Although later than expected, I now have a first draft animatic for the second revision of my story (I had created a first draft animatic previously before the story idea changed). This animatic is adapted from storyboards I had created earlier with some minor alterations and a completed ending.
I chose to approach the animatic differently than I normally would and chose to use photographs of the posed character and the set to block out poses and actions. Editing them into a video would help me with pacing and timing as well as communicate my story idea to others easily. It also gave me an opportunity to try out camera positions and lighting setups and generally get a feel of how I would be working on and moving around the set later on.
The animatic does however switch to drawn frames half through which I had to do due to suffering from back pain after a pretty intensive week of animating prior. Unfortunately I had also lost my drawing tablet’s pen so was limited to drawing with a mouse. Generally I wouldn’t use this quality of drawing but I needed to complete some form of an animatic by the end of the weekend in order to stick to my schedule which was already pretty tight. The animatic still communicates my story idea but had I started it earlier and spent more time on it I would’ve achieved a higher polished result.
I was initially less enthusiastic about creating an animatic as it has previously taken me a great deal of time to create. My experience of animation over the years has been mostly thought up on the spot without the need for previous planning. Throughout university I have tried to focus more on the pre-production side of things in order to produce higher quality work as well as learn how the industry operates. This is especially useful when working with others. So while less enthusiastic, I felt it was necessary to complete an animatic for both the project’s and my own benefit.
From here I will now be able to start animating and I’ll be able to use the animatic as a guide to timing and planning out shots. It’ll also help me with scheduling and monitoring my progress. Like the Batman V Superman trailer animation I just created, having a video (in this case the animatic) to work from will be beneficial.
[…] the feedback from my animatic into consideration I decided to do the first few shots as one bigger scene to avoid switching […]