In this rotation, I learned the difference between a storyboard and animatics. I learned how to turn storyboard into animatics. A storyboard is a static blue print where an animatic is the video version of the storyboard. Watching the animatic from the movie ‘UP’ helped me understanding the difference.
We were given a few ideas with different plots. I chose to create a BAR Dispute scene. I wanted the story to be about discrimination against people and not to mess with them.
I am used to creating storyboards but I struggled to create the storyboard as an animatic.
The Script:
Below is my initial script. I started by using sticky notes, but I initially struggled with this process. We were given the option to write down the story or use sticky notes. I found writing the story was easier for me to process my ideas at first. This was also a short project, and because of time, I decided that for this step, I would write it down.
- Somewhat busy day in the bar cafe.
- 2 people sit down and drinks (coffee or other drinks).
- Blaze serving the other customers and talking to his friends.
- The 2 people causing a seen lying about the drinks being bad and threatening by knife point.
- The first person swiped at Tox who was going to attend to a different customer.
- Tox mask cracked, then she looks at the first person with a piercing stare and slowly pull out a bone saw out of her medical bag.
- The 2 people back away and bump into Zal who is towering over them.
- They swing around to strike Zal, but he grabs their arms and crush their wrist making them drop their knives.
- Blaze picks the knives up and melts them.
- The 2 people cower as the 3 look down at them with big deadly smiles.
- It goes black, then the bar cafe returns to normal? (The 2 people either dead or having a horrifying night)
BAR DISPUTE SCENE – VERSION 1:
Digital Storyboard:
This is my initial storyboard. I found drawing my storyboard digitally easier as a process here. I designed the storyboard on my tablet using an app called ibisPaint X. The general I received from my tutors feedback during this process was to add more frames with different angles, close ups and wide angles to make the story clearer.
Animatics:
During this rotation, I learned how to use Premiere-Pro to edit my animatic. This is a process I enjoy doing and I find Premiere-Pro fun to use when editing stories.
Feedback from teacher and peers:
- Take time to think through the steps of the story. Slow it down. There needs to be time to process what’s happening.
- Film language could be clearer. It needs to be easy for the viewer to understand the plot.
- Bring the characters into all scenes of the animation, even scenes that are establishing shots.
- The black scene at the end could be an indicator of the passage of time.
- Next look at your animatic and pace it out better – change the timing of each panel so that it tells the story better – make sure the panels are not all the same length.
- Good approach – that you distinguished between colours – that was really clear.
- Good idea that you added yourself into it
BAR DISPUTE SCENE – VERSION 2:
Following the feedback, I added several frames to bring the characters into all scenes and tried to make them more active in order to make the plot easier to follow. I made some of the frames longer and others shorter to improve the pace. I also removed unnecessary frames to make the story shorter and easier to understand. I added a soundtrack using props, for example slamming on a table, cutlery dropping, and bones cracking. I also used music and other sounds downloaded from free-copyright websites. I think this made it clearer to the audience. However, if I had more time, I could have added speech bubbles or captions to make the plot clearer.
Digital Storyboard – Additional frames:
Animatics:
Feedback from teacher and peers:
- Good, strong, establishing shot – improvement from last time.
- Good zooms that help the pacing speed
- Maybe take a few shots out
- Sounds make it easier to understand
- Lost at some point with the plot
- Maybe some help understanding the characters and the story
- Difficulties: Slowing down the scenes is hard. Lack of time.
Personal note: Fort this project, the feedback was helpful at first, but the more I received feedback, the more stressful, confusing and frustrated I became. For example, the previous feedback was to make more animatic frames, the animatic shorter and then, make the animatic longer, or another make the animatic easier to understand.
Staging in Animatics:
Alan Becker is one of my favourite animator and he has made video tutorials of the 12 principles which I find very easy to understand. For animatics, I watched his video on staging which helped me understand the feedback I was given better.
Personal Reflection:
During this process, I first struggled with understanding the difference between animatics and storyboards. I had to do some research to fully understand how they are different and how each one is used.
My original concept was about discrimination. This idea was important to me, but due to limited time and feedback that was sometimes confusing, it did not fully come through in the final animatic. As I worked on the project, I had to focus more on making the story clearer rather than fully developing the original concept.
I struggled with time management, which affected the editing process. However, the final animatic improved after I added sound effects and background music. I especially enjoyed the editing process, particularly sound editing.. Feedback helped me understand the importance of clarity and pacing, and my animatic improved after I followed the feedback. However, I was still unhappy with the result because the pacing was confusing in places and there were too many frames. I also did not have enough time to improve the drawings or the editing by adding captions or speech bubbles.
Overall, the experience was challenging but useful. It helped me understand the importance of clear storytelling, strong pacing, careful staging, and realistic planning when working within a short deadline.