The video has nothing to do with the rest of this post :P. I was sketching “defensive tombstones”, and Sebastian walked by and said, “I have the perfect shot tracked for that!” so I threw some in! I’ll wait to develop them until we know if we have a specific place for them, though.
It’s also the first video on our new Mango-Specific YouTube channel. There are some videos we want to post, but aren’t really deserving of the massive traffic the BlenderFoundation channel gets, so it’s more for scraps and the like. If that’s your thing, though, feel free to subscribe-or-whatever.
Anyway! Anyways? Anywaying?
We’re going to be using most of the models-in-progress ‘as is’ in order to start the animatic, but before we do that, I’m editing down the storyboards into a loosely timed deal to try and give us an idea of timing. This means that by the end of the day, we’re going to have a film. Not a finished film- but all the shots will be in there. Then we get to spend the rest of the project making them look great! It’ll be interesting to see how the initial timing estimates compare to the final; I suspect I’m cutting a lot of shots a bit short. Seeing it as a sequence of shots like this, it’s more like a comic book than a film, so a ‘see-one-image-move-onto-the-next’ pacing inherently feels more natural than one that actually gives actors enough time to complete all their actions.
There are definite pros and cons to having the film this well locked down so early. For sure, especially after we get the whole animatic done, we’re going to know exactly what we need to move forward, and will be able to block out scheduling for every single aspect of production/post. For example, we’ll know exactly what parts of the church we need to measure, to avoid wasting anyone’s time.
It can also make things tricky, though. In a way, we had a lot of shot selections locked after just a few days of madcap work, meaning we’re working an awful lot on CG models/environments and the like, and surprisingly little on actually designing the flow of the film. We’re still going to be able to treat it as an evolutionary process though, and as long as each iteration is improving upon the previous, we’re on the right track! After seeing all of these assets come together, this is going to be an absolutely killer animatic :D
is there a link for your youtube channel?
Link right here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MangoOpenMovie
Why would you totally lock down everything?
the more you lock down, you spend more time make those things looking good than tryng to figure out what to do in the way, also you can see problems in advance and plane the best way to solve them :D
Don’t take shame in polishing that animatic a little more than you normally would. It’s all about communication to the team about where details will go.
Also, next time you youtube post, tack on a second to the beginning and end or something. A title card. Anything. By the time Flash catches up to playing the video smoothly, I didn’t even see the tombstone raise out of the floor. (my computer’s fault, i know, but a common one i see often)
Aside from being a whiner full of suggestions, I’m also a fan full of excitement (who isn’t?)
WOOOOOOOO!
I’ll keep that in mind for later uploads, aye!
LOL very funny. The pistons dont really fit into the space they pop out from but who cares!
Very interesting approach, locking down the animatic this early. I think it offers a great opportunity to really focus in on the things that need work, and allow you to make a very cohesive film overall.
I think it would be really cool if you could do weekly (or once every two weeks) releases of the animatic, so the community can see how things shape up over time! If not doing this live while the project is underway, at least saving the animatics you make each week for later viewing to see how the project came together would be interesting!