To kick things off I thought I'd showcase one of the entertaining instalments of Pixar animation studio's series of films The Incredibles, directed by Pixar veteran Brad Bird.
All praise aside to the storytelling and special effects from the bigwigs behind Pixar, there is something in particular that I wanted to focus upon- the Animatic.
An animatic, for those who remain in the dark, is essentially a mock up video of the storyboard edited together with sound to crudely show the pacing of a particular sequence in any given film, which is especially useful and perhaps essential in animation productions. It also highlights in advance any potential flaws in the visual storytelling that can quickly be altered before any principal photography or production itself kicks in!
Take a peak at one of the animatic sequences prepped for the character 'Dash's sprint against ze bad guys:
If you're wondering how they made it, it seems like a simple case of scanning in the original drawings from the 'beat' boards/storyboards and then using Photoshop to polish and adjust, then into Adobe After Effects, or some In-house variation of that programme, to move the images around for fluidity and animation, and of course- if you spotted them- the computer generated models of the flying blade thingamajigs- no doubt in Maya or, again, another In-house variant. I should stress that the level of quality in that animatic is insane, and by no means would other film reels look nearly as polished. We are talking about Pixar here, after all.
Details of these programmes can be browsed here if you want to give them a shot, though they will burn a hole in your pocket to get them. There are, so I hear, other means of obtaining them however. *whistles*
After Effects: http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/
In regards to the CG programme, Pixar studios claim they use their own built software, derived from Maya, called 'Marionette'. And there is as much known of it as there is about the queen's personal video game collection. Top secret stuff, y'see.
I found a nice little article that reveals some of the thinking behind the animatics created for The Incredibles, and how Director Brad Bird insisted on drawing as the sole form of communication across the board.
This details the, as of then, new desktop programme, which became a milestone in Pre-production advances, made just to cater to Brad's visual method of communication by scribbling all over people's works. This enabled him to make annotations digitally on the designer's screens, similar to the above image, without wasting time and effort obtaining hard copies of the illustrations, or disconnecting his ideas from the digital work in front of him. Apparently it's been used on every Pixar production since! No doubt this played a massive role in speeding up the design AND making sure everything was to the highest quality!
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