Chapter 287 December 19th’s Creative Meeting

Cafeteria, Tkyo Animation Studios, Elffire City.

Brianna, Araya, Mitsue, Zofia, Emina, and Kanai continued their breakfast as they talked about their dinner plans.

They only finished when they noticed that there were only 10 minutes until 8 am.

"We better go now. We can't arrive late for the meeting." Brianna declared as she stood up from her seat.

The other girls agreed and also stood up.

Araya said goodbye to the others and headed to the editing department.

She wasn't a team leader, so she could not participate in the creative meeting.

The others also said goodbye to Araya and headed to the conference room where the creative meetings happened.

A while later, the five girls arrived in the conference room and took a seat by the table.

They could see that almost everyone already arrived, and more people arrived every second.

From every step of the anime production, team leaders arrived to be part of the creative meeting.

When the clock hit 8 am, a blue-haired woman arrived accompanied by a girl that seemed to be her assistant.

Ryoko took her seat at the head of the table and looked at her employees.

"Good morning, guys. How are you going this Saturday?" Ryoko asked with a gentle smile.

The animators replied politely to her as she asked.

After working with Ryoko for three weeks, they all learned that their boss was a genius.

She inspected all steps of the production thoroughly.

And her insights were spot on.

It was only through her guidance that they were able to advance in the last three weeks.

After all, the studio was only opened for less than one month.

It was normal for problems to appear at this time of the production.

For example, in the first week, the drawings from different in-between animators' teams had different styles.

That was a huge problem because all the in-between frames needed to have the same style.

Or else the continuity of the anime would be seriously affected.

The whole anime would fail.

That's why that Ryoko made a quick decision when she realized the problem.

She gathered all the in-between and keyframe teams in the auditorium, and she taught them for one whole morning about how the drawing style of the [SAO] Anime should be made.

More than half of the animators in the studio were in that class, and all of them left the auditorium feeling deep respect for Ryoko.

The effect was immediate.

There were no more divergent drawing styles after the class that Ryoko gave.

Which was not a surprise.

All of the animators hired were professionals, they just needed the right guidance, and that was what Ryko gave them.

With her help, the animators went back on the right track.

Several other problems were solved by Ryoko.

That's why everyone deeply respected the young blue-haired woman.

They did not see her as a young girl anymore, they saw the best boss they could have asked for.

"Let's start the meeting then. How about we start the same way we started the last meetings?" Ryoko asked as she looked at them.

They nodded in agreement when they heard that as they already knew how to proceed.

The last meetings started with each department showing their results and their tasks.

This way everyone would get to know at which point every department was in the production.

"Then let's start with the in-between and keyframe departments." Ryoko declared as she looked at the team leaders from the in-between and keyframes teams.

"Boss, my team finished drawing the in-between frames for the anime intro last week. As you requested, we started drawing the anime ending this week. And we finished drawing the frames yesterday." Gail Hart replied with a calm voice.

The middle-aged man was not afraid to talk in front of so many people.

Actually, he was one of the people who most participated in the meetings.

His experience and knowledge about in-between animation were valued by Ryoko and the rest.

"Great! I will assign your team a new task next week then." Ryoko replied with a smile.

She was very satisfied with Gail's work.

When she saw his work on the in-between frames for the anime intro, she was fascinated by it.

It was exactly what she was hoping for.

She valued Gail even more after that, and if he continued the good work, she would definitely hire him as the Chief of the In-between Animation Department.

At first, Theo and Ryoko considered promoting Gail to a keyframe animator.

But after working with Gail for three weeks, Ryoko realized that would be a waste of Gail's experience and knowledge in in-between animation.

That's why Ryoko decided to hire him to be the chief of the in-between department.

He would get a bigger salary and get to be the boss of all the in-between animators.

"Boss, we also finished the keyframes for the anime intro and the ending. The frames are ready to be processed by the art department and the editors." A keyframe team leader chimed in.

"Good! But let's leave the rest of the anime intro and ending production for later. I'm more curious to know where we are in the production of the first episode." Ryoko declared calmly as she looked at them.

"Boss, we finished the backgrounds and art designs for the first episode." Brianna declared as she looked at her best friend with a small smile.

She loved teasing Ryoko, but she obviously could not do it in front of everyone.

But she could still do it when they were alone.

Brianna had to admit that her friend seemed like another person.

She was much more confident and calm.

Which made Brianna tease her even more.

Ryoko twitched her lips a little when she saw Brianna's teasing smile.

She was very sure that Brianna would tease her later.

"Good work." Ryoko replied shortly as she looked at another person.

"How are the composition and editing teams in the first episode?" Ryoko asked.

"Boss, we already did the composition for the whole first episode. We started working on the second episode yesterday." Aidan replied nervously.

He was still not used to talking in front of so many people, but he did not cower.

After all, he was the Composition Supervisor, and he had work to do.

"Boss, we are going to finish editing the first episode today. The only thing left to be done would be the addition of the sound effects and the dubbing of the voice actors." Nora replied.

Ryoko became thoughtful when she heard Nora's reply.

'It seems like we need to search for the voice actors already. The branch studio in Sakura City is ready, so we can start the operations there. Next week I should start searching for voice actors. I will talk with Theo about this.' She thought.

"The sound studio will start working on the sound effects of the first episode then. The voice actors will be hired later. What I want from you is more intensity. I want to finish at least two episodes this month." Ryoko declared with a firm voice.

The animators nodded to express they understood.

The meeting continued as they discussed all types of details of the episodes, designs, characters, and so on.

And the meeting only ended 1 hour later.

While the team leaders went back to their workstations, Ryoko went back to her office with Amber behind her.

She had so many things to do, but first, she had to call Theo.

Ryoko had something very important to talk about with him.