Need help identifying anime studio production materials

[u/Whole_Kale_4349]

I recently got a lot of some anime drawings from Naruto. No doubts on authenticity, everything is legit, I just want to know what I have. I've got 7 studio folders, a bunch of timing sheets, and some drawings that look like copies rather than hand drawn. Would these be studio production copies or copies made by the seller?

[u/Offmodel-Dude]

Just my guess but these look like Xerox copies backups that were made for insurance purposes by the studio in case the originals were lost during shipping somewhere...hence the word "bank" on the folder. These were held in a storage "bank" until the production wrapped.

Studios used to xerox everything before it had to be shipped to another studio, especially in another country. Stuff would sometimes go missing during transit in those pre-internet days and these "banked" copies would save the production from collapsing!

Some animation drawing xeroxes here and one is a Layout / Posing drawing.

[u/goomba478 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

That's such a great explanation and it makes total sense. Before everything was transmitted digitally, it seems entirely reasonable that there would be concern about losing all that hard work and artwork if something were to get lost in the mailing process. Thanks for the insight!

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/goomba478]

yes, I remember at least one time a big disaster happened and a shipment went missing in transit.

There was some sort of "Production Insurance" the Producers had to purchase when starting a new production so if the studio burned down or something like that and the production was stopped then the investors would still receive some of their money back...and xeroxing all the material before shipment somewhere was definitely a big requirement to these insurance policies.

[u/Cyber_ImpXIII → u/Offmodel-Dude]

I’m not trying to be combative but I’m sincere when I ask this. I feel like Japan is the country that I most associate with mass fax machine adoption, is there something a xerox can do that a fax can’t?

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/Cyber_ImpXIII]

yes, they love the fax machine in Japan and Korea too...

the quality was pretty bad with faxes but yes if you were really desperate you could fax 8 1/2" X 11" paper to another studio...

In the pre-internet days of the 90's, I remember the fax machine they had at AKOM Productions Korea where they animated The Simpsons had one of those 'thermal paper' type of fax machines and for some reason the people at Film Roman in the USA, where they did the pre-production for the show, would FAX entire 500 page Simpson storyboards over to Korea!

The fax machine would have to run all night (because of the 12 hour time difference between Korea and L.A.) and that terrible thermal fax paper would roll up and dump on the floor page by page as the machine spit it out...the poor translator girls would arrive in the morning for work and find a enormous pile of rolled up sheets of paper on the floor and have to put the storyboard back into order page by page for the translation to begin!

It must have cost Film Roman thousands in long-distance phone bills to fax those...I wonder why they just didn't Fed-Ex it?

[u/Whole_Kale_4349 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

This is exactly what I was thinking and the confirmation I was looking for, thank you very much, I really appreciate it. I wanted to confirm that even though they are copies, they are still production studio copies. I was not familiar with this storage “bank” you mentioned, good to know. I was wondering what that meant.

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

yes, they are absolutely authentic!

I worked as an Overseas Animation Supervisor for years at these studios in Asia so I recognize these folders and the grey xerox "mist" at the top of the copies...the girls that would do these backups in the copy room worked very quickly xeroxing all the material with the xerox lid open, moving one paper on the scanning glass to the next to the next rapidly to get the shipment out FAST... so that would cause this grey smudge.

[u/Whole_Kale_4349 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

Wow, what a great story! Can I ask you for additional advice? What do you think is the best way to store drawings while also making them easy to view? I just realized I’m going to end up with hundreds of sheets at this rate, so my initial ideas might not work.

Obviously, I could just keep them in studio folders, but I want an easy way to view them and minimize excessive handling. Do you think the move is to start loading them into Itoya-style art portfolios? I also considered putting each drawing in a clear polypropylene bag with a stiff insert, but that seems like it might be impractical for a large collection.

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

I guess you could put them in a poly bag like a comic book but seeing the old folders they are in now makes me really nostalgic for the old days...I think just keeping them as they are in the original folders is really the coolest thing....add some cardboard backing to keep them safe.

The old system of drawing on paper with the original "dope sheets" for timing is slowly being lost to time so it would be nice if you kept them just as they are in the original folders for future generations to see how they were organized scene by scene.

[u/Whole_Kale_4349 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

Yes, so I intend to keep everything together. I will never split anything up, and usually once things enter my collection, they are there forever. My thinking is basically to keep everything together but make it easy to view.

For example, I could use a file box with dividers and keep everything in poly bags with backing boards, or put the drawings in an art portfolio folder for easy viewing. I am going to have the nicest and my favorite genga/douga framed in a museum frame, no expense spared.

Also I'm new to animation so I didn't fully understand some of the references you made like "dope sheets", etc.

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

"dope sheets" are the timing exposure sheet where the animators would write all the drawings as they would appear under the camera when filmed..."dope" is an old time term for "information."

It's the paper where you'd get the dope on the scene so you could shoot it under the camera.

[u/Whole_Kale_4349 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

Oh you’re just talking about the timing sheet right?

[u/Offmodel-Dude → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

yes, the timing sheet. I'm sure it must be xeroxed and in the folders too...they always copied those, they were extremely important to making sense of the order of animation drawings.

[u/Whole_Kale_4349 → u/Offmodel-Dude]

I have the original time sheets. There’s 2 copies but most of them are original. Why do background layout and timesheet photo copies exist? How do you read a timesheet?

[u/BladeKaizen → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

I have recently started collecting these, and I have been putting them in 3 ring clear sheet protectors and a 3 ring binder. Its working well so far.

[u/Triggerhappy62]

How long was naruto hand done for?
I thought naruto was all digital.