Film Studies & Cinematography: Final Project

19/6/2024 - 24/7/2024 (Week 9 - Week 14)
Seh Zi Qi/ 0355872/ Bachelor of Design(Honours) in Creative Media
Module Name: PVT 60104 Film Studies & Cinematography
Final Project

LIST

Final Project: Animatic Storyboard Production



LECTURES




INSTRUCTIONS

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PROJECT 3: ANIMATIC STORYBOARD PRODUCTION

"Students must produce storyboard and animatic video based on approved materials in the Project 1. "

  1. Deliverables:

    1. Prepare thumbnail drawing (10%)

      1. Sketch your story ideas on A4 paper.

      2. You are free to use any kind of format as long as the story can be understood in an orderly manner.

      3. Feel free to use text to add description.

      4. Present in the class for brainstorming purposes.

      5. Output all drawings as one pdf file.

    2. Prepare storyboard (10%)

      1. Format: A4 size with landscape orientation

      2. Contents: 

        1. Panel no

        2. Pages no

        3. Description
          - action
          - audio (monologue, dialogue, sound effects)
          - effects (fire, explosion etc)

        4. Duration

      3. You can download from any storyboard template.

      4. Use an arrow to guide the action and camera work.

      5. Use black and white colour tone to show some depth in the composition

      6. You can plan the drawing as a layer such as background, prop, character etc. to make it animatable for animatics. 

      7. Output all pages as one pdf file.

    3. Prepare animatic (10%)

      1. Using any editing software such as Adobe Premiere, create a new project with 1280 x 720 size and 24fps framerate.

      2. Import the image of each panel and arrange them according to the panel sequence.

      3. Put the right estimated duration of each panel. Preview and edit back and forth to get the right pacing, continuity and screen direction.

      4. Animate the character action and camera works, replacing the arrow direction in the storyboard. You may have different layers of the shot such as background, prop, character etc to make it animatable in the editing software.

      5. Animate the transitions (fade in, fade out, dissolve etc.)

      6. Put the audio elements such as music background that can enhance the emotion of the shot, voice over (dialogue / monologue) and sound effects.

      7. Indicate of each panel number and timecode through text overlays

  2. Output the video as mp4 format

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Thumbnail Drawing Progress

Once we were briefed about our project, I went back and thought of ideas on what I should showcase within my thumbnails. I decided that looking through my Project 1: Scriptwriting would be a good start as I will be following the script in making my animatic so I drew based on the descriptions I wrote.

When I figured out what I needed to draw, I used a 3x2 box method as I found that was the easiest way for me to draw thumbnails.

Fig 1.1, Thumbnail Drawing Progress

I made a lot of variations but I stuck to the ones that were simple as an animatic was supposed to capture the script's movement, and camera angle and able to deliver the message to an audience. I had written the actions below the boxes and the red texts are used to convey camera movement.

Fig 2.1, Final Thumbnail Drawings (1-2) 

Fig 2.2, Final Thumbnail Drawings (3-4) 

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Storyboard Progress

Before starting on the storyboarding process, Mr Kamal suggested that we should find and use a storyboard template for my base. I decided to choose this template as my base since it was simple and did what I needed. (Later regretting this decision because the storyboard is supposed to be landscape, not portrait.)

Fig 3.1, Storyboard Template on Pinterest

After taking the template, I went to Procreate to create my storyboard. Using the thumbnail drawings, I expanded on certain ideas and sketches further while discarding some of the sketches as they didn't really fit in the animatic that I wanted to do since I had a certain idea when I went into making the storyboard.

Fig 3.2, Storyboard Drawing Progress

After finishing the storyboard, I realised that the deliveries required the storyboards to be in the landscape but I had already finished so I decided to proceed as I felt it would waste more time to redo the entire thing than to proceed.

Fig 4.1, Final Storyboard Drawings (1-3)

Fig 4.2, Final Storyboard Drawings (4-6)

Fig 4.3, Final Storyboard Drawings (7-8)

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Drawing & Editing Progress

After finishing the storyboard, I decided that I wanted to redraw the storyboard drawings since some of the characters weren't drawn as nicely as I hoped and I wanted a more polished look despite it not being required.

Fig 5.1, Drawing Progress for Animatic

Once I was done with redrawing the storyboard, I went ahead with editing. I decided to use Davinci Resolve as my editing software as Premiere Pro had an issue that was a bit hard to fix and I had already downloaded Davinci as an alternative solution.

I went to Pixabay to find my sound effects as my friend recommended me this site as it had royalty-free sounds and music if I needed any background music.

Fig 5.2, Editing Progress for Animatic


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FINAL Animatic Storyboard Production


Fig 6.1, Final Animatic Thumbnail Sketches PDF

Fig 6.2, Final Animatic Storyboard PDF

YouTube Link:

Fig 6.3, Final Animatic



REFLECTION

In this final project, I felt that I achieved quite a lot within the 14 weeks we were given. I feel proud that I was able to do what I always wanted to do when I was young which was make an animatic for a character of mine; It still feels quite surreal but it feels really cool to be able to work on a project like this. One of the things that I struggled with a lot was editing because I'm not a great editor myself and had to ask my friend to help me in this department since he has editing experience; without his help, I wouldn't be able to finish this project and submit it before the deadline. From what I learned from the final project and the 14 weeks was that I need to be better at my time management and if I am determined enough, I can achieve anything that I set my mind to. I had a lot of artblock during this semester which made it really hard to work on the multiple projects that were given to me but I had to push through even though I thought I couldn't; This made me realise that my mind was the only roadblock all along and that I had to figure out different ways to tackle my difficulties to achieve greater heights. I can't stop thanking Mr Kamal for being a great lecturer who was patient with me throughout the 14 weeks, he taught me many lessons and was able to give ample feedback when I needed it which made me want to push myself further since my lecturer believed in me and the friends that helped me push through the difficult times by encouraging me as they were able to push me out of the rut that I had felt.


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