Professional Industry Practice -Research Blog by

Personal Bio

frasiermjande — 2023-10-26 09:46:17 UTC

My topic for professional industry practice is pre-production visuals (storyboard & animatic). Considering that this is my given role in my team for our short film production module, I also want to research into the specifics of programs and techniques that are used in professional industry practice. After this module I hope that I become more well rounded for professional industry practice and deliver high quality storyboards/animatics and quicker edit times.

I have an interest in pre-production for animation because it leads the ground work for the whole animation process. You need to have a good understanding of cinematography to the lineup shots and get the desired results, you must have a good timing so you know how many frames are needed for certain scenes and you need to have quite a good idea of perspective so you can show your ideas clearly. During this time, my main aim will be to produce a high-quality storyboard and animatic. I want my research to show a varying spread of research while adapting techniques to the whole pre-production process

Mouse - Early Storyboard

frasiermjande — 2023-11-02 12:58:18 UTC

Group Role

frasiermjande — 2023-11-02 13:20:07 UTC

For Short Film Production, I am heavily involved in pre/post production being the storyboard artist/director and lead editor. This is responsibility I hold mainly because we are a "smaller than average" group but i'm excited to lead this projects cinematography.

Research plan

frasiermjande — 2023-11-04 13:10:42 UTC

Storyboarding techniques: would involve researching various techniques for creating effective and clear, storyboards, including understanding, shot, composition, framing, camera, angles, and visual storytelling principles

Storyboard software and tools: I aim to familiarise myself with industry popular software and tools (Toon Boom,Adobe Animate,etc)and compare my experience w/ each.

Reverse Engineering: i hope to dissect and analyse an existing scene (animated or live action) to understand how the scene flows w/ the characters story & movement.

Drawing/ illustration skill: develop an ability to produce quick and clear thumbnails,making it so I can receive critiques from clients and change the story with ease

Editing efficiency: having an ability to easily use Premier pro and create multiple versions of edits to give my team, the biggest variation, also working on post production effects and transitions.

Feedback and Collaboration: during my process I’m going to seek feedback from my peers ,This will enable me to change my perspective and refine certain issues.

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 11:26:02 UTC

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 11:26:50 UTC

Youtuber "Toniko Pantoja"

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 11:34:26 UTC

Youtuber "Toniko Pantoja" has produced many helpful advice/tutorial videos on their channel regarding most pre preproduction. The videos i watched contained a lot of good advice regarding the characters placing focusing on portraying constant action in scenes.

Reverse Engineering

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 11:45:56 UTC

this video reverse engineers a Korean film back into a basic storyboard, I found it really helpful. Seeing the live action shot beside the illustration. Seeing the comparison between storyboard and final shot really helps when understanding pacing/movements significance

Amarture Storyboarding

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 12:42:40 UTC

I found this YouTuber, who does storyboards on a similar amateur level to me, I wanted to start with this video because I don’t have a lot of industry level experience with storyboarding. I hope learning certain skills at a lower level will help me advance quicker.

ReplyForward

Udemy Storyboarding

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 12:43:38 UTC

I purchased a Udemy course on the basics of storyboarding at the start of the module, and my intent was to see if direct learning would drastically improve any area of storyboarding that I had. The second module was done with assistance from this course, and personally I think it helped me map out my storyboards better and show consistency throughout.

Storyboarding - IPad

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 13:19:05 UTC

Before buying a drawing tablet all of my artwork was done on my iPad Pro. I was hoping to find useful, storyboard programs based on the iPad and I found a video showing a method to fully storyboard independently on the iPad, initially i had planned to experiment with the software.

The software ended up being a technical nightmare also based within a 3-D space. I think I found a comfortable space using procreate for my main illustration uses so for the sake of production I’m gonna stick to it.

Episode 4F19 "Homer's Enemy"

frasiermjande — 2023-11-06 13:30:56 UTC

Inception

frasiermjande — 2023-11-07 10:26:09 UTC

First Draft Storyboard

frasiermjande — 2023-11-07 10:32:38 UTC

This was my first completed draft for the storyboard, I was happy with how it turned out, but because of the copyright issue between ITVX and the authors we weren’t allowed to do the story.

I’m upset, I never got to finalise it but I can treat this first task as practice for our new story.

Initial Sketching

frasiermjande — 2023-11-07 10:46:58 UTC

Our first time reading the story we wanted to nail down the aspect of his overtorquing, I think we agreed to visualise the speech bubbles (because we wanted to be mindful of all deaf audience) I’m happy with how it turned out, but I’m not on character design

Storyboard update

frasiermjande — 2023-11-07 10:51:11 UTC

This storyboard was done with my prior experience and some early research (youtube,online tutorials),when doing this first storyboard I wanted to get the general understanding and overall tone of the story set so I prioritised action/emotions over quality.

Just after finishing the storyboard, we were updated on our situation and will then told that are animations would be cut from 7 mins to 3.5, the statement filled me with relief, but also upset me. Relieved because it’s less automation and less of a strainoverall but upset because the story needs to be told in full.

I am personally happy with how it turned out,It is a simple illustration but it proved helpful for my team to understand shot locations/camera movements/characters interactions.After finishing this, I’m starting my next version, I do hope that in my next iteration, I up the quality and we can get the character design implemented.

V1 Storyboard

frasiermjande — 2023-11-07 10:55:15 UTC

Audio Edit

frasiermjande — 2023-11-09 12:00:26 UTC

Initial Animatic Editing

frasiermjande — 2023-11-09 12:06:37 UTC

Initial Animatic

frasiermjande — 2023-11-09 12:12:26 UTC

Final Animatic

frasiermjande — 2023-11-12 15:59:28 UTC

Photoshop & Edit Frames

frasiermjande — 2023-11-13 15:51:12 UTC

V2 Storyboard

frasiermjande — 2024-01-03 10:04:30 UTC

After finishing The initial storyboard I wanted to create a heavier detail, not only because our time had been cut, but also to help with camera angles and movements. This one I perceived was going to be the final storyboard which I would use for the animatic.

I’d like the process I’m currently going through, after finishing my initial storyboard I surveyed people (classmates & friends) and revised what should be done better and went over things I forgot which includes a title sequence.

V3 Storyboard

frasiermjande — 2024-01-03 10:09:36 UTC

for this storyboard I thought it would be useful if I tried to make the characters more emotive and rounded to help with the animation process. I’ve enjoyed doing all these storyboards because it feels like a constant evolution of the character and their movements throughout the story.

Industry research

frasiermjande — 2024-01-03 10:30:36 UTC

Starting this with the goal of having my independent animatic be the end products I wanted to look at all the professional 2D Storyboards done by large animation studios (FOX,) to see if they had similarities.

Introduction

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:24:56 UTC

Research/Improvement Plan

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:29:13 UTC

Initial Research/Testing (week 1-2)

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:35:22 UTC

Animatic

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:45:43 UTC

Procreate

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:57:41 UTC

Procreate is the main app I use for illustration, 90% of the digital are I have produced was using my iPad and Procreate. I did want to spend part of this project experimenting with different programs And comparing the results, but unfortunately I had other responsibilities that took priority (signed stories).

*footer

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 12:58:06 UTC

RESEARCH MATERIAL

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 13:14:55 UTC

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & REFLECTION

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 13:23:17 UTC

EVALUATION

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 13:26:32 UTC

REFRENCES

frasiermjande — 2024-01-10 13:26:45 UTC

Group PipeLine

frasiermjande — 2024-01-11 12:54:00 UTC

frasiermjande — 2024-01-12 12:01:42 UTC

Sign stories is a project that was assigned to our class by ITVX, the intent was to take a children’s book series and create several animation pilots. Working with sign stories was really exciting because: industry practice, real deadlines and a tight feedback loop with the ITVX team.

*Aardman Dinosaurs (Peter Western)

frasiermjande — 2024-01-12 13:27:47 UTC

*Aardman “CRACKING ANIMATION”

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 12:55:39 UTC

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:01:38 UTC

the complete animation course by Chris Patmore

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:01:44 UTC

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:01:52 UTC

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:02:33 UTC

In the section regarding storyboarding, they make a firm point that you need to always be focused on the character movements, character emotions, and the spacing. A common theme I see between studios is prioritising the emotion of a scene over the quality to see if gags work or the right message was given.

Initial Thoughts

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:18:42 UTC

My initial thoughts are the amount of production I’m handling, For my group I’m: director, storyboard artist, rough animator and editor. I don’t have much time to put all my focus into a specific area And I’m worried that all these responsibilities In the other module will distract me from my research/experimenting.

I’m still going optimistic for what I can produce, but there is not a heavy amount of confidence behind abilities to create polished animatic

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 13:31:26 UTC

I bought this graphics tablet so I can get more work done at home, considering most of the work I do inside of university will be related to the Sign Stories module.

Animatic Editing

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 14:03:30 UTC

I started implementing the frames into the already cut audio, creating a simple drag-and-drop process. I’m happy with how it turned out, mainly because everything was consistent and merged seamlessly which i tribute to the Udemy course learder.

I doubt this will be my last adaptation of our teams animatic, but I’m just glad that I now have something to show that all my research was truly helpful.

Preparation

frasiermjande — 2024-01-13 14:16:50 UTC

Before starting to create my animatic It felt needed to prepare certain things so that the whole process could go along smoothly and would give me the time/accessibility to create other variations

In preparation for the creation of the animatic, I decided to make my life easier by going onto the audio and sectioning it line to line to help match up frames. This method proved quite efficient And made the whole process relatively easy and repeatable for all members of the team to contribute.

Having each of the frames as a separate image was also a requirement, Photoshop has a feature called “image processor” which has an ability to automate repetitive custom tasks, maintain image quality and provide a consistent output, this saved me lots of time manually editing the 30~frames needed.

Storyboarding

frasiermjande — 2024-01-14 11:29:31 UTC

frasiermjande — 2024-01-14 16:19:52 UTC

Lord, P. and Sibley, B. (1998) Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D animation. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7653266M/CRACKING_ANIMATION.

LavenderTowne (2021) TESTING EVERY ANIMATIC PROGRAM [from free to $$]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ad6y6nHYd0.

Micah Buzan ANIMATION (2019) How to Storyboard for animation (Part 1) #Storyboards #Animation #ArtTips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JJxRlxV2s.

Patmore, C. (2003) The Complete Animation Course : The Principles, practice and techniques of successful animation. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA68090698.

Thomas Flight (2020) Lessons from the parasite storyboards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE26E4IM_-g.

Toniko Pantoja (2020) How to Storyboard Smarter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyDbN1hpFzA.

Toniko Pantoja (2021) Common MISTAKES beginning storyboard artists make for animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FobYdp19LR0.

LibGuides: Harvard Style Guide: websites (no date). https://libguides.ucd.ie/harvardstyle/harvardwebsite.

Edit Review

frasiermjande — 2024-01-14 16:29:00 UTC

Finishing, the initial animatic was a big step in our production line, by the time I finished this we had polished our characters look and my V2 Storyboard included other characters that had been mentioned/imported(teacher/students).

I’m proud of how the timing worked out and it’s an all-round decent edit, but unfortunately the storyboard frames was so small I lost a lot of quality So it’s been noted for the next variation.

Final Export

frasiermjande — 2024-01-14 16:31:48 UTC

Finishing this final animatic feels good, I feel like this is a piece of work. I could happily show to someone and tell them that I worked hard on it. I’m happy I got so much colour and emotion from all the different variations of my storyboards, and it led to this being probably the best storyboard I’ve done to date.

I showed my team and they were happy with the quality, when it was 60% done we had to show our current production to ITVX. Overall the representative was positive about all the work we done as a team and she had enjoyed the animatic I created.

frasiermjande — 2024-01-15 00:00:11 UTC

Final Storyboard thoughts

frasiermjande — 2024-01-15 12:02:05 UTC

After finishing the third variation I had to move onto creating the animatic, time was a large constrained, mainly because of my team size/list of responsibilities. I’m upset that I won’t do a fourth variation, but I feel it’s unneeded.

This storyboard really blew my expectations for what I thought I would produce in this project, I think the variety of research was a massive aid and really helped me keep updating my method. I found my most useful piece of research to be a YouTuber “Tonkin Pantoja” who Provided advice/tutorials about storyboarding, framing, consistency, and general industry practice.

Evaluation

frasiermjande — 2024-01-15 12:44:22 UTC

After overlooking the development of this project I have mixed feelings towards my performance on this module, I recognize that my enthusiasm focused heavily on storyboarding techniques/methods, while overshadowing my other preproduction responsibilities (animatic).Despite this, I’m overall satisfied with the work produced. The project gave me the opportunity to experiment and define a production process with techniques/methods that varied studio to studio, highlighting the importance of striking a balance between various stages of preproduction

The research conducted throughout this project not only enabled me to establish and optimize multiple aspects of the storyboarding and preproduction processes, personally, this experience truly showed me the requirement of experimentation and variation as an indispensable skill is needed in professional practice. I discovered that the knowledge gained from watching amateur tutorials was surprisingly beneficial, offering unique perspectives and practical insights.

Despite these challenges, I find satisfaction in the outcome of this project. The process of storyboarding, marked by a deliberate emphasis on variation, brought a . This approach allowed me to step back from the story and break down scenes/characters, ended up leading the projects preproduction by designing new areas and introducing updated background characters. The nature of the storytelling process not only helped this project by giving me so much freedom to experiment but also highlighted the significance of embracing variation as a skill to apply to all steps of production.

In conclusion, I take satisfaction in the work I've produced during this project. However, I recognize areas for improvement. If given the opportunity to redo this project I would prioritize a schedule/time frame and focus more on generating a wider array of variations.

Moving On (future use)

frasiermjande — 2024-01-15 13:30:18 UTC

After completing this project, I've developed a better understanding of the difficulties that come with preproduction. In my opinion, the abilities obtained are indispensable for projects at the professional level as well as individual art and design, especially when it comes to preserving shot consistency and creating successful feedback loops.

With the aim of producing a self-directed short animation for my final year project, I believe that the knowledge and abilities I have gained from this experience will be crucial. If everything goes as planned, the use of these acquired proficiencies should greatly help to the success of my project.

The biggest challenge for the future will be adapting these methods/techniques I’ve learned from this module into my normal production style. I still have old habits of “not trusting the process “and not consistently getting feedback But I’m confident in my ability to adapt and change.