Most people get into animation because they want to express themselves and create beautiful stories, not because they like complex paperwork and memo-making. Timesheets are exactly that – but without them anime couldn't really be made. A timesheet is like a tax form for your cut, requiring you to account for everything you did – where every frame goes, what every camera effect is so that others can build off your work to finish a cut. That can be really hard sometimes, but once you master the process it's a flexible and powerful tool.
Of course, I'm willing to bet some of you enjoy organization and accounting in your work. If so, I think you'll be right at home once you understand the basics!
Regardless of how you feel about timesheets, Clarity is still your number one priority – if others understand it, it works – and most production teams don't expect you to have absolutely perfect timesheets on every cut. They get changed around all the time. Just get the basics down and take your time with the rest.
Why do we still use timesheets? Partly they're a relic of the old process for animation. Japanese companies tend to be surprisingly slow to change. Many don't have the infrastructure (or desire) to update a method they've mastered and which fits well into productions. Timesheets aren't a complete relic, though. They're actually extremely useful for a couple of reasons. First off, they're what let animators on different software (or working on paper) work on the same cut. As long as you know how to fill out and read one, you can animate your cut with anything. They also serve as a sort of go-to place for everyone checking the cut when looking for special instructions. Also, since it's just paper, notations can be flexible. You're not locked into what a program can interpret, and sometimes that lets you get away with some pretty cool effects in the same way as creative solutions in your drawings can have awesome results.
Personally, I think we'll probably see a more comprehensive replacement of them by new studios at some point in the next few decades, but learning how to fill a timesheet out is still a good exercise. It forces you to understand timing on a really basic level and you can still explain how to animate even if you're stuck without electricity!
Alright, without further adieu, here's the fabled timesheet:
| 1) Title | Title for the show, so cuts are not mixed up between projects. |
| 2) Memo | Space for any notes from the layout artist, directors, douga artists, etc. Often indicates special effects or camera moves. |
| 3) Time | Time of the cut in Seconds + Frames. |
| 4) Animator name | Name of the animator. |
| 5) Compositor name | Name of the compositor (not filled out by the layout artist). |
| 6) Genga column | Column filled out by the layout artist, indicating keyframes and inbetweens. |
| 7) Frame count | Indication of the frame and second count, arranged vertically. |
| 8) SFX and dialogue column | Indication of sound effects or spoken dialogue. |
| 9) Douga column | Section used by the douga artist (not filled out by the layout artist). |
| 10) Camera column | Section for indicating type and duration of camera moves. |
| 11) Sheet number | Number of the timesheet out of total number for a cut (X/total). |
I'll be honest. The first time I saw one of these, I was pretty scared. Fortunately, understanding a timesheet is manageable with just a little practice. The top is mostly straightforward. It's the same information you need on the layout, with a few straightforward additions. Still, we'll go through and talk about most of these one-by-one. Just take it slow!
Let's discuss the areas you'll be spending most of your time: the genga, sound, and camera columns along with the Memo section.
Genga Column[]
The genga column is where you'll write all the information from your spacing charts. It's like a timeline you'd see in animation or editing software, but vertical. Each row indicates a single frame, labeled along the right side in small numbers. Every 24 frames is labeled as a second rather than a frame. The individual letter columns are your cels. Remember that A is the furthest back. If you end up needing cels past E, you can actually cross out the douga columns' letters and continue from F.
There are a total of 144 frames on a single timesheet – that's only six seconds. If your cut goes for less than six seconds, then you need to scribble out the timesheet after the last frame of your animation.
Since the timesheet is usually shown as a number of frames, you have to convert your (seconds + frames) to raw frame count. Just multiply the seconds by 24 and add any frames to get your total.
If you have more than 6 seconds of animation, you'll have multiple sheets. Make sure to mark them in order at the top (starting from "1"), and count to the last frame on whatever your final sheet of animation is.
This can get a little confusing for long cuts, but just remember that each previous sheet holds 144 frames, and add them together. For example, if you had a cut that's 13.5 seconds long, that becomes (13+12) or 300 frames. You'd need three timesheets for it. The first two come to 288 frames (144+144), and you'd have 12 frames left over–so you'd scribble out everything after that on the final timesheet.
Filling the Genga Column[]
Now let's talk about filling out the genga column. You can probably guess most of the basics. Keyframes are marked with a circled number, guides get triangles, and inbetweens are tick marks. You will also see an "X" sometimes. This is used to show that a cel is turned off. It's common if a character or object isn't visible at the start of a cut, or disappears partway through a cut. Most of the time using this is pretty normal, like characters walking on and off-screen or falling out of frame, but it's also used for flickering effects, like when a character disappears and then reappears close to the camera.
| You always have to start and end your genga column on a keyframe. This is because douga artists only work between those drawings.if they don't have two drawings to work between, they can't figure out what their frames should look like! If you look at this example, it should illustrate the problem. The douga artist could create drawings between A1 and A2, since they know the start and end points of the posing, but what about for the inbetweens after? Since there's no indication of what the character is doing after A2, they have no way to make their drawings. | 
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| In this example, we Start on A1 and end with A2. Our inbetweens are all between the keyframes, so the douga artist can use them as reference for making the inbetweens. A spacing chart like this is exactly what we should be going for! | 
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| But let's say we actually wanted to keep the inbetweens from the first example where they were. In that case, we'd need to add A3, which shows what new pose those new inbetweens are going towards. As you can see from the timechart snippet, you can add keyframes after the cut ends! This means you can have a smooth motion that would continue even after the cut is finished, which is really useful in scenes where you want a character still in motion as the cut ends. A keyframe that comes after a cut ends still needs to be well drawn because the douga artists will base the drawings that are in the cut off of it. Bad keyframes means bad inbetweens. | 
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Common Notation 1: Long Vertical Line[]
Another common notation is a long, straight line. This indicates the same frame is being held for an extended duration. If a single keyframe is shown for an entire cut, then it's marked with tome (止め) and a line to the last frame. You don't need to draw a line between cels that are held for just a few frames, only for long holds, more than 10-15 frames.
Common Notation 2: Books[]
(TODO: crop the books image and upload it)
Last are books. They're noted with a line indicating which cels they sit in front of. This can get confusing if there are many different books, so try to keep it neat!
This list is by no means exhaustive, but all of these are very common and extremely consistent. There are a few other ways of marking the genga column, but most of these are used for standard notation. Sometimes studios (or individual animators) use special notation for other effects. I've seen a wavy line used to indicate vibration and an arrow used to "jump" all or part of one cel to another. If you're not sure how to do something, check resources like the Satuma book. If you still don't see what you need, ask other animators and look for examples online. Chances are, if you can imagine it, there's a way to communicate it in a timesheet.
Timing[]
With the basic notation out of the way, let's talk more about Timing. Since you have 24 frames in each second of animation, the maximum number of frames you can show in one second is 24–but anime very rarely does this.
Most drawings are held for at least two frames. Exactly how long they're held for is counted with the box the drawing is noted in and the number of blank boxes after it.
If you hold each drawing for one frame, it's animated on ones. Hold them for two frames and it's animated on twos. And so on.
Most of the time when you're animating, it's a safe bet to draw on twos or threes. Twos are used for motion you want to feel fairly smoothed out, and threes are for animation you don't mind being a little more snappy. Ones are used in some special cases, like the Naruto run, where motion is so fast that you need a new drawing every frame to capture it. Fours, fives, and greater are used less often. For really big, slow movements and some particular effects.
Remember that your keyframes can make up any amount of the total drawings in a cut, and the timing is about the number of frames each drawing is held, not what kind of drawing it is! As the image to the right shows, you can mix keyframes, inbetweens, and inbetween guides all on the same timing. It's also possible to vary the timing of your cut within a single cel. You can start on ones, change the timing to threes, and come back to twos. Whatever benefits your cut!
Anime uses a lot of repetition. Walk cycles, blinks, mouth flaps, hair blowing in the wind, all of this is done on a loop. When you need something to repeat, the convention is to write one full "cycle" of it out, then write レピト (repeat) and a line for the duration it loops. Unfortunately, a lot of standard animations are special cases that don't quite fit this rule. Again, more on those topics at the end of this chapter.
(TODO: merge this image with the other one)
You also don't have to use your keyframes in order, even outside of repeat notation. It's really common for an enshutsu to re-order keyframes as they make corrections, and you can do the same! Say you're animating someone who raises their hand up, then swings it back in and around in another direction. You can use the same keyframes to accomplish this! The effect can look a little cheap, but there are plenty of times when you can do this to get a particular effect.
Timing makes up a huge part of the appeal of your animation. Good timing can transform a decent layout into something amazing, and bad timing can ruin an awesome set of drawings. I admit It can feel pretty intimidating at first–even with the ability to check timing in animation software. Unfortunately, practice is key–more time experimenting means better decisions and less mistakes (yes, like always, I'm sorry!).
Now, I do have a few recommendations for other ways of practicing timing. One way to do this is to reverse-engineer the timing from anime clips. Do reference drawings of the cut and see if you can match the timing in animation software and a timesheet. There are also a few "art of" and "Groundwork" anime books which include excerpts of timesheets you can use to double-check your work. One of the first ones I found I like is the groundwork for Daibuster and some versions of the Gurren Lagann groundwork books do, too. I'm sure there are many more I'm unaware of. Beyond that, it's all back to practice, practice, and more practice.
Sound Column[]
(TODO: merge this image with the other one and crop)
Can you guess what the sound column deals with? Yep. Sound! Fortunately you won't have to write down every single sound effect that happens in a cut you're animating. For the most part, sound is reserved for two things. セリフ (serifu) and special Sound Effects (S.E).
セリフ (serifu)[]
Serifu includes normal spoken dialogue, which requires lip flap animation, as well as offscreen and internal monologues, neither of which are animated. I've had some layout assignments where the dialogue was actually pre-written by the director, no work on my part required.
Sometimes, you'll need to add the information yourself. Assuming you have an animatic with sound to work from, Adding dialogue is pretty simple. Use the timestamps from the animatic as a guide. Put a line where the character first speaks and write their name (in Japanese, usually) then write out what they say in long-form, with another line at the last frame of their spoken dialogue. Scribble out the space after that. If a second character speaks, write their name at the start of their dialogue section. If you don't have sound, there are usually approximate timing markers that you can work from. If the dialogue is spoken aloud, you'll need to add 口パク (Kuchipaku) or lipsynch notation to the cut. As you can see from the example on the right, these are a little weird. Don't worry about them just yet, we'll discuss them more in standard animations.
Sound Effects (S.E.)[]
The second use for the Sound column is Sound Effects (S.E.). This is filled in with オノマトペ (onomatopoeia), which covers any sound effects that are written out in the timesheet. Most sound effects aren't important enough to be noted this way. You'll usually see these sound effects when they directly bear on the timing of your animation. examples might include precisely timing a gunshot to a screen flash, water dripping into a pan, or an off-screen sound effect that cues a big effects explosion. These get the exact same treatment as lip-synching, except they're indicated with "SE" rather than a character's name at the top of the sound.
As annoying as it might be, both sound effects and serifu are written in Japanese. On the plus side, you'll have the dialogue written out in the storyboards, so you won't have to listen and add it. Most of the time you can just copy-paste it in. Dialogue is written in kanji and hiragana. Sound effects almost exclusively use katakana, just like you'd see in manga.
Camera Column[]
(TODO: camera column cropped image)
The camera column is going to get more of an explanation elsewhere. For now, just know that it's set up in exactly the same way as the genga column. You'll mark the start and end of camera effects based on the frames they start and end on. The only major difference is that it's not cut up into little boxes for different cels. This is because camera effects can be indicated with different notations and so you have extra space to write out specific requests like the speed of a pan or the kind of camera shake you want.
Memo Section[]
The Memo section is pretty simple. If you need to explain something to others working on the cut after you, write it here. Generally, standard animation won't need extra memos. If it's something more unusual, like a camera effect, a blur, or another complex effect, add it here. IWhen you're starting out, it's better to note something than to omit it until you know for sure the studio understands it.