Week 3

This week was important as I learnt what needs to be done before working on an animation project. An interesting script, well-thought storyboard and realistic animatic are essential prior to producing an animation.

Script

In any movie or game, the script is of utmost importance as a good storyline will leave a lasting impact on the audience. Therefore, as animators, it is important to come up with a good script to attract the target viewers. When drafting the script, the characters should be developed in a way that will be appealing to the audience. Emotions should be delivered accordingly. For example, Dr. J spoke about Thai-based advertisements that can evoke strong emotions with a good message. These stories will stick to our mind and therefore deemed as good animations.

Storyboard

After developing a good script or storyline, it is important to complete the storyboard. A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. Well, Dr. J mentioned that it is very important to complete the storyboard before thinking about animation. The storyboard will be the main structure with all the information before attempting to create animation. Length of a frame, motion, direction, time taken and expression to be delivered will be annotated in the storyboard. Every little detail will help the animator to produce a good final product.  

Animatic

Animatic is essential before producing an animation. It can be very simple but must contain necessary information that will be featured in the animation later on. It does not need to be coloured fully because this will give a brief idea on how the final project might look like. In its simplest form, an animatic is essentially a rough draft of a film or sequence, consisting of simple storyboarded panels (sketchily drawn images of each shot in a sequence) that are timed out with a temporary soundtrack (voices, music and some sound effects). This then creates a crude draft of a film allowing the filmmaker to test timings and see if the intended meaning of the sequence is conveyed and if, visually, it flows.

By creating this draft, you can identify any issues within a sequence before the time consuming process of animation takes place. If a sequence of shots doesn’t work you can draw some new storyboards and tweak it very quickly. You may find that an entire sequence may be unnecessary, or, that to increase the emotional impact of a scene, altering the framing makes a greater impact. Within the animatic you can refine quickly and effectively the structure and content before the commencement of the animation itself.