In the animatics rotation, we learned where stories begin. Thumbnail sketches, storyboards, simple movement and sound. All of these elements put together give an idea of what a story may look like visually on the screen.
The first week of the rotation was focusing on understanding what an animatic is, and all the components involved. After choosing a prompt, we began creating thumbnail sketches on post it notes to start a storyboard.
Here is my first drafted storyboard.
At the end of the first week we had a session learning premier pro. Although I already had experience in premier, it was still extremely useful as there was still much for me to learn.
I put my sketches onto the timeline and began playing with movement and timing – this gave me a much greater understanding of where certain parts of the story weren’t communicated very well soo I could focus on that next.
Starting off the second week with some feedback from Izzy and the rest of the group was valuable as I could get an outsiders’ perspective and see where the weak areas were and what I should be focusing on.
The second week consisted of tweaking, adjusting and finding sound that fit with my visuals.
Overall, I didn’t massively enjoy this rotation. My storyboarding skills are weak, and whilst I appreciate this is an area I should work on to improve; I have found that this traditional way of storytelling, is not for me. This rotation did however, introduce me to the concept of an animatic as I had been previously unaware – and showed me how useful it can be compared to just a storyboard, how you can tell the story with key elements. If I were to re-do this rotation, I would try and create more dynamic sketches with a larger range of perspectives and angles to avoid it looking so flat and all the shots looking