A TV anime series is generally made in increments of 3 months=1 cour (approximately 10-13 episodes).

The main staff decide the production’s trend, worldview, and setting. These are the so-called director, character designer, chief animation director (CAD), art director, color designer, setting creator, and director of photography. They primarily come up with the setting materials and check the animation products. Apart from the main staff, each episode has its own staff of unit/episode director (UD/ED), genga/key frame animators, douga/in-between animators, painters, photographers, and so on that work on that episode. Each episode’s staff are a team for that episode pushing along production simultaneously.

Production Glossary

Series Composer: The scriptwriter who organizes the story of the entire production. For Free!/Free!ES, it was Masahiro Yokotani.

Readthrough: Business meetings to determine the structure of the story, plot for the work and organize each episode’s script. For Free!/Free!ES, these involved approximately 10 people of the planning staff over the course of 2 years with the director and series composer at the core.

Storyboards: Visual blueprints that instruct how to orient the screen and the direction for each individual cut and scene. Primarily, the ED staff create these using the scenario as a base.

Layout: An image that shows how the characters and background will appear as well as how the screen acts to convey the director’s intentions. This is one task the genga staff are in charge of.

Genga: Creating the drawings that express the drama and points of movement. The genga staff are fundamentally in charge of each scene’s drawings.

Cut: A unit of drawings. It’s the smallest unit of consecutive drawings with planned stopping points for photography to be done. In animation production, each cut assembles all the images together into one envelope for managing. These envelopes are called “cut bags.” Each episode of Free!/Free!ES was divided into approximately 300-400 cuts.

Scene: A portion of the story that ties together consecutive cuts.

Cutting (CT): Arranging the photographed cut data into a length that can be broadcast. It’s a job that adjusts the length of the entire episode by fine-tuning movements and dialogue gaps among other things. Through CT, the individual episode’s visual data is completed. It’s also called “editing.”

After Recording (AR): Also abbreviated AftReco. This is recording the voices from the cast as they play using the video from the cutting process.

Dubbing (DB): Work that combines the video from CT, the audio data from AR, BGM (music that plays along the visuals and insert songs), and SE (sound effects) to complete the sound inside the video.

VTR Editing (V Edit): Adjusting the visual data along with the sound attached through DB into a format that can be played at each TV station or in theatres. OP/ED staff credits, warning scrolls, subtitles, and so forth are inserted here.

On Air (OA): Televising through TV stations and other distribution methods.

Staff Role Explanation

Production Committee:

A production team assembled of businesses working together for the animation project that take the lead role in investing in the production. For Free!/Free! ES, it was composes of four companies: Kyoto Animation, Pony Canyon, Lantis, and Asahi Broadcasting. The team name for Free! was “Iwatobi Swimming Club”, and “Iwatobi Swimming Club ES” for Free!ES.

What’s the difference between Animation “Manufacture” and “Production”?

“Manufacture” is the fundraising done for the project to be completed; “Production” is creating the project itself. Businesses that contribute funds “manufacture” while businesses that only create the project “produce.”

Producer:

A person who takes the lead role in manufacturing the animation project. Each business on the committee designates a sole producer (P) who manages various duties such as producing the animation, publicize, create the sound, sell the program, etc.

Director:

The person in charge of synthesizing everything together, including deciding the work’s course, worldview, and direction. They are the leader of the “directorial staff” that work on each episode. For Free!/Free! ES, this job was held by Hiroko Utsumi.

The Director’s Studio Pilgrimage!

For Free!, the director had to travel to each studio at Kyoto Animation and Animation Do to discuss her directorial objectives and character details with each staff member. This also included her talking about her proposals and scenes she liked with characters talking and coming together.

Directorial Staff:

The UD/ED staff who work for the director to ensure their directorial objectives are met and that the expressions and plot are properly displayed on the screen. As the person in charge of each episode’s production team, they are placed as the sole leader of that specific episode’s team.

Chief Animation Director:

The sole member of the main staff who works to unify the drawings produced in the animation production and to improve the quality of all the drawings. They are the leader of each episode’s staff’s “animation director” group. There’s many times where that person is also in charge of creating character designs. For Free!/Free! ES, both roles were held by Futoshi Nishiya.

Emphasized Communication!

Communication with the main staff and director was stressed during production time. In order to convey Animation Do’s Hiroko Utsumi’s detailed messages to the main staff members at Kyoto Animation, Nishiya worked at Animation Do’s studio during the production timeframe.

Effects (Swimming) Animation Director:

An animation director whose specialty is water and swimming. This separate animation director who was fussy over the expression of water and swimming due to Free!/Free! ES’s nature and who supervised the drawings was Fumio Tada (Yoshiji Kigami).

Genga Staff:

The staff in charge of creating the screen frames of the production and to express the character drama. Their chief responsibilities are producing layouts and key animation frames. Each episode’s team is composed of 5-6 people.

Douga Staff:

The staff who take the completed key frames from the genga staff and draw complimentary drawings in order to complete the movements. Each episode has one staff member called the “Douga Inspector” who improves the quality of the douga and manages the douga production schedule. For Free!/Free! ES, the douga inspector was Animation Do’s Genki Matsumura.

Color Designer:

The person who determines the colors of the work, including the characters, their clothing, their accessories, etc. They also are the leader of each episode’s color coordinator/inspector staff. They create color samples to convey the intent of the directorial staff to use by the painters. Yuuka Yoneda was in this role for Free!/Free! ES.

Color Coordinator/Inspector:

One person who uses the “color sample” created by the color designer to create colors that the animation frames and background colors match for that episode. They also serve as an inspector (checker) to ensure that there are no mistakes in the coloring from the paint staff.

Paint Staff/Effects Staff:

The paint staff color each individual drawing using the colors provided by the color coordinators/inspectors. The effects staff add the feel to various items like food to the drawings.

Art Director:

The main staff member who creates backgrounds and detailed background settings to match the director’s intentions. They communicate as the core of the background staff and create “art boards” as background creation instructions. For Free!/Free! ES, this role was filled by Joji Unoguchi.

The stage is created with huge amounts of materials!

There are a lot of materials needed to create the stage setting and background details. There can’t be any missing cracks in the photography taken during the location hunting. For the Free! series over 50,000 photographs were taken for material usage.

Director of Photography:

The photographer is the person who takes the digitalized character and background data, combines them, adds effects, CG, and design work to bring out the atmosphere, and completes the final visual product. The director of photography is the leader of the photography staff. For Free!/Free! ES, it was Kazuya Takeo.

A variety of Design Works!

Please pay attention to the design works of the photography staff. The way the character names appeared on the screen in the early Free! character PVs as well as the rules appearing behind Rin in the Free! ES ExFr were due to the senses of the photography staff. As a special job, they also produce the cover art for the Free! BD/DVD booklets.