Animatics

An Animatic is an initial storyboard with some movement and a soundtrack. In the animation process they're often made between the script being finished and the final animation. animators use the animatic to base their final renderings off.

I like to think of it as a storyboard that controls the pacing.

with animatics the audio is often recorded first so you have something to animate from. in a professional setting, an animatic usually wont be done with the official audio but a rough example.

with my animatic I want it to have that sort of genuine, ad lib kind of humour, so its much preferable for me to record my audio first and then base the animatic around the vocal performances.

Animatic Examples

Becky Prim is a pilot made by Karl Hadrika. This video is a staple of my childhood and I quote it regularly. I feel its incredibly well animated for what it is, very funny and a just really strong concept. When it comes to my animatic, it obviously wont be as well done/animated as this, since my aim is not to animate it fully and there's a significant difference in skill between me and Karl - I couldn't do this if I tried.

I like the use of sound effects in this, like when Becky slaps the bee out of the nerds hand, leaving it red and sizzling, or the hissing when Jessica breaks the caution tape. it adds a nice cartoon-y vibe reminiscent of older shows.

there's a variety of different angles which helps it feel dynamic and fluid. The animation is very smooth when it needs to be but the video remains an animatic, closer to a storyboard.

I've always been a big fan of the voice acting, people think its easier than it is to voice act. Jessica's voice is perfect and I love the way she loses it at the nerd/Becky. her whole inflection changes, reenforcing the idea that her sickly sweet persona is forced and put on. All the voices are so fitting, I might even get my VA's to watch this so they know what kind of performance to go for.

There's minimal colouring, only really when there's lighting that needs to be conveyed. The line art is scratchy and rough so backgrounds being a noticeably different shade helps prevent the characters from muddling with their surroundings.

The humour is witty and satirical, most of the jokes come from either overblown stereotypes or an awareness of them. A lot of jokes are set up and payed off really nicely and quite frankly I'm jealous that I can't write this good.

one example is Becky saying she hates "overblown nerd stereotypes" and then immediately being approached by one, or even Becky running into Lizzy Borden in purg, only for her to reappear later in the benchmarking sequence. a nice payoff does so much for a show.. I'm going to have to look into this more for my FMP.

2 in the AM PM is a short by J.G Quintel, the guy that would go on to make Regular Show. what's cool about this short is it contains the first examples of Mordecai and Benson outside of Regular show, its interesting to see that he's implemented characters from his previous projects into his show.

This animatic is shorter than Becky Prim and less ambitious, my animatic will be closer to this than Becky prim. When I was thinking of my idea and decided to set it at a petrol station I didn't intend for it to be so similar to this short's premise.. I may have to re-think my idea to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

The short opens with establishing shots and off screen sound, setting the tone and location. there's no music throughout, emphasising the boredom the protagonists feel. Like Becky Prim, random sections are properly animated and lip synced, which my FMP will not have, since I cant animate all that well.

The dialogue and humour is very dry and random, much like Quintel's future projects. when it comes to dialogue and script I want my project to be similar to this short. Most notably, I really like the scene where the cop is eating his crisps then just breathes them all in and flies through the door unexpectedly. i wanna do something like that with my fmp.

These are professional storyboards for Gravity Falls, and are probably the closest to the kind of animatic ill make. Instead of them being concise stories like my previous examples, these are just sections of episodes that aired on DisneyXD. my story will be more concise than these, but not as concise as Becky Prim or 2 in the AM PM, since i don't have that much time.

The audio is minimal and parts are clearly temporary, like how in the second video, Wendy's voice changes for one line, and Robbie is voiced by Alex Hirsch instead of his regular voice actor. there's more music and foley in the first video, like when the ropes snap or the dramatic music as the hot air balloon descends.

For my FMP I'm going to have foley more like the first video than the second, with more sound effects and potentially music. i do have producer friends that can help me with sound design and the software used for it. if I needed music I could easily get them to help me make a short track to go under the animatic.

Like Becky prim, the only colouring is done to show changes in lighting/highlight light sources, like the fire in the balloon being yellow. the boards contain minimal backgrounds that disappear when they aren't necessary.

the humour is there, like with multiple refences to the creature dipper wins for Wendy being of "indeterminate species" and Soos' "oh no, a letter ripped!" comment. I love gravity falls personally, its another one of those things I grew up on and never grew out of.

From looking at examples of animatics I've learned that nothing needs to be perfect. animatics are the base that proper animators will work off of, so if the background disappears for a second or the line art is scratchy, it doesn't really matter. with my project I'm not going to focus too much on making it look perfect, more on the script, voice acting and foley.

humour in these things works best when its off the cuff and satirical, with jokes that are set up on payed off in a timely manner. I think I'm going to look further into setting up jokes because comedic timing can really make or break a short for me.

since animatics are not fully animated, they leave notes and arrows to direct animators in what direction a character is turning or how the camera will zoom and pan. The lip syncing doesn't need to be well done, it can be a simple flip between an open and closed mouth.

of the two self contained animatics I looked at, both opened with an establishing shot of some kind that sent the tone for the rest of the short. This is something id like to do for my short.

Topic/Genre

My animatic will fall into the realm of dark comedy, satire, surreal or Dry comedy.

Dark comedy, also known as black humour, is often very satirical, poking fun at more sensitive or taboo subjects. this includes Death, illness, war, sex, politics, social issues, etc. Smiling friends, an adult animated show, can be described as a black comedy.

I want the animatic's dialogue to take inspiration from shows like home movies and doctor Katz, two shows where majority of the speach is improvised and down to earth.

Cartoon Logos

Logos for cartoon series have few similarities amongst each other since they're highly stylized to fit the show. However, all of the logos I've seen are in all caps!

The majority, bar adventure time, are composed of bold/wide sans serif fonts. most have a kind of outset or boarder to set it apart from whatever background image its been slapped on. They all try and stick to a colour scheme, the amount of colours depends on the logo.

I plan on making my logo stylized, but still following conventions like all caps, bold and outlined. it has to have a concise colour scheme that matches the aesthetic of the animatic.

Age Ratings

The BBFC has age rating for content that defines who is able to view the content and what material is permitted to be in it.

Since my FMP is aimed at teenagers, I'd rate it a 15.

This age rating allows me to be more liberal with my language and representation of things like smoking (I plan to have a character smoke cigarettes consistently)

this also allows me to appeal to an older teen audience without them being dissuaded by a lack of mature content. teens often go to more mature shows because they don't want to be belittled by a kids show - I aim to avoid this by implementing some minor swears etc.