Animatic

This is the animatic I made for this (without sound for now and overlapping lines as I realised after exporting it). It is worth mentioning that I was still working on character design when working on this, so the character will not always be 100% representative:

Reading Light Animatic

(I apologise for the sketches underneath parts of it, I struggled with getting rid of all of them)

For me, this animatic is mainly for timing. It is not spaced and therefore not at all a roadmap to what it will look like. In other words, it's not so much an animatic for the action, but one for shot progression. I realised while working on it that most people would make an animatic with the goal of essentially going straight from it to the finished film. However, I find it much more useful as a tool to re-establish key poses that need to be properly worked out and the set an idea of what the timing should be like.
This might be one of my quirks from working in live action. Through this progress I realised what the animatic is really there for. In my head, an animatic is an extension of a storyboard, but still essentially serves the same purpose. Of course, it does so much more than that. I realised the situation is very similar to what I mentioned in the Script section. There is more detail in a script for animation because action needs to be created, rather than described. A similar thought applies here. Whereas an animatic might be helpful for live action to visualise timing, in animation it creates the action on top of that and therefore needs more detail. Unfortunately, this realisation came to late in terms of this module.

Looking at this now I can already point out certain changes I would like to make. For example, one of the most important things for me is to make my audience uncomfortable with the length of the shots, some of which will be unmoving. Some of the shots, especially in the beginning, are simply not long enough to convey that. Therefore I will have to go back over it and change it, or at the very least make a note of it and by how much this will shift all the frames.
Another part I'm growing increasingly unhappy with is the end shot. I'm contemplating changing it to an extreme close up.
Also I just realised that I completely omitted the wardrobe that was supposed to be in the corner by the door. Another thing that needs adding in.

I also realised that I don't work as clean as I probably should. Considering I'm working on my own for this project, I can get away with it. However, it's definitely something to take on board for further projects. When working with a team, work like this won't be good enough as it doesn't communicate clearly enough what is happening to anyone that isn't me.

The last thing I want to add is that I've come to realise the amount of learning I will have to do from now on. As with this whole project, this was the first time I have had to make an animatic in this way. After finishing it it's very clear that there should have been more frames in between to communicate the action clearer. I struggled with deciding which poses and camera angles to use as frames for this and I believe it shows. Again, something I will definitely work on in the future as it is a crucial step in the pre-production of animated films.
It was a steep learning curve in making it itself as well. I used four passes on this, a general sketch, the background, a sketch for the action and the action. I believe for a animatic I shouldn't have had to use that many passes and I feel that for the amount of passes I did use the outcome isn't as polished as it should be. I was a bit confused as to how to the ideal workflow for creating an animatic and had to do some research on what other animators recommended. I ended up using a few bits and pieces from each to suit my needs, but again, I seemed to have underestimated what kind of learning I would and will still, have to do.

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I went over the animatic again, dragging a lot of the shots out more, to slow down the overall pace. As mentioned above, I wanted to create tension. When nothing happens on screen, it represents inner struggle in a lot of cases, a character thinking maybe, or simply the build up to the next shot. It's almost like keeping eye contact for too long, it feels awkward and creates tension.
Apart from the timing, I fixed some other small details as well (like getting rid of the standing lamp in the corner. At first it was there to symbolise that he used it previously and now it's unplugged. But that seemed to not fit in with his room being so specifically arranged for his blindness. Therefore it's now gone).
See the new version here:

Reading Light_Animatic_v2


Due to having started on this particular project a lot later than I should have, I am unable to complete any Line Tests for it at this time. Ideally I would have liked to have at least on line test done, preferably one of scene 5, because there is a lot of camera movement and it includes both the boy and the reading light. That being said, because I do want to include line testing in this project, as it is a vital part of the animation process, but I also want to get started right away on production, I have decided to actively include line testing as part of production. I will try to work out a workflow that works for me by the end of this module in hopes of making the transition into production easier. Hopefully this will allow me to efficiently move forward without being hindered by still finishing pre-production.