Process Book: Animatic

REFLECTION ON PRACTICE

COMING SOON

FL2017

JEE KIM

RESEARCH

PROJECT* SUMMARY 03

The objective of the project was to build a 45 to 60 second cinematic sequence that introduces key characters and creates a sense of expectation for an upcoming feature film. The sequence was to be in the form of an animatic properly paced with audio of my choice. The miniature film was to use the title and figures specified by the prompt: titled, “LongLegged Detective,� the animatic was to include Elegant Elleln, Grumy Lieutenant Cragg, a murder victim, Menacing Malcolm, and a shape-shifting housecat.

*This project was a response to a prompt in a course, Word & Image 2, taught in Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

01 RESEARCH RESEARCH

I searched for animatic storyboards that were used for Disney animated productions to understand the pacing and the rendering of an animatic. Some of the helpful examples I ran into included the animatics for Mulan and Tarzan. Because of the crude nature of an animatic, I saw that it wasn’t the matter of the richness of details but more so the economy of details that allows for an effective communication of a story.

This led me to spend a lot of time looking at references for my character design to be able to pick out only the most essential details to best capture the persona of my characters.

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Storyboarding animatic for Mulan

02 DISCOVERY DISCOVERY

The part that held me back the most throughout the process was not so much designing the frames, but more so structuring the story. I found myself trying to add a complex motive and back story behind every frame. While such layers would have been appropriate were the objective to create a feature film, because the prompt was to make a 60-second action driven animatic, such a complexity would leave little room for any real action to take place.

An excercise that helped me stay away from getting too complex with the plot was writing it out frame by frame using singular, simple sentences. It forced me to simplify each frame to hold one purpose. Once I was sure about the overall flow of the narrative, I wrote these sentences on sticky notes to flexibly add or take out frames as needed.

With the plot settled, I was able to move forward with the character and environment design much more effectively. I envisioned the animatic to have the feel of a 1940s detective film, “Out of the Past.� The masculine, suave image of the

Using the defined characters, I moved on to sketching out the frames based on the sticky note frame descriptions from earlier, a process in which I took camera angles into consideration. This entire process was done in crude sketches as to facilitate fast productive thinking. After I went over the frames to polish the pacing, I refined the drawings to how I wanted them to appear in the final product. Finally, I scanned the drawings in and digitized them on Photoshop. Selecting the music wasn’t too difficult as I knew I wanted something jazzy to go with the 1940s theme. After cruising around online for some bit, I stumbled upon a couple of pieces I managed to edit to match the pacing of the story.

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main character in the film was my main reference for how I developed Menacing Malcolm. After looking at the fashion, mannerism from the same time period, I was able to brainstorm how the rest of my characters would look like.

RESEARCH ABOVE

OPPOSITE

Storyboarding animatic for Mulan

Developing character design using “Out of the Past“ as reference

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DISCOVERY Character study for Menacing Malcolm

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DISCOVERY Character study for Elegant Ellen

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DISCOVERY ABOVE

OPPOSITE

Frame iteration (round 1)

Frame iteration (round 2)

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03 REFINEMENT REFINEMENT

Because I rendered the animatic in black and white, I was able to use color as a key component and indicator for things I wanted to highlight. The only times I used color was to bring attention to the blue diamond, which was the main catalyst of the story, and blood for when the butler is shot to dramatize the effect.

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Frames where color is used

04 CRITICISM CRITCISM

While I’m generally happy about the overall drawing and the pacing of the animatic, the biggest part that bothered me was the rough music transition that occurs right when Malcolm steals the diamond. Also, it is not clear at all that when Elegant Ellen starts chasing after Malcolm that Ellen’s leg gets elongated as Ellen sets her first step. The whole concept was pretty forced to begin with just to fit the title, “Long Legged Detective.” For further revision, I would make it so that Ellen’s elongating capability is much more emphasized.

REFLECTION ON PRACTICE

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NURSERY RHYME

JEE KIM

WORD & IMAGE 2