible for delivering final cuts on time and below the set budget. Production assistants are usually under production managers and they handle a few episodes of a series.
The director and episode director
The director is the mastermind of the production and they act as the judge, jury, and executioner. The director is in charge of the entire production process. They unilaterally or collectively make all creative decisions. It is them that approve every episode before it goes into production or is aired.
Episode directors are in charge of specific episodes in a series. Episode directors work very closely with the directors to make all creative and logical decisions. A series can have so many different episode directors.
The script supervisor and the art director
The script director is a low-level supervisor on a production set. They are the ones that make characters talk. The director is responsible for laying out the storyboard, but it is upon the script supervisor to produce the actual dialogue and narration. They make the plot, setting, and characters come to life. If we are looking at it literally, the director is the person who gets a byline on a book, but it is the script writer who ghostwrote the entire book. Funny how it works, huh!
The art director is the artist who designs settings to create feelings and looks. All the backgrounds you see in the show are as a result of the work of the art director. The art director is the guy responsible for the universe within which the nonton anime is set.
