Analysis of the Animatic Process

Critical Analysis of the Animatic Process of my group’s Film Trailer

A film animatic is a preliminary version of a movie, it is made up of still photos which were planned on a storyboard and it showcases the original ideas of a filmmaker. The function of an animatic is to experiment a number of ideas such as: the narrative, camera shots, angles, mise-en-scene and the length of each shot. By using this process, it allows a filmmaker to decide what works well and what needs to be improved upon. My group and I have created an animatic to get an idea of what our film trailer will look like, if we go forward with our original plan.                                                    

Once I had been put into a group, we all discussed original ideas for a film plot. After debating who had the strongest idea, we came to the conclusion that we would choose one but include features of others because it would include everyone’s best ideas. To develop our narrative we picked out important parts in the plot that could be included in a film trailer, and from this started to create our storyboard.  Together we discussed every shot because we didn’t want to waste time re-designing ideas that not everyone liked. This way it meant that we were all agreed on the design and could start to draw our ideas.                                                                                                                              

We decided that the location of our trailer would be in and around my house because it included features we felt could enhance the narrative, such as an eerie barn. It was useful when planning the shots because I knew where the best location for each shot would be, for example having the rocking chair in the hall because of the lack of personality in the room compared to the rest of the house. It would make it look isolated in an empty room. I drew all of the images on the storyboard and once we had completed this and the planning, we could start to think about the animatic. After finishing the storyboard I went home and posted it on Blogger, using Slideshare to showcase it in the easiest way possible because there were over fifty shots. We could then focus on making the animatic.        

The first discussion we had about the animatic was about the date we wanted to do our first shoot. We wanted to try and achieve our whole animatic in one shoot because it would give us more time to put together what we had got. To be able to keep to our time frame of having one shoot, it meant we had to organise and arrange actors, props and costumes. We had decided to use at least four rooms in the house and sections such as a bedroom to portray each scene. The main location which would inject fear into the audience is the barn which is situated to the side of the house outside. As it hasn’t been used for a long time, the barn looks dilapidated which is key to some of the scenes located in there because it enhances features of the horror genre.  As we had already chosen the location of our animatic, it was easier to locate props. For example in the location we were using there was already a rocking chair, dishcloth, laptop and clock. Overall we had fourteen props that we could use in our animatic, we wanted to wait and see what our location looked like with the props we had before making a decision to buy more. The most important prop that we needed to use in our animatic was the teddy bear because of the significance it has in the story. We had planned to stitch words into our teddy and put it in water however, we would not be able to do this for our animatic because it would ruin the teddy we had bought and therefore we would just have to complete the shots without the extra detail.                                                                                                                                            

I had decided that I would like to be an actor in the animatic because I have acting experience and I had been in a film trailer previously, helping the year above me in school. Therefore I had an understanding of what needed to be done. The Mother as an actor needed to be able to show the difference in the two sides of the character and because I felt I understood the character I volunteered to play this role. We asked Luke Williams whether he would want to be in our trailer  as the Father because he and I are in a relationship and that would have to be portrayed on screen. His character is very helpful and loving, he also has acting experience and he willingly obliged to be this character. In our film plot, there is a child who has a main role in the story, therefore we wanted to try and get a child to play the role. I have a younger brother, Finlay, who is seven years old and would suit the role perfectly. After asking himself and parental permission because of the scary nature of the trailer, we were able to have Finlay to play the Child. However, because we wanted Finlay to enjoy the experience, we didn’t want to use him in the animatic because he would have to do the role twice which may become boring for him. Therefore we decided to use Dora as a representative for Finlay in our animatic.                                                                                                                                 

The costumes we used in the animatic had already been discussed as a group. The character of the Mother needed three costumes to show the different periods of time. Her first costume included a purple dress which represented the character’s femininity and motherly nature as it was easy for her to play with her child. To show the contrast in the character as she is getting possessed, we changed her costume to a white vest with grey joggers to represent that she is being drained of her personality. The Father’s costumes were all pretty similar to show the stability of the character. As we weren’t using Finlay in the animatic we were unable to use any costume that would look like a child’s costume. However we have designed costumes for each character and his costume reflects that he enjoys playing football due to the trainers he is wearing.                                                            

During the shooting of the animatic, the weather affected the order in which we had to take the pictures. Therefore in order to get the animatic done in one shoot we decided to make a list of all the shots that needed to be done in daylight and complete them first and then complete the night time shots.                                                                                                                                

There were shots that we were unable to do, for example there was a sequence of shots including a china pot that needed to be smashed. We tried to take pictures of the pot falling however this just created a blur on the camera. After this we tried filming the pot falling and smashing in order to screenshot them into pictures when editing. However when it came to the editing process we were unable to successfully get a shot of the pot falling, and couldn’t include it in our animatic. Another shot we were unable to do was an image of a logo for a company. We didn’t make the logo and therefore couldn’t take the picture.                                                                                    

One of the changes we made during the animatic was the angles of the shots in the barn. We decided to use a different corner of the barn so that the opening above the door couldn’t be seen. Another change we made was a shot of the child slamming the door behind him because it didn’t portray anything; we wanted to make it scarier. To make the shot more effective we decided to be more creative and put a shadow on the door. The shadow was of the teddy on the rocking chair, it represented that the teddy was being used to watch the child.                                                          

We all sat down in the editing suite to construct the animatic on the editing programme. Using this, we could put together the images we had taken and start to construct our initial ideas in the animatic including the titles, transitions and soundtrack. Before entering the suite, we had sat down and deleted the images that were blurry and unable to be used, this made it easier to put the images on the programme because we already knew which photo we were using.                                          

After putting the pictures in order we added the length of each shot that we had already prepared beforehand. Together we discussed each length of time and collectively the animatic would be one minute and fifty seven seconds. We wanted it to be around two minutes because that is a conventional time for a trailer. The length of each shot depended on what was happening in each scene and the pace of the trailer. The transitions we used were fade to/from black, fade to/from white and normal jump cuts. We used these transitions to break up different shots and to show different states of mind. For example when there are shots of the Mother in bed, there are transitions to and from black to show that she is in a dream state.                                                                         

We wanted our titles to produce a code of enigma. The first title is split up into two, it is “The past will haunt you”. This creates a lot of questions such as ‘Why will it haunt me?’ and ‘What from the past?’ We wanted to use the same font in the inter-titles as the title of the film to show continuity, although it was smaller because it wasn’t the most important piece of text for the audience to remember. The font is in capitals because it emphasises the words better and from research we had discovered that a lot of horror trailers do put their text in capitals. The second intertitle we used was “The eyes are the window to the soul”, because it was positioned before a shot where the mother’s eyes open. It also represents that this character is being possessed. The audience will fear for the Mother when they realise at this point she gets possessed. The title is positioned towards the end of the animatic and is in a bigger font to show it is the title of the film, it is called “Delirium”. We felt this title was appropriate for our film trailer as the narrative suggests that this woman is going insane with possession and it is a catchy title. Also, after doing a questionnaire it was the most popular name suggested so we know our audience like it. We end the animatic with the title “Fear her” to make the audience know the Mother is going to turn into a fearful character, it is also warning them personally which may make them feel connected to the film.                                                                                                                                                         

Although we had started to make the soundtrack for the animatic, we were unable to finish it in time to put it together. It has made us realise that making it ourselves will take a long time and therefore when we are creating the real trailer we may choose to find a non-copyrighted soundtrack online that would be appropriate to use in our trailer. There is still a pace to the animatic but it might not have such an impact on an audience member watching it because there isn’t any non-diegetic or diegetic sound to enhance it.                                                                                                                     

Our target audience are aged 20-30 and it is targeted prominently towards young mothers. After showing my group’s animatic to a group of 21-24 year olds and mothers, it has had positive feedback. I personally wanted feedback on the animatic so that I knew what it was my audience felt about it and what we could improve on.  One mother said “I can’t believe a mother is being twisted into what looks like hurting her child, it’s a horrible but very good storyline for a horror movie”. This comment shows that although it may be disturbing, our film plot will be gripping for people to watch and the trailer obviously portrays that. I feel that the characters in the trailer are what appeal to my target audience the most because of the narrative of the story: the family are moving into a new home, there is a young child and the mother and father are married. It shows the events that a lot of 20-30 year old people aspire to have.                                                                                                        

Personally I feel that we need to include more shots of the child to make him look more a part of the narrative.  At the moment there are only a few shots of him, there could be more of him and the mother to show the connection the two characters have. Also I feel that the shots need to be more recognisable as a horror genre, it could be mistaken for a thriller genre at the moment. I propose there could be more disturbing shots of the mother.  Also there needs to be more props in the barn to make it looks like it has been turned into a storage room, it will make the china pot on top of the box fit in rather than being by itself.  I would like to search for some soundtracks for the real trailer before going on to make it in case we may have to change the pace of the trailer that we have already made.                                                                                                                                      

During this process I have helped to contribute to nearly every aspect. My experience in acting made it easy to portray the character of the Mother but I also helped to direct the shots as I am used to doing this in A Level drama. I have given ideas throughout this process such as shots, locations, actors and editing techniques. As a group I feel we have worked really well together to this point and everyone has contributed equal amounts of work towards this. I would like to think that I can help with these elements again in the real trailer; however I would want to improve on helping with editing on the computer software as I feel I need to improve my skills in this area.