Published: April 14, 2025 | Last Updated: April 19, 2025
PRE-PRODUCTION in ANIMATION: DEFINITION & MEANING
Pre-production in animation is the early planning phase where the story, characters, style, and production structure are developed before animators begin creating frames. It’s where the script is written, the visuals are mapped out, and the blueprint for the entire film is built.
What happens in animation pre-production?
Pre-production starts with an idea and ends with a production-ready package. This includes a script, a locked storyboard, voice casting, and a detailed animatic—plus finalized designs for characters and environments. The goal is simple: solve problems before animation begins, when fixes are much harder and more expensive.
Studios like Pixar spend years in pre-production because it gives the creative team room to explore tone, structure, and pacing without burning budget on rendered shots too early. If done right, pre-production saves time later. If rushed, it can derail the entire pipeline.
Stages of pre-production in animation
Many things happen in the pre-production phase of an animated movie. Below, I’ve broken it down into six primary steps to give you a clear overview:
1. Idea and Concept Development
Every project starts with a story concept. Writers and directors flesh out the world, genre, and themes.
For example, for Soul (2020), director Pete Docter built the story around existential questions and researched real-world philosophies. The film’s core query is “What is the purpose of life?”, making it Pixar’s “most existential” story premise to date.
The team researched philosophical theories (like the concept of essentialism) very early in development as they crafted the rules of Soul’s world. This research into philosophy informed the film’s tone and themes – for example, debating whether personalities are ingrained at birth or shaped by life experience became a central creative discussion (the same theme explored in Hans-Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ugly Duckling (1843), by the way).
2. Scriptwriting
Once the concept is clear, screenwriters build a full screenplay. The script is often rewritten dozens of times as the visuals take shape. Dialogue, beats, and transitions are tested for pacing and clarity before moving forward.
Major studios like Pixar treat the story as a work-in-progress well into production. A film undergoes 3–4 years of active script development, including about a year just for outlining the story.
Once storyboarding begins, the process continues iteratively: the first draft is turned into story reels (rough animatics), which are then critiqued and lead to new script drafts. Scenes are rewritten repeatedly to improve timing, jokes, and clarity. For example, Toy Story 3 writer Michael Arndt wrote some scenes over 60 times to hone the story’s flow.
3. Storyboarding and Animatics
Storyboards visualize the script, shot by shot. These panels are assembled into an animatic—a rough cut with sound, temp dialogue, and basic timing. This lets the director review flow and structure before production starts.
Up (2009) features the famous dialogue-free “Married Life” opening montage, which was essentially locked in animatic form before final animation.
Pixar spent significant time on storyboards and animatics perfecting this 4½-minute life montage of Carl and Ellie. The sequence was initially scripted with dialogue, but the team realized it worked better without words during storyboarding – they stripped it down to just music and visuals before animation began.
4. Character and Environment Design
Concept artists develop visual styles, sketch characters, and create mood boards. These designs evolve—Woody from Toy Story went through major design shifts before he became the familiar cowboy:
This phase also defines environments, with color keys and layout art shaping the film’s atmosphere.
See also what a background artist does.
5. Voice Casting
Actors are cast before animation begins so that voice recordings can guide facial expressions and timing. A well-cast voice defines a character’s personality long before the first frame is drawn.
Robin Williams’ legendary performance as the Genie greatly influenced Aladdin’s animation, and the example given is accurate. Williams was encouraged to improvise during recording and ad-libbed a huge amount of material.
Co-director Ron Clements recounted that on the very first day of recording, they had a tight script for Genie’s introduction scene (expected to run ~3 minutes). Williams did a few takes as written, then “took off in a multitude of directions,” riffing and embellishing the lines. By the final take, his wild improvisations had expanded that scene to “about 20 minutes long”.
6. Production Planning
This final stage includes budgeting, scheduling, and assembling the animation pipeline. The team finalizes the script and storyboard, sets deadlines, and allocates departments—modeling, rigging, layout, animation, lighting, and compositing. Once everything is aligned, production begins.
Pixar’s Toy Story (1995) had an especially lengthy development. From the initial story idea to the start of final animation, about four years passed. In fact, a paper by Pixar technical artists notes that making Toy Story “required four years of effort, from writing the story and script, to illustrated storyboards, through modeling, animation, lighting, [and] rendering.”
Disney’s Frozen (2013) also went through a long and winding pre-production, though in a different way. The project (an adaptation of The Snow Queen) had been on and off at Disney for decades, but the final incarnation came together in a flurry of last-minute development.
Why animation pre-production matters
Unlike live-action, animated films are built frame by frame. There’s no margin for improvisation on set (well, except when you invited Robin Williams, as mentioned above, of course. Then you must adapt!). Pre-production locks in creative decisions early to avoid wasting time and money later. At major studios, the pre-production phase can last years. That kind of prep defines the final quality.
Summing up
Preproduction in animation is where the real work begins. It’s where the story takes shape, characters are born, and the foundation is set. Strong preproduction doesn’t just guide the animation—it saves it from costly mistakes. It’s the most invisible part of the process, but often the most important.
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