Animatic Research

What is an Animatic? An animatic is a series of picture taken from the storyboard which are then edited and put together in order, one after the other. It is the sequence that the film will be in and match up to, there will be rough dialogue/soundtrack with it as well to try and bring the animatic to life to see how the film would look if we did it as it was planned out on the story board to see whether the images and sound work together. 

How have animatics developed over time? 

The first animatics started in a not a high technical manner and were very basic, they were made by somebody filming and taping the storyboards and then an editor would edit the footage to an audio track to try and be able to bring it alive. By our standards today this would be very, very basic. We now have the technologies available to be able to create 2D and 3D animatics so this allows us to create animatics that almost look like its real. Although some companies do prefer to still use old fashioned techniques as they feel as that it looks better been drawn with the sound over the top, which is what we have done for our animatic.

What are the types of animatics?

There are lots of different types of animatics, some of them are listed below:
Some animatics are created in 2D or 3D using different software to be able to create it, we plan to be doing our animatic in 2D.
Some animatics can be created by somebody taking a lot of photographs and then editing them together which would get the right pictures of locations, actors etc. This sort of animatic is called a photomatic.
Another way to create an animatic could be by using a repurposed video (this is using video footage which is meant for a different purpose when it was took), this type of animatic is called a videomatic or a Rip-o-matic. 

This is somebody taking a photo for a  photomatic, they are taking a photo of the establishing shot for the start of the scene. They would then edit all the pictures that they took and put them together creating a series of photos one after the other. This method takes longer but if done properly looks very good and more detail as they are the actual locations they will be using.

Which elements of the final film should be included in the animatic? 

The elements that should be included should be: the type of camera shot, we will have to match up everything so if its a long shot in the animatic then it will have to be a long shot in the film.
Any camera movement that we plan to do so its almost exactly the same as what the final product will actually look like, we will be able to see on the animatic if the movement we plan to do looks good and fits in with the context of the film before we actually shoot it.
The sound that we include in the animatic should either be very similar or the exact same sound that we will use. 

What are the advantages of producing an animatic prior to shooting on location? 

The benefits of producing an animatic for the producer of a film would be that they could create a timetable to show what shots they should be doing in the day, where they should be shooting and how long the shot should go on for. It would help everybody as the animatic should help showing where everything should be, props, actors etc. It may also help lower the costs for the production of the film as if everybody knows what they should be doing and how to make the shot then they should be able to do the shot without a lot of outtakes which means they could do more scenes quicker meaning they may be able to actually produce the film quicker than that they would have been able to before they produced the animatic.

The director of the film could use animatics to their advantage because they could see before they shoot the scene if the shot would actually look good so when they get out on to the location they know that it will be good where as if they don't use the animatic to see beforehand they could waste a lot of time and money getting out onto location. It would be quite annoying if everybody who was in charge of making the film got out on to the location to just have to go back so we want to make an animatic to avoid this situation so we make the most out of the amount of the time that we have to shoot our film.

The film composer may find that by doing the animatic they could find that something that they have in mind may not actually work within the context of the film, something could not fit right within the film or their initial ideas might not work, they could try many different shot types to get the right shot that they wanted to so by testing it out on the animatic they can save a lot of time when actually making the film.

The sound effects designers could see straight away if the sound that they want to achieve would actually be possible as they can see back in the animatic the sounds that they are going to have to try to replicate so they could tell the producers if they think they might have trouble doing the foley sound for something so the producers can change their ideas to make it possible for the replicate sound to be produced.

The camera operators can use animatics to see beforehand the movement they may have to do for the shots they are going to have to do, once again this saves time as the directors don't have to fill them in when they get there, they already know the shot types, movement etc. By doing the animatic it saves a lot of time which is valuable. The lighting directors can also see before hand where they need to set up the lights to get the best shot so they can work with the camera operators to be able to get the best shot that they can.

The actors can see what the plan is for the scenes before and what they need to do during the shots, they could say any problems that arise before they go on the location also they could practise any tricky problems that they think could happen. It helps the costume designers because if they see where the scenes are going to be shot they need to think about the locations and what the actors are going to have to wear because of the environment surrounding them.

All of the people involved in the making of the film are greatly helped by the construction of a animatic which is why we want to create one so we get good ideas beforehand what we are going to do out on location which will save us a lot of time to be able to get the best shots that we can which will let us create the best film we can.



This is an example from The World End, as you can see the film exactly matches the animatic they made for the film. It matches what the actors are doing in the film, this is what an animatic should do so this is what we plan to do with our animatics. Every film made would have an animatic of some sort, this animatic is quite professionally done as it looks like an artist has done all the drawing, we don't have the luxury of this so we will be drawing out our pictures and then editing them together. The animatic for films would actually be somebody's job to do as its an important thing to create in the film.


This is the animatic for Iron Man 3, this one is quite different from the previous and will be very different from ours. The designers of this animatic have used very expensive software to be able to produce 3D images and put them all together and for it to create this, its made in cartoon form and it looks almost actually real. This would take a very long time to be able to make this and once again it would be somebody's job to be able to make it, ours won't be able to be like this at all. Its a major Hollywood film so you would expect an animatic such as this.

In conclusion our animatic is going to be very important to us whilst we make our film as it is going to save a lot of time when we go out to shoot and it gives us a good structure to make our film on. Without the animatic we may struggle to make our film in the time we have got so by making the animatic we feel that our film is going to be at a high standard. Overall the animatic is allowing us to make the film and seeing what it is going to look like without actually shooting the film so we can see any improvements that we might have to make.