Режиссёр анимации: обязанности и различия в западной и восточной индустрии.

Animator in charge of correcting layouts and drawings
An animation director is the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated or television film, or an animated segment for a live action film or television show. Alternatively, the animation director can be the animator in charge of correcting layouts and drawings for the above media. The difference between the two is largely in the difference between the western and eastern animation industries.

In western animation, such as Disney, the responsibilities of an animation director include directing the storyboards, character designs, background animation, and other technical aspects of a project's animation. Some animated film productions may split the duties between an animation director, who focuses on the creation of the animation, and a director who oversees all other aspects of the film. A supervising animator is commonly in charge of all aspects of the design and artwork for a single major character. The supervising animator oversees a group of animators who complete the entire scenes in which a particular character appears. The day to day responsibilities of an animation director may include checking and updating lists for each scene. These lists will track the status of each shot with written notes and approvals from the Director.

In the eastern production pipeline, most notably in the anime industry, the role of an "animation director" is significantly different from its western counterpart in the animation production pipeline. Rather than overseeing all of a project's animation, an animation director (作画監督), known as a sakkan (作監) for short, acts more as a sort of 'drawing director' who corrects key animation drawings and layouts. Although these roles are meant to be encompassed by a small number of animators maintaining high quality work, the state of the Japanese animation industry has shifted the roles, with sou sakkans appearing in multiples across singular episodes at times, which is largely due to the lack of animators and lack of time or bad scheduling which vastly limit the possibility of only a few sou sakkans appearing across an entire work. Another way the credit is used is as a sort of pseudo director, such as Keizou Shimizu's role on Legend of the Galactic Heroes seasons 3 and 4, in which he described his role on the series as him acting as both a drawing director who supervised layouts and animation, as well as performing traditional directing duties such as checking storyboards and correcting them. One other way the credit is used is much closer to the western production pipeline's understanding of the role, in which the animation director acts more like a technical director; for example, Reiji Nagazono has been credited as such on several of the works by Polygon Pictures, in which studio representative director Shuuzou John Shiota described as being the person who helps to define and supervise the entirety of the animation process in a project.