I am the Entertainment Tycoon

Friday, October 29th

Today was the day that would dictate the direction of Ryoko's life.

2 weeks ago she received a proposal from a company that she asked for a job.

The boss passed her a light novel, in which she had to produce a script and a storyboard for a potential first episode of an anime about the light novel.

If someone is confused about what an anime storyboard is, it's basically the blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff, and the matching lines of dialogue.

In other words, it's the mapping of the anime episode production.

If the storyboard is subpar, the anime will be subpar.

So, Ryoko was nervous when she got the assignment.

She knew it would be difficult.

For the first few days of the task, she just read the light novel and made uncountable notes as she read.

About important things that happened, the character's designs and behaviors, the emotions portrayed while reading the novel, and other things.

She did not want to miss anything.

After the search phase, she started making the script.

Which the easiest task, she only had to adjust some dialogues, describe the scenes, and others.

But she wanted to produce an amazing script, so she spent more time than usual while making the script.

When she finally finished the script, she started working on the storyboard.

This was by far the most difficult assignment that Theo gave her because she had to do everything by herself without any help.

Often the storyboard is created by the director, this means an episode is truly the vision of that director.

But usually, mainly in TV-anime, separate storyboarders are used to actually draw them. This is because storyboards usually take around 3 weeks to do for a normal length TV-anime episode.

Art meetings and production meetings are held with the episode director, series director, and other staff about the episode should look. Storyboards are drawn on A-4 paper (generally) and contain most of the vital building blocks of an anime – the cut numbers, actor movements, camera movements such as zooming or panning, the dialogue (taken from the screenplay), and the length of each shot (or cut) in terms of seconds and frames (which we'll explain later). Because the number of drawings available for an episode is often fixed for the sake of budget management, the number of frames is also carefully considered in the storyboards.

The storyboards are roughly-drawn and are really the core stage of deciding how an anime will play out. Cuts refer to a single shot of the camera and an average TV-anime episode will usually contain around 300 cuts.

More cuts don't necessarily imply a better quality episode, but it will generally mean more work for the director/storyboarder.

But that usually happens in a normal production animation.

The work that usually took 3 weeks to finish, Theo allocated less than 2 weeks for Ryoko to finish.

This may sound unfair, but Theo offered a position as the head of the studio if she passed the test.

So, it had to be an almost impossible task.

And if she passed even after all the adversity, she would deserve the position truthfully.

Even if she did not make a great job, he would hire her as a supervisor.

But Ryoko wanted to complete the impossible task!

That's why for the last two weeks, she only slept 3 hours per day. And the rest of the time she worked without any rest to complete the most awesome storyboard of her life.

She became obsessed as she worked on the task.

All she could think was about her options in the movement of characters, the changing of focus, the scenery, the adjustments of dialogues, and many other problems.

When the day of judgment arrived, Ryoko finished the storyboard one hour before the time she had to meet Theo.

She looked at the storyboard in front of her and sighed in relief.

Her whole body and facial expression were of someone who was about to faint of tiredness.

But her eyes were different, her eyes shined as stars on a clear night.

She was so excited to be able to finish.

Even though she was beyond tired, she was even happier that she was able to produce the best work she could.

She put her all into this work, she just hoped that it was worth it.

Ryoko looked at the clock and stood up.

She had to take a shower and eat something.

It would be bad if she appeared in the interview in the horrible way she was now.

One hour later, Ryoko arrived in Fuji's building.

Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, her hands were sweating and trembling, and her face was nervous.

She entered the building and went directly towards the meeting room where she met Theo and Sayuri two weeks ago.

She didn't need anyone to guide her anymore as she was now familiar with the building after frequenting it for the last two weeks.

Ryoko stopped by the door of the meeting room and took a deep breath to calm herself.

'I will get it!' She thought with determination.

She became a little less nervous as she knocked on the door.

"Come in!" A voice sounded behind the door.

Ryoko entered the room with steady steps.

The image she saw when she entered was a beyond handsome man seated at the table while drawing something on a graphic drawing tablet.

Theo lifted his head and saw the short girl with blue hair entering the room.

"Good afternoon, Miss Riverdale." Theo said with a brilliant smile as he placed his stylus pen on the table.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Theodore." Ryoko replied politely as she seated on the seat on the opposite side of Theo.

"I assume by your presence here today that you were able to finish my assignments?" Theo said as he looked at the woman.

"Yes, I did everything to finish." Ryoko replied as her hands trembled under the table.

"Wonderful! You must have worked hard." Theo smiled at her gently.

Seeing his gentle and understanding smile, Ryoko calmed herself down.

"Can I see it?" Theo asked.

"Sure!" Ryoko exclaimed as she took the papers with the script and the storyboard from his bag.

She passed it to Theo nervously.

This was the moment, she only could hope that he would like her work.

Theo took the papers and started reading them.

He started by the script, analyzed it, and read it with all his attention.

As a qualified director, with the directing skill from the system, Theo had more than enough knowledge to judge the quality of a script and a storyboard.

After finishing the script, he started reading the storyboard.

He took more time to read the storyboard, as it involved many aspects and he had to analyze if what Ryoko proposed for the scenes was viable and good enough for the anime.

He had to imagine the anime being played as he read the storyboard, but with his advanced directing skills he was able to do it.

After more than one hour, Theo finished analyzing the script and storyboard.

During all this time Ryoko got more and more nervous.

She had to force herself to not get up and started walking around nervously.

Then suddenly, Theo placed the papers on the table and was silent for a few minutes.

Ryoko was about to go insane with the suspense.

When she thought that she couldn't take anymore, Theo lifted his head and looked at her.

"You are amazing, Miss Riverdale!" Theo said in admiration as he looked at her.

Ryoko could not take anymore and she heard that her emotions came out.

Tears started rolling out of her eyes.

"I am sincerely beyond impressed. You not only produced a great script, but you also made a genius thoughtful storyboard."

"Every scene is carefully thought, the characters portray the right emotions in every scene, the movements of the characters and cameras are amazing, and everything else."

"And you did this alone with less than 2 weeks?" Theo said as he thought that it was unbelievable.

"What else can I say? I can feel that you put your heart and will to make the best of all of your works. And I can say with confidence that you did an amazing job." Theo smiled.

By now, Ryoko had waterfalls coming out of her eyes.

'It was worth it…' she thought as she heard Theo's compliments.