Animation

Animation Process
Friendship is Magic is animated in Flash 8 with many third-party and proprietary customizations. There are three animation crews, one in Canada and two in the Philippines. Each crew works on three episodes concurrently, each episode is staggered by a week from the other. An episode takes several weeks to animate, not including scripting, storyboarding, and voice acting, which are done beforehand.

Like classic cartoon shows, episodes are storyboarded in addition to being scripted, to facilitate the visual aspect of the animation. The show is distinct from most other animated shows for having a layouts stage, which details the action more thoroughly than mere storyboards. This is done prior to the actual animation by the studio's leading artists. The layouts are turned into an animatic, and then an animator works from the animatic, taking several days to a week to animate a one-minute scene.

Crew

 * See also credits

Lauren Faust held the titles of developer and executive producer in season one. Rob Renzetti is the story editor. Frequently, the show's crew visits the larger fan-sites and answers questions about the show.