What is an animatic?
An animatic is a moving storyboard. It shows you what your film is going to look like (roughly). Using the drawings from the storyboard a rough idea of what your film will look like can be gaged from it. All the dialogue, music etc. will be added to your animatic.
Animatics before technology?
Before the technology film companies have today to create their animatics, an animatic used to be either a filmed storyboard or even taped. Nowadays advancement in technology allows us to create more detailed and accurate ideas of what our film will look like.
There are different types of animatic. There are:
- Photomatics- Use of photographs to create an animatic
- Videomatics- re used videos that were filmed for something but never used (also known as rip-o-matics)
Nowadays most just create their animatic using 2d or 3d software, some even have their own software to do so.
What is in an animatic?
Include in an animatic is...everything! (well almost) You will have:
- Music
- Dialogue
- Idents
- Titles
- Film Title
- Images of the film/photographs (obviously)
Basically you'll have a finished film only made of a lot of drawings.
Advantages of producing an animatic
- It enables you to see what your film is going to look like when created.
- You can see and change any major mistakes and bad shots and ideas before its too late meaning the cost to recreate a shot in a different way will be lower.
- You can get an idea of how long your film is going to be (including idents and titles)
- Each member of the film crew will have a rough idea of when they will be needed and what they have to do when filming certain shots and scenes.
- The director can see what they need to film and plan when and where things can be filmed and in what order rather than going back and forth to film shots in the order that they come in. (logic)
Here is an existing example of what an animatic would look like if you were filming a full blown award winning film. This animatic is a clip from the film The World's End.
This clip also shows you along side what the film looked like and as you can see there are a few minor changes that have been made during the filming which is ok so long as its not something that changes the whole of the script, treatment and anything else you can think of. Basically nothing major has been changed.
Our Thriller Animatic
We created our animatic by using the images from the storyboard, adding in all the sound etc. Once our first version of the animatic was completed we shared it with an audience to gain feedback on what was good and what needed to be improved upon.
When asked 'Is the narrative clear?' our audience said that they could understand the basic storyline of what was going to happen in the film. There was only one person that didn't quite get the idea of the story but once they watched it again it was clear to them.
The audience also said that our film had a wide variety of frames ranging from establishing shots right though to close ups of peoples faces or objects. They all had a purpose to them too and that there was a motivation to do something.
The film fills the 2 minute opening length only going over by a few seconds.
There were titles include in the animatic which the audience said were added over the top meaning they could be seen as the action on screen was going on. Someone did say that it would be clever if we added in images to the title at the end seen as though the film is called 'The Black Widow'. It was suggests to add an image of a spider to link it as well as add atmosphere and a double meaning to the film name. The ident was clearly there in the right place as well as all the appropriate titles that were suited and fitting to our film were all there in the order from our earlier research.
Most of the soundtrack was said to have been appropriate however the heart beat at the end was considered 'too long' and didn't bring any tension just killed it as it went on and on with no progression. It needed to either increase in volume or stop completely was the opinion of the audience. The music however was said to have matched the film well and the speech fitted in with the film well and clearly told the audience what was going on.
All in all the audience said that the animatic was clear and understandable and did the job it needed to do, tell the story of the film before it has even been filmed. The audience said other than a few minor tweaks Reflection Studios were ready to being the filming process following this animatic.
Now here is Reflections final edition of the Thriller Opening Animatic, sound and all!
We now have an idea of what our film should look like if we follow it right. All that's left to do now is the risk assessment and film shooting schedule.
