Here were the frames from the animatic I wanted to create. I could see the potential, but I realised quickly that it was going to take me far too long to create anything substantial because each frame was taking so long.
The review of my style and the method of which I was producing work in this project pushed me to create my work differently, and I decided to start off with a storyboard. This would allow me to be free and flowing with my mark making and give me the freedom to keep it sketchy, so I could add more frames to the animatic. I wanted to take the same scene and draw it how I would now, and then I can make it into an animatic and hopefully add music and perhaps even sound effects.
Looking Into Camera Angles
I have a good called, 'Dream Worlds'[31] by the animator Hans Bacher, and he goes very in depth about camera angles and how to produce different feelings with different ways of framing the subject.
These are just a few of the many pages he has that explain different camera angles. You can see how different compositions, angles and subject matters change the way the frame looks. Making something slightly off centre will help to produce a balanced composition, or having the frame slightly askew will produce a disturbing feeling. Close ups will give certain subjects more impact, and having something further away will give more information about the area and where it's set.
I wanted to try these things out for myself, so I decided to create my storyboard for my animatic and try out some of these things, such as the tilting of the camera and having a variation of close up and far away shots. I will also try to make my compositions varied and interesting.
Storyboard
I decided upon 9 frames all in all for this animatic. I knew I wanted to perhaps make certain scenes move, so I knew certain frames would last longer than others. I tried to add different composition types, the first three frames have the tilted frame to show her anger, and then we go into a wider shot to show her slamming the door open. I then went to a profile shot, showing the fireplace so it would show the light source. I then went to a close up shot of her, to show her anger. Then we have Colin in bed, looking at her, and then he props himself up, getting angry before he starts crying again in the final close up.
I tried to add shading and dramatic lighting to the scene so I added the fireplace, but I didn't add too much other details. I feel they just take away from the emotion of the scene and don't need to be there if it's not completely vital. I'm happy with how these frames came out and will now try and add them to an animation to see how it works.
The Final Animatic
I always forget how tedious it is to make animations, even with it just being a few frames. I'm glad more than ever now that I didn't decide to make a full animation.
I decided to use music from the website Incompetech[32] from Kevin Macleod, as he makes really good royalty free music and I've used his songs before. I always enjoy his style of music, especially the soundtrack style. I then also used FreeSound[33] for my sound effects, as I wanted to add the slamming of the door, stomping down the hallway and rustling of the sheets.
My animatic can be viewed here[34].
I am glad with how it came out, and I liked how making the frames move and putting sound in gave the animatic more life, but it did remind me that this part of animation wasn't what I enjoyed the most. It just doesn't excite me as much as character creation and making the still artwork, so I now know I won't want to be involved in that part of animation in the future.
Overall, I felt a bit frustrated by this part of the task, but I was glad I did it. It did make me realise some things about my career overall, which I'm happy with. I'm just glad I have made some really nice artwork for the book and that's what I will be taking away from this project.
Post Presentation
After showing my animatic to my tutors Fumio and Kieren, they asked me to try and add some voice acting to my animatic to give it a real animation feel and make it much more inclusive to the viewer. This sounded like a really good idea and I decided to write the very short script according to the scene in the book.
The scene I have drawn up is only quite short, so the script isn't long. I have decided I will do the voice of Mary, and my friend Sam will be providing the voice of Colin.
We had fun doing the voice acting, as it was quite a dramatic scene so it required a lot of emotion. I added it to the animatic and had to move some of the scene around to go with the voice acting.
Here is the video with the added voice acting[35].
I feel the voice acting really has added the final layer to the animatic. It makes it much more authentic and the emotions read so much better, and having the script being read aloud really shows what the scene is about. It flows really nicely with the music and sound effects choices and I added a bit more motion to the scenes to create more of an emotive set up.
I enjoyed doing the voice acting part of this task and making sure it flows well with the music and images. I think perhaps I wasn't as happy with the animatic beforehand because it didn't feel finished and felt a bit wishy washy, but now I'm much happier with it and I'm so glad it was suggested to me.
Overall this has gone much better than I thought it had, and I'm feeling far less deflated about it now. It just goes to show that perseverance really helps to elevate any work you feel is under par.
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