Good morning!
This week, I am going to be blogging about Spirited Away – in particular, its animatic.
Following the ‘Storyboarding’ workshop last week, I decided to really look at the transition from animatic to the final product.
A few things we discussed in regards to animatics were:
To have black at the beginning and end of the animatic.
This informs the audience of its beginning and end so that the audience can mentally prepare to pay attention and not miss out any initial details.
Adding sound: before or after?
Although most productions involve recording sound first and then animating, in an animatic, the reverse may be preferred.
Music can represent various events. This is especially evident in the scene of Spirited Away where the family car crashes. We can use music to indicate an event at a specific timing.
Never slide characters across the screen in an animatic for movement.
Never have writing on the screen to indicate voices.
Spirited Away Animatic:
It was really eye opening to see the animatic after watching the final product so many times. There is a clear difference between the animation and animatic. The drawings are a lot more detailed in the final cut whereas the animatic aims to capture the scene, layout and action. The use of music is especially effective in the opening scenes where we are discovering a new world.
