[PRE-PRODUCTION] Animatic Research - Modern Animatics

Animatics are the key thing in pre-production for animation, it is an animated storyoard which allows the creator to not only get the positions of the characters in the frame, but also time it correctly. You can also use it to time the video to the music, voice acting and SFX. Modern Animatics are very common, most if not all animated television shows will have an animatic for the episode, this helps the director pick and choose which scenes they want in the finished animation, and if it all times correctly.

Below are examples of animated television shows; Rick and Morty and Adventure Time's animatic, which have both been created using Harmony - Toon Boom Animation software:

Rick and Morty Animatic:

Adventure Time Animatic:

These two animatics are created very basically, they don't have much in terms of animation. These two animatics are considered draft animatics, nothing that is drawn is set in stone and some things may or may not be edited out. Compare that to a rough animatic, which is used to actually animate your animation. There are a few differences between the two, namely the fact that the animatic is much more animated in the rough than the draft, compare the quality of movment between the Rick and Morty animatic above and the Eddsworld animatic below:

Eddsworld Animatic:

As you can see, there is much more movement in the animatic for Eddsworld, an internet animated series rather than Rick and Morty, a television series. Another difference between the two is the animation software used to create them, like I stated above, most television shows' animatics are created using Harmony - Toon Boom Animation software, whereas most internet series are animated using Adobe Flash software.

Another example of an animatic would be the Starbomb animated video animatic, which was also created using Adobe Flash software. This however, is heavily influenced by storyboards, and has actions and  directing notes on the screen. It also shows the rough animatic first, before showing an on model look at the characters, a somewhat unique look at an animatic. Below is the video:

Starbomb - SMASH Animatic:

Each type of animatic is useful, either for showing how it'd be animated, directions for animation or just for roughing out what you want on screen. I will try and incorporate a few of these animatic types, as all are useful for different reasons. I will begin the animatic as soon as I get a chance, and hopefully I can get a rough idea of how the video will look in the end.