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Japanese Animation Camera Work (continued)
Used for glows, flashes of light and other
such things, backlighting is a very
important part of anime. There are so many types
of and techniques for backlighting that it would take a
dozen articles to explain them all so I will only explain
the most common type here.
In order to create a backlit effect, the cel
painters or production staff produce masks,
cels that are painted black except for the areas to be
lit. These cels are then shot in a separate pass,
superimposing them onto the original cut.

Backlight mask (A level) |

Character cel (B level)
Note: character cels are painted
black on the back so that light will not leak
through and placed on the mask when shooting so
that the masked shape will match the outline
better. |

Character cel and background are
shot normally. (At 100% exposure) |

The film is rewound, all the
lights in the camera room are shut off and light
from a slide projector with a colored filter is
shown through the camera stand. The new image is
shot at a shorter exposure time, 60% in this
case. |

The final image with backlight superimposed.
(What the heck is that energy thing anyway?) |
Backlighting should be shot through a diffusion filter so that the
light spreads a little bit, giving a bit of a halo
effect.
For the strongest effect, the entire background can be
replaced with backlighting. This is the effect that was
the cause of the POKEMON
(POCKET MONSTERS) photosensitive
epilepsy seizures. They alternated red and blue
backlighting at a rate that, when seen on a TV caused
enough of a flicker that it made some kids sick. (The
actual number is not really known but it is believed to
be only 1/2 to 1/3 of what was reported. The way they
checked the kids in many schools was to tell them that
they could go home for the day if they said they felt
bad. Needless to say a lot of kids felt bad.) This effect
is not necessarily used in action or violent scenes and
the reason that you don't see it as much in US TV
animation is not because of the violence of anime
but rather because backlighitng is not as commonly used
in US TV animation. (Instead of special effects, some US
TV animation induces nausea through terrible storytelling
and hideous artwork.)
Saburina

This is when a piece of white paper is
superimposed into a frame or two. It is less strong than
a backlight but stronger and covers more than a diffusion
filter. This is normally used in cuts with explosions or
flashing lights to strengthen the effect. Sometimes pure
white and black cels are used to make the flashing effect
even stronger.
Effects

Rain is most often done with
cels that have been scratched with a cutter knife so the
lights from the camera stand will highlight them. (It is
OK to have horizontal scratches on cels but vertical
scratches, especially large ones, will show up as white
lines on the final film.) 5 or 6 of these cels are
randomly used and the images are superinmposed into the
film.
Fog and mist are
most often done with airbrushed cels created by effects
specialists. Great care must be taken not to scratch the
paint on the cels because it will come off very easily.
Sometimes the airbrushed cels are double exposed.
Diffusion Filter

Diffusion filters are used in many
cuts to soften the hard lines of the elements and also to
create a softer image. Sometimes diffusion filters are
also used to diffuse the lightest areas of the images to
give a more romantic or lovely look. (They often used
diffusion filters on the cameras in the original STAR
TREK series when they shot close up scenes of the female
leads. Watch it sometimes and see the big difference
betweeen scenes with and without the filters.) (The image
to the right has a diffusion filter applied to the left side.)
Ripple glass

Ripple glass has a surface which
distorts anything placed under it. It is most commonly
used for heat distortion (like the waves of heat rising
off a desert or a fire), when character's vision is
distorted because of drowsiness or drunkenness, jet wash,
distortion from being underwater or similar cuts. The
ripple glass really needs to be slowly moved throughout
the cut so that the effect will be noticeable. There are
other types of distortion glass, like diamond
glass and spiral glass
(both of which produce effects related to their names),
that are used as well. A Japanese camera studio normally
has a set of shelves full of different types of
distortion glass picked up throughout the years,
sometimes at strange places like construction sites or
demolished factories.
Fade In/Fade Out, FI/FO

Fade In means to
appear gradually. This is often done by shooting
successive frames of a cut with increasingly longer
exposures of the main cut elements. A Fade
Out is the opposite - something gradually
disappearing. Fade To Black is a type of Fade
Out but they are all not necessarily like that.
Overlap, OL

A fade in or fade out of an element (or cut)
which is replaced by another element. A BG OL
means that the second BG is faded in over the first,
replacing it.
Dissolve

A change from one cut to the next by
simultaneously fading the first cut out while fading the
second cut in. There is always 100% exposure, for example
when one cut is at 40% exposure the other is at 60% and
so forth.
The main difference between an OL and a
dissolve is that a dissolve is always at a cut level
where an OL might be just one single element in a cut.
Wipe

A change from one cut to the next by a line or
shape passing across the screen. A wipe is often a very
ugly and weak way to change
cuts so they must be handled with great care. Too many
wipes and the audience will find it hard to concentrate
on what is going on in the show.
Para

A para (the term comes from paraffin)
is a cel with colored cellophane or airburshed paint on
the edges or on opposing corners. This forces the
viewer's attention on the area framed by the para.
Most common colors are dark blue, red and black but almost
any color can be used.
There is always room for improvisation and new
ideas when doing camera.When I worked in a camera studio
the chief cameraman regaled me with stories about one
famous cameraman who would dash down to the neighborhood
candy shop to get cellophane wrappers to create his own
filters and other interesting tricks.

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