The layout system is the production step at which an episode's shot composition, camera framing, perspective, and background design are established. The layout artist — a role formalised by Yoshifumi Kondō, Isao Takahata, and Hayao Miyazaki on the 1974 series Heidi, Girl of the Alps — translates the storyboard into precise drawings that bind background painters and key animators to a shared composition.
Origin
Until the early 1970s, most TV anime studios composed shots loosely from the storyboard at the key-animation stage. Background painters and key animators sometimes worked from different mental models of a shot, leading to mismatches. On Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974), Isao Takahata as director and Hayao Miyazaki as scene designer formalised an intermediate stage — the 'layout' (レイアウト, reiauto) — at which a single artist drew the complete composition of each shot, including character placement, camera framing, and background, before either painter or animator began work.
The practice spread through the late 1970s and is now industry-standard. Some prominent directors — Takahata, Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii — drew significant amounts of layout personally on their productions.
What layouts contain
- Final shot composition and camera framing.
- Background detail at a precision sufficient to brief the background painter.
- Character position at the shot's beginning and end (and sometimes mid-points).
- Camera moves indicated with arrows.
- Notes on perspective construction.