# E-EX - Behind the Scenes of Dr. Stone
Source: [Crunchyroll](https://www.crunchyroll.com/watch/GRJ0PENXY/behind-the-scenes-of-dr-stone)
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(Please feel free to edit the speaker names. This is handled on a best-effort basis depending on how the subtitle file was created so they may be incomplete or inaccurate. Dialogue is left as is.)
**[00:06] ---**
I was with our director, Iino-san, in the
editing bay watching the finished product...
**[00:10] ---**
And there's a part where Senku says
**[00:12] ---**
"it's been a year since the experiment
began. It felt shorter than I imagined."
**[00:18] ---**
And the director remarked
how he felt the same way.
**[00:27] ---**
I'm Katagiri Shusuke, I work as
a producer at TMS Entertainment.
**[00:32] ---**
This is my 16th year in the industry.
**[00:34] ---**
It's nice to meet you.
**[00:36] ---**
Basically one day, everyone in
the world is turned to stone.
**[00:40] ---**
And then later, the protagonist Senku
manages to be restored somehow,
**[00:46] ---**
In that world, 3,700 years later,
where civilization is long gone,
**[00:50] ---**
he tries to rebuild civilization, starting
with just the basics he can get his hands on.
**[00:56] ---**
Hello, I'm Iino Shinya.
**[00:58] ---**
I'm the director of Dr. STONE.
**[01:03] ---**
I didn't write the original story.
**[01:10] ---**
My job is to get as close
to the original as possible.
**[01:18] ---**
I see.
**[01:20] ---**
So it did happen to everyone.
**[01:25] ---**
Since this is an adaptation
of an existing title,
**[01:28] ---**
I had to familiarize myself
with the source material,
**[01:31] ---**
and then recruit the kind of staff
we'd need for the animated version,
**[01:38] ---**
and make sure the quality of the finished
product lives up to our standards.
**[01:43] ---**
Along with, in terms of business
stuff, managing budgets and whatnot.
**[01:49] ---**
That about covers it.
**[01:52] ---**
There are various departments that work
on an anime, like the people who draw...
**[02:00] ---**
There's the recording of the
voices and the sound effects.
**[02:09] ---**
All of the sound production.
**[02:10] ---**
Then there are all the drawing
that the animators have drawn,
**[02:14] ---**
There's also other art
such as background art.
**[02:21] ---**
We have various sections working
on different parts of the anime,
**[02:25] ---**
and saying that I check on everything
might sound a bit impudent,
**[02:29] ---**
but that is basically what I do.
**[02:32] ---**
I wanted to try and work with younger talent
who didn't have as many titles to their names.
**[02:43] ---**
I partly wanted the challenge of handling
it with that kind of fresh outlook.
**[02:47] ---**
I was the assistant director for Made
in Abyss about six years into my career.
**[02:57] ---**
It has been about five or six years since
I started working as an episode director.
**[03:02] ---**
I think the thing that caught my interest
the most about Dr. STONE was the theme.
**[03:08] ---**
The theme heavily deals with science
**[03:12] ---**
and that's not something you
see often in shonen manga.
**[03:19] ---**
With this show, we looked at
it from a variety of angles,
**[03:22] ---**
and came to the conclusion that original
material would be a poor fit for it,
**[03:26] ---**
so the anime is generally
a pretty direct adaption.
**[03:38] ---**
I think this goes for any
series dealing with fantasy
**[03:44] ---**
but Dr. STONE is set in Japan
3,700 years in the future.
**[03:50] ---**
In that case, what does
the background look like?
**[03:54] ---**
What about the townscape?
**[03:56] ---**
I think that was the first
thing I thought about.
**[04:04] ---**
The first thing you do when making an
anime is come up with a project outline.
**[04:09] ---**
And for something like this, that
means studying the original manga,
**[04:14] ---**
and then, as soon as you know the episode count
you're working with, whether it's 13, 24, or 25,
**[04:22] ---**
You figure out how to pace the
material to fit your production.
**[04:40] ---**
Now, that's not nice.
**[04:42] ---**
Shouldn't you say "Nice to meet you" first?
**[04:45] ---**
Shut your mouth!
**[04:46] ---**
Save your introductions for Hell.
**[05:04] ---**
So we have these storyboards...
**[05:07] ---**
And the first thing we need to
make scenes are these designs.
**[05:13] ---**
Character designs.
**[05:15] ---**
As you can see, we have designs
for all kinds of expressions.
**[05:19] ---**
To an extent, they can keep all
those drawings more consistent
**[05:23] ---**
by referencing these designs while they draw.
**[05:27] ---**
When we were in the talks
to animate Dr. STONE,
**[05:30] ---**
I started doodling Senku's face,
**[05:37] ---**
thinking about his various expressions.
**[05:39] ---**
And going through the usual
expressions I would go through
**[05:47] ---**
but their were about two to three
times more expessions in Dr. STONE.
**[05:53] ---**
So to keep up with that kind of passion, I
thought I had to get pretty worked up, too
**[05:59] ---**
So...
**[06:00] ---**
I don't think it's that
visible on the outside
**[06:04] ---**
But to match how emotional and
expressive Senku and the others get...
**[06:08] ---**
Like when their faces
completely fall apart...
**[06:13] ---**
In order to keep up with that myself
**[06:17] ---**
I tried to expand my own limits.
**[06:20] ---**
I have a lot of fun when I'm
drawing these expressions.
**[06:30] ---**
So we have the art designs to show our
animators how to draw specific locations.
**[06:37] ---**
As you can see here...
**[06:39] ---**
For example, the character should be about
this size in comparison to this tree.
**[06:45] ---**
The size of the character in comparison
to things like houses and trees...
**[06:50] ---**
That's what these designs are for.
**[06:53] ---**
The size of the character in relation
to this tree is shown here.
**[07:00] ---**
We hold meetings to make these.
**[07:02] ---**
So when we meet to make these art designs,
**[07:06] ---**
We decide whether a character should
be bigger or smaller in relation.
**[07:13] ---**
This series has a lot of settings,
**[07:19] ---**
so we do our best to show the
complete view of this world.
**[07:27] ---**
So there are a lot of shots where we try to
show that the background is the focal point.
**[07:35] ---**
But with that, I think there are a lot
of different ways we can show that.
**[07:42] ---**
So I try to concentrate on that.
**[07:49] ---**
Okay, so a single anime episode
typically consists of about 300 shots.
**[07:54] ---**
I mean, this is hot 316, so obviously
there are more than 300, but...
**[07:59] ---**
We used a higher number of
shots in the first episode.
**[08:02] ---**
So, inthis shot...
**[08:04] ---**
Senku lifts his hair away from his face,
**[08:09] ---**
faces the camera, so to
speak, and closes his eyes.
**[08:13] ---**
So I'm going to explain
how this shot was made.
**[08:17] ---**
It starts...
**[08:19] ---**
with these rough drawings.
**[08:22] ---**
These tell us which character is
used, what backdrop is behind them,
**[08:26] ---**
and how the character is moving.
**[08:30] ---**
These are drawn first.
We call these "layouts."
**[08:36] ---**
The composition of the shot, as I described
earlier, is drawn in these layouts.
**[08:40] ---**
And the first thing we need in
order to make these layouts...
**[08:44] ---**
are these storyboards.
**[08:47] ---**
Hello, my name is Kawajiri Kentaro. I'm
the assistant director for Dr. STONE.
**[08:52] ---**
Basically, my job is to make sure that I get
**[08:55] ---**
the key points from the
manga like the characters'
**[08:59] ---**
expressions and nuances so that the
rest of the workflow goes smoothly.
**[09:04] ---**
I make sure that all gets
outputted into actual anime.
**[09:11] ---**
Right now, I'm doing some
storyboards for Dr. STONE.
**[09:19] ---**
After that, the director will
make corrections, brush it up,
**[09:25] ---**
and then let us know what
direction he wants us to go in.
**[09:30] ---**
The storyboards are basically
the blueprints of the animation.
**[09:35] ---**
All 300 or so shots in the episode
are explained in detail here.
**[09:40] ---**
This one, shot 316, is right here,
**[09:43] ---**
and even at this stage, the rough
idea of the scene is all drawn in.
**[09:49] ---**
The character named Senku is standing
in front of this sort of backdrop
**[09:53] ---**
He lifts his hair out away from his
face and looks straight forward.
**[09:56] ---**
All those directions are written here.
**[09:58] ---**
These drawings are the
blueprint of the scene.
**[10:02] ---**
And based on these blueprints,
the storyboards,
**[10:04] ---**
the layouts that I just
explained are created.
**[10:17] ---**
Basically, I concentrate
on the whole picture.
**[10:20] ---**
I put in corrections on how I
want the whole layout to look.
**[10:26] ---**
What I write in this column
**[10:30] ---**
are basically instructions to the animators.
**[10:34] ---**
Like for this shot, I'd like a pan shot.
**[10:37] ---**
where the camera moves up.
**[10:43] ---**
Or with this shot, where
I'd like the rock in front
**[10:49] ---**
to move down while the rest
of the shot is panning up.
**[10:53] ---**
This episode happens to have
a girl named Suika in it.
**[10:57] ---**
And in the episode, she puts
on glasses for the first time,
**[11:07] ---**
and she's able to see everything clearly for
the first time. She's then moved to tears.
**[11:15] ---**
So at the part where the glasses are
completed and she puts them on...
**[11:22] ---**
She's then able to see sunflowers
extremely clearly for the first time
**[11:28] ---**
I wanted to make sure there wasn't
much dialogue for this scene,
**[11:32] ---**
and that the emphasis was on the music.
**[11:38] ---**
That was my vision for this scene.
**[11:41] ---**
So I increased the amount of shots
**[11:46] ---**
and have Suika, who's seeing these
sunflowers for the first time, move up a little more.
**[11:53] ---**
And then she sees the sky, the
dog, and Senku and the others.
**[12:01] ---**
After that, she starts crying.
**[12:06] ---**
And overall for this part, I wanted to
make sure there wasn't any dialogue.
**[12:09] ---**
Just music and of course
the characters' acting.
**[12:13] ---**
That's what I concentrated
on for these scenes.
**[12:17] ---**
So here, we have directions on this
layout, asking for a bit more emphasis
**[12:30] ---**
And as for the character's movements...
**[12:33] ---**
There's a direction asking for him to
brush his hair back from farther forward
**[12:39] ---**
by catching it with his thumb and
then sweeping it back from there.
**[12:46] ---**
So today...
**[12:48] ---**
First, I was checking the layouts
that some animators brought me...
**[12:54] ---**
They're already checked
by the episode directors
**[13:00] ---**
but I then take a look and
check over those myself.
**[13:05] ---**
To make sure there aren't any issues.
**[13:08] ---**
One person can't make 300
shots of animation alone,
**[13:11] ---**
So for one episode, we typically have
about 20 animators drawing the animation.
**[13:19] ---**
Since there are 20 of them doing
the 300 shots in an episode,
**[13:25] ---**
that means you'd have 20 slightly different
versions of the same character,
**[13:29] ---**
So we have what's called an animation
director to keep everything consistent.
**[13:33] ---**
And the animation director...
**[13:36] ---**
gives us this green sheet.
**[13:39] ---**
So the animation director revises
this drawing... into this.
**[13:46] ---**
The difference is very clear, isn't it?
**[13:50] ---**
The animation director has revised
the hand in this drawing.
**[13:55] ---**
We actually have...
**[13:58] ---**
a drawing of the character
in mid-motion here,
**[14:00] ---**
and the completed motion drawn here.
**[14:03] ---**
So the entire sequence
is revised in this way.
**[14:06] ---**
And with these revision,
**[14:11] ---**
the drawings for the 300 shots drawn
by 20 people on a given episode
**[14:18] ---**
are all brought together cleanly.
**[14:21] ---**
And the next stage, once
they're all brought together,
**[14:27] ---**
is the key animation.
**[14:30] ---**
This very first drawing starts the shot
**[14:34] ---**
And from the first drawing...
**[14:36] ---**
we then have this drawing from mid-shot...
**[14:40] ---**
and then this drawing that ends the shot.
**[14:41] ---**
You can see what's happening when
you see them all lined up in order.
**[14:45] ---**
There's the start drawing,
**[14:47] ---**
the mid-shot drawing,
**[14:50] ---**
and the end drawing.
**[14:52] ---**
In animation terms,
**[14:54] ---**
these are the key frames for the action of
raising his hand to here, and giving his look.
**[15:01] ---**
The animation that goes between these
frames is called the in-betweens.
**[15:09] ---**
They fill the gaps between the key frames.
**[15:13] ---**
And the process of filling
them in looks like this.
**[15:17] ---**
This is the start drawing.
**[15:21] ---**
Now we reach this mid-shot drawing...
**[15:23] ---**
Can you tell? Here's the mid-shot drawing...
**[15:33] ---**
And finally, we reach the end drawing.
**[15:37] ---**
And just this small bit of animation
includes many individual drawings.
**[15:46] ---**
So then we fill these in. This
what we call in-betweening.
**[15:51] ---**
Next, we come to the coloring stage.
**[15:56] ---**
The in-between are drawn
in pencil or digitally,
**[16:00] ---**
so they're just black and white,
**[16:04] ---**
but now we begin the process
of filling in the colors.
**[16:08] ---**
We have actual example models to follow.
**[16:12] ---**
So we add color to each shot based
on the color in these models.
**[16:19] ---**
We base it on these color models.
**[16:22] ---**
It's basically the same as a coloring book.
**[16:25] ---**
So this is the coloring process,
**[16:29] ---**
gives color to all the these drawings...
**[16:34] ---**
and it becomes animation.
**[16:36] ---**
Can you tell? Just as the directions
in the storyboards say...
**[16:41] ---**
Senku is looking down, he sweeps
his hair back, and opens his eyes.
**[16:46] ---**
Senku is looking down, he
sweeps his hair back...
**[16:49] ---**
and he opens his eyes.
**[16:51] ---**
And that completes this
sequence of animation.
**[16:55] ---**
Of course, this doesn't mean it's finished.
**[16:59] ---**
Now we get to what I showed you earlier,
**[17:01] ---**
which is done at the same
time this is going on...
**[17:04] ---**
The layouts, the ones I showed you earlier.
**[17:08] ---**
The layout shows which character is present,
where they are, and what they're doing...
**[17:14] ---**
Can you tell?
**[17:16] ---**
This is where the background is added.
**[17:20] ---**
We follow the episode director's directions
**[17:26] ---**
to fill in all these detailed areas.
**[17:34] ---**
So when we add this completed background
**[17:38] ---**
to the cel data that we
animated a moment ago...
**[17:43] ---**
we end up with this cut, which
I showed you in the beginning
**[17:47] ---**
The background data we saw earlier is here,
**[17:51] ---**
and the character data is here.
**[17:54] ---**
When those layers are put together,
it results in animation.
**[18:02] ---**
The process that takes this
long to make a single shot
**[18:06] ---**
is repeated about 300 times
to complete an episode.
**[18:14] ---**
Things are about to get a
little more tedious, though.
**[18:21] ---**
Distilling Wine for Dummies
**[18:23] ---**
This isn't really unique to Dr. STONE,
**[18:28] ---**
but I think the moment that's always the most
exciting is when a piece of animation is completed.
**[18:39] ---**
Seeing the character actually move around
on a carefully illustrated background,
**[18:45] ---**
you always go "It's actually moving!"
**[18:49] ---**
So I'd say those are the
most exciting moments.
**[18:53] ---**
One thing I can say is that this is a
meticulously detailed world in the manga,
**[18:58] ---**
and that by bringing it to
life with motion and color,
**[19:02] ---**
it creates an even more vivid
feeling for the world...
**[19:07] ---**
Which really gives it an epic feeling, which
I think would be something worth seeing.
**[19:14] ---**
Sort of "This is how it
turned out as an anime!"
**[19:22] ---**
Man, what a great view!
**[19:25] ---**
Perfect.
**[19:27] ---**
Another thing we had trouble with...
**[19:31] ---**
You can tell from looking here. The premise
involves a world were civilization has been lost,
**[19:36] ---**
So they have shirts made from animal skins.
**[19:39] ---**
Which makes it hard compared to other anime,
**[19:41] ---**
Where you can sort of color-code
the character wardrobes
**[19:43] ---**
You'll probably notice how there'll be the blue
character, or the red one. We can't do that here
**[19:49] ---**
But it ends up looking kind of plain with
these really earthy colors, in the woods...
**[19:58] ---**
So we had to come up with color flourishes
to help bring the characters alive in animation.
**[20:07] ---**
Here we have Yuzuriha and she's wearing an
animal skin, so it really is just a plain brown
**[20:16] ---**
So for the anime, you'll probably
be able to tell when you see it,
**[20:22] ---**
We have her some red highlights to
make her a little more feminine,
**[20:25] ---**
and basically did that with other characters
too, to help them send out from one another.
**[20:33] ---**
It's set on Earth.
**[20:35] ---**
So I wanted the things that
the characters touched
**[20:38] ---**
and interacted with in their
daily lives to feel realistic.
**[20:43] ---**
I didn't want those things to seem fake.
**[20:47] ---**
I wanted the viewers to be able
to recognize these things.
**[20:54] ---**
I thought that the characters
living 3,700 years ihn the future
**[21:01] ---**
would also seem more realistic that way.
**[21:06] ---**
This is wood, yeah.
**[21:10] ---**
It's here so we can study the
details, like the wood grains.
**[21:16] ---**
This is a mineral called galena
that appears in the series.
**[21:20] ---**
Wait, this isn't galena. It's pyrite.
**[21:23] ---**
We get a lotof things like this.
**[21:28] ---**
We do all kinds of weird things.
**[21:44] ---**
I used this...
**[21:50] ---**
with some of these shells that we got...
**[22:00] ---**
and crushed them into this.
**[22:11] ---**
So here's the scene where
they crushed shells.
**[22:17] ---**
I just wanted to say I tried.
**[22:19] ---**
The idea is to see what happens
when you actually do something,
**[22:22] ---**
or prove that some things don't
actually work in certain ways.
**[22:30] ---**
Of course, we won't be able to use
every single one of these things,
**[22:35] ---**
but we'll use whatever we can get our
hands on. Same with those mushrooms, too.
**[22:42] ---**
We try to obtain as many things as we can,
to an extent, to serve as references.
**[22:49] ---**
There's this part...
**[22:51] ---**
where they go through the
process of making glass.
**[22:57] ---**
They mess it up,
**[22:59] ---**
then Kaseki is brought in...
**[23:03] ---**
Kaseki pulls it, and they
finally finish making it.
**[23:07] ---**
So to do this scene, we actually
went to see this being done.
**[23:12] ---**
You can see it here. We
actually visited a factory.
**[23:18] ---**
This is how it looked.
**[23:21] ---**
This is one of the things we did.
**[23:24] ---**
I actually...
**[23:27] ---**
have the finsihed product here.
**[23:30] ---**
So in the process of making these,
**[23:33] ---**
some mistakes were made.
**[23:38] ---**
Getting this part to stretch is crazy hard.
**[23:42] ---**
This was one of my failed attempts.
**[23:46] ---**
This was really scary.
**[23:48] ---**
That's me. I'm the one holding it here.
**[23:51] ---**
When I tried to pull it...
**[23:56] ---**
This tragedy happened.
**[24:02] ---**
This just shows you that we actually tried
making things like this for reference,
**[24:12] ---**
which I hope will make
you enjoy it even more.
**[24:20] ---**
I wonder... There's always the intent to
have a celebration once production finishes.
**[24:23] ---**
Partly to show our gratitude to everyone
who helped us, like "We did it!"
**[24:29] ---**
Sometimes having a goal like that in
mind helps people do their best work.
**[24:35] ---**
We're making the anime,
but we're fans ourselves.
**[24:38] ---**
So we want to help relay how
amazing the series is to everyone,
**[24:43] ---**
and I hope people will check
it out to see if we succeeded.
**[24:50] ---**
I'm hoping that the anime
**[24:53] ---**
will help the Dr. STONE series as a
whole continue to grow in popularity.
**[25:01] ---**
How it feels? You know, if I had to choose, I'd
always say there's a big sense of accomplishment.
**[25:05] ---**
"Okay, we did it! Time to deliver this
baby!" I always feel pretty happy about that.
**[25:12] ---**
It's a slow but steady effort.
**[25:15] ---**
I'm going to beat fantasy with science.
**[25:22] ---**
This is exhilarating.