There are no kleig lights, no dressing rooms, no stuntment on the set of this movie. No one yells, "Action!" No one yells, "Cut!" The actors who have recorded their voice characterizations long ago are gone now--leaving only the artists and their pencils to bring to life the animated film.

"The Secret of NIMH," the long-awaited first feature film from Don Bluth Productions, is entering its final months of preparation for the July, 1982, release. The Aurora Presentation of the Don Bluth Production will be released in the United States and Canada by MGM/United Artists Distribution and Marketing and in the balance of the world by MGM/United Artists Foreign Distribution Organization.

The film, which ushers in the Second Age of Animation and contains all the elements found only in classical animation, features the vocal talents of Elizabeth Hartman, Dom DeLuise, Peter Strauss, Derek Jacobi, John Carradine, Hermione Baddeley, Arthur Malet and Paul Shenar. Bluth and partners Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, the producers, formed the company in 1979 when they left Walt Disney Studio. Three months later, they finished a 30-minute featurette called "Banjo, the Woodpile Cat," to be aired on ABC-TV. Then they set to work on "The Secret of NIMH."

In the mid-1930's during the making of "Snow White," the first full-length animated feature, nearly 1500 artists contributed the kind of detailed work for which Walt Disney was to become famous.

One woman even added her own blusher (in those days it was called "rouge") to Snow White's cheeks in each frame of film of the heroine at the wishing well because Disney felt the character seemed a little pale yet there wasn't enough time to repaint that part of the movie.

A few years later, when "Pinocchio" premiered, the audience gave a standing ovation for the scene in which a boat slowly crossed the water, taking Pinochio to Pleasure Island--a scene created simply by moving the plastic sheet on which the boat was painted across a detailed background of the water and island.

Such enterprise--painstaking details and ingenuity for accomplishing big scenes at low cost--has been added to decades of additional information on new techniques, electronic and sleight of hand, at Don Bluth Studio.

Mmost live-action films are through production in 45 to 60 shooting days. The average time it takes to make an animated film has been four years. "The Secret of NIMH" will be completed in two-and-a-half years, not an easy feat considering it will contain even more special tricks than any animated film in the past 25 years.

1831: Joseph Plateau invents the phenakistoscope, a device consisting of two discs. The bottom one has action drawings painted on it, the top one has slits in it. When both are rotated, the illusion of motion is born.

1860: Desvignes designs the zoetrope, a shallow drum-shaped machine into which strips of pictures, each a little different from the others, is dropped. Also gives the illusion of motion.

1877: Emile Reynaud invents the praxinoscope and is the first man to project a series of action drawings onto a screen, adding musical accompaniment.

1891: Thomas Edison invents the kinetoscope and the motion picture is born. With it, the animated cartoon becomes a recognized form of entertainment.

1906: J. Stuart Blackton produces the first cartoon on film for Vitagraph.

1911: Winsor McCay of the New York Journal, known for his character Little Nemo, begins performing a vaudeville act, giving orders to Gertie the Dinosaur, who is animated and projected beside him. When she obeys his orders, audiences go wild.

1912: Earl Hurd invents the celluloid sheet method which is still used (though the sheets are now plastic, they are still called "cels"), eliminating the need to re-draw and repaint the background for each frame of film.

1923: Walt Disney comes to Hollywood with his cartoons, a combination of live-action and animation, his "Alice in Cartoonland" series.

1928: Mickey Mouse debuts in "Steamboat Willie" the first sound cartoon released.

1932: United Artists releases "Flowers and Trees" the first cartoon in color, the first Academy Award for Walt Disney.

1937: "Snow White," the first full-length animated feature is released.

1958: Xerography process adapted for animation, eliminating process of hand-inking of each drawing.

1972: Ralph Bakshi changes the message in animated films with the first X-rated animation, "Fritz the Cat."

1982: Don Bluth ushers in The Second Age of Animation with his first feature film, "The Secret of NIMH," employing classical animation techniques and finding new realms of creativity for the art.

• Most animated features have taken, on the average, four years to complete. "The Secret of NIMH" will be finished in two-and-a-half years.
• There are more than 600 colors on the screen in "The Secret of NIMH," most of which were developed by Don Bluth Productions from the special vinyl-based paint used in the film.
• One of the characters, crotchety chemist mouse Mr. Ages, has 26 colors alone.
• It will take an estimated 1.5 million drawings to complete "The Secret of NIMH." This number includes preliminary character sketches, storyboard sketches, and those drawings seen in the final film.
• In several shots in the film, there are as many as 96 levels filmed. One such scene includes a background, cel levels of two characters, their shadows, a Bunsen burner flame, a rope, and bubbles rising to the surface of liquid. This film is passed through the camera 12 times, which gives all the bottles a special shimmer.
• There will be more than 1,000 meticulously painted backgrounds which are true to time period, architecture, props, furniture. The backgrounds are painted with water colors and gouache.
• "The Secret of NIMH" marks a return to the use of orchestration of color throughout each sequence to achieve emotional empact. For instance there is a scene where Mrs. Brisby and the Shrew must stop the tractor from plowing up Brisby's winter home. A grey dawn breaks, followed by warming colors as the tractor starts. Brisby and Auntie Shrew attack the machine as the colors warm up to oranges and reds during the struggle. When the action calms, cool blues and greens are used. The colors used in both the characters and the background must change accordingly in each color shift during the scene.
• In any movie, there are 24 frames of film projected per second. In classical animation, there are 24 drawings of each animated object per second, one for each frame of film, when the camera is moving, as in a dolly shot or a pan. When the camera is not moving, there are 12 drawings per second.
• Until recently, the xerography process could only be done in black and was often scratchy looking, so the lines around the characters were fuzzy and all black. Now, there are six colors available to be used in and around the characters, further adding to the feeling of the old, classic films.
• "The Secret of NIMH" will be filmed in its entirety four times: Once in sketch form, once in rough drawings that are animated, once in final pencil animation and once in color.

If the audience sees the brush strokes, the artist hasn't done his job. However, making an animated film is a long and complicated process. Here's the general procedure:

STORY SELECTION AND SCRIPT ADAPTATION. Classic stories are the best, ones that have a message that is, in some respect, timeless. Such stories, often found in book form, must be adapted not only for the screen but for the animation medium as well.

CASTING. The producers of "The Secret of NIMH" listened to hundreds of films and voices to find the ones with the proper qualities for their characters. The selection of Dom DeLuise as the voice of Jeremy the crow happened one night when all three producers, unknown to each other, were watching a televised performance of DeLuise's film, "The End." Phones rang back and forth and before the film ended, the decision to contact the actor had been made.

STORY SKETCHES AND STORYBOARDS. The entire film is put into sketches which are tacked up in order on bulletin boards and filmed, with the same approximate timing given to each scene as is planned for the final film. This is the first time the movie is filmed.

LAYOUT. This is where the scene is staged. Decisions are made now as to whether this will be a close-up or longshot, inside or out, daytime or nighttime. Formal layouts go to background artists and to animators at the same time.

BACKGROUND. This is the set design and scenery of the film. The paintings give a three-dimensional illusion and are meticulous in detail as to color and period of furniture, architecture and props.

ANIMATION. Animation artists get the character from here to there, doing this and that and staying within the character's personality. Full animators do "key poses," while "in-between" artists do all the drawings of action between the key poses, and clean-up artists make sure each line is sharp and clear. Each scene is filmed after it is drawn and after it is cleaned-up.

XEROGRAPHY. Here each cleaned up drawing is put onto plastic sheets called "cels" by a special electromagnetic process which is much refined from its early days for "The Secret of NIMH."

INK & PAINT. Each cel is sent to this department where the cel is turned over and the xerography lines are smoothed out. Here, too, according to color charts, each cel is painted from the back.

PRODUCTION CAMERA. This actually marks the fourth time each scene is filmed, but it marks the first time it is done in color and when it is finished, it means that this part of the film is done.

RECORDING SESSIONS--MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS. These are recorded separately. Music for "The Secret of NIMH" is being composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith with musicians from the London National Philharmonic Orchestra.

FINAL DUB. Here the tracks from the recording sessions are added to the film, replacing the temporary tracks used as a reference to this date.

COLOR LAB. Here the color is corrected and evened out, and brightness is adjusted. Scratches that might have occured are polished away. This final print is the Answer Print, from which hundreds of prints of "The Secret of NIMH" are made and sent to theaters.