GMH - More Storyboarding and Some Animatics!

Ok so the last time I spoke about GMH was a really long time ago. Like seriously long. but that's because between then and now we had another meeting with gay man's health where we all caught up, animatics were shown and Alistair told us that gay man's health was becoming a part of waverly care. He said they still wanted the films but were unsure on the branding that would go at the end of the films so he was going to wait till he was sure about them before he got the films off of us. He didn't ever get back to us. So I had intended to continue to work on it and just get it finished so that they could have it when they wanted it. But other things just kept getting in the way and I just didn't want to finish it when I had so much other stuff going on. It was too much for a while and I put it off till I had more time.

That time did not come for a very long time. I kept getting more things and other deadlines approached far before I had intended. But I have finished the film so they can collect it whenever they like it. But I won't be linking it here. I will be dropping it into my dropbox for my tutors to look at and I will also be putting some pictures but for now I am going to talk about animatics!!

So I mentioned in my last post about GMH that I was going to revise the storyboard. I was really lazy with that and the revision is only different in the respect that it has a big red x through the square to be removed.  Wa - lah! Very minimal changes.

It's funny actually because I was very proud of this storyboard when I first made it and I still am, I just would have made it differently now. I know now that camera angles are directions that should be included outside of the panels. Even though within this animation there are gaps in actions while the camera pans around I still would not have had the panning angles in their own boxes. I also may have actually explained some things to myself. I think at the time though I really knew this story inside and out so I didn't need too and when I told my clients I acted it out a bit as if I was the characters. I hope that wasn't embarrassing...

Anyway that's the storyboard revision. I did a lot more revising when it got to my animatic. I took a long time to put this together so I was constantly changing things because I was always watching previous parts while making the new ones and I was asking people's opinions as I went so things kept getting changed. So here's the animatic for this film. Which again is another pretty much bang on version. I kept very close too it for the final film.

Obviously between this version and the storyboard there are very few changes. It just moves now. I also cut out this small part where we follow a character around a club and nearly see from his POV while he scans it. I really only included that because I wanted some playful cinematic ways to move through the space. I don't like it when I have to limit my camera angles to flat and static cameras because it's an animation and it makes my workload to difficult. Unfortunately on this occasion I had too much work and the only thing I could do too make sure I finished this film on time was cut some unnecessary elements out of the film. Other than allowing me to fulfil my need for fancy camera work that scene didn't give me any reason to keep it. So it got cut! 

Next to that I spent a long time on this animatic trying to make sure things played for long enough too make sure that the maths was understandable to people for the first time. This is how I ended up with quite so many people watching the animatic. I got some advice from some people on things from that process too. 

For example people were confused by the initial introduction of the hearts and ticks and maths that's curtail to the animation. It was important that people didn't get too hung up on trying to figure them out and miss what they were actually saying. To get around that I included another establishing shot of a crowded dance floor in the club, several of those on the dance floor have bubbles above their heads with hearts and ticks. So that way we know not only is this how people talk in this animation but also that this is the end game. To present these elements to one another. So that unconfused that.

Lastly I didn't change this element in the animatic because it came from the last person I showed the animatic too but I changed it in the final film for the animatic. It was pointed out to me that I use two different ways to say no in the animatic and if I want the maths to stay consistent I was going to need to take one of them away. which I did.

Then just the animation.