Topic 2 Digital Production Process - part 2

Contents Computer Animation Process – An Overview. Storyboard and Script Development. Screen Display Consideration.

1.Pre-production 2.Production 3.Post-production Basic stages of Computer Animation Process

Pre-production Involved all the conceptualisation and planning that take place before a computer animation project is produced.  Non-visual task (screenwriting, planning the management of the project).  Visual task (storyboarding, developing the overall visual look).

Story development  Before production begins.  During the process – writer focus on developing the characters, plot, strengths and limitation of the visual medium in question. Pre-production

Storytelling & Storyboarding Stories  Are the most common & powerful vehicle used to talk about lives.  Life in general and in particular.  Past, present & future.  Real, imagined and assumed lives.  Inspiring, intriguing, tormented, impossible live.

Storytelling & Storyboarding The Importance of Stories:  Communicates facts.  Provides answers to questions.  Make us feel different emotions.  Provoke actions that shape reality.  The essense of animation.  Communicate emotions.

Storytelling & Storyboarding Who Involved in Storytelling. Storytellers –Requires many talents and skills. –Provide stories. –Tell stories, communicate emotions that are initially drafted in screenplays, later in storyboards and characters sheets. Animators –Translate the stories into visual interpretation. –Involved the visual interpretation of a story and its characters (eg: the personality of the character is translated into facial expressions, body poses and motions).

Storytelling & Storyboarding The Script  A script is a document describing the narrative and dialogue in detail. It is written by a scriptwriter.  In comics, a script may be preceded by a plot outline, and is almost always followed by page sketches, drawn by an artist and inked, coloured and lettered stages.  There are no prescribed forms of comic scripts, though a common form seems to be one where an author makes a list of panels, and describes the action, characters, dialogue and sometimes backgrounds and camera points- of-view for each panel. The panels are listed in the order in which they should appear in the story.

Dramatic Film/Video Script Format FADE-IN INT. KITCHEN OF EDWARDS HOME-MEDIUM SHOT ALANA EDWARDS-DAY (1) [Note explanation of these numbers below. Also see explanation below about variations in margins and spacing.] ALANA EDWARDS, age 36, quickly moves from the stove to the kitchen table. (2) CLOSE-UP - TOASTER Toast pops up in the toaster. We SEE ALANA'S HAND quickly pull out the toast. WIDE SHOT - KITCHEN We HEAR a KETTLE WHISTLE. She quickly moves to the stove to turn off the burner. Script Example

ALANA (3) (calling) (4) Bill, you're going to be late! (5) She takes a pan of oatmeal off the stove and pours it in four bowls on the kitchen table. RONNIE, age 8, bursts into the room. ALANA (continuing) And tell Sherry to get a move on! MEDIUM SHOT — RONNIE RONNIE (sitting down) Mom, Sherry's puttin' lipstick on again; I saw her. ALANA (calling) Sherry! Script Example

Storytelling & Storyboarding The Screenplay  A screenplay is a written document that tells a story by using descriptions, dialogue and some production notes.  A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. It can be adapted from a previous work such as a novel, play or short story, or it may be an original work in and of itself.  Screenplays tell stories in ways that can be translated into moving images.

Storytelling & Storyboarding The Screenplay A screenplay differs from a script in that it is more specifically targeted at the visual, narrative arts, such as film and television, whereas a script can involve a blueprint of "what happens" in a comic, an advertisement, a theatrical play and other "blueprinted" creations. The major components of a screenplay are action and dialogue, with the "action" being "what we see happening" and "dialogue" being "what the characters say". The characters, when first introduced in the screenplay, may also be described visually.

INT. HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM – NIGHT A crowded hospital emergency waiting room. Clean but cheerless. Sick and injured people sit in plastic chairs lined up in rows. A TV mounted near the ceiling BLARES a sitcom. No one is watching. A man moans softly as he presses a bloody gauze pad against his forehead. A woman cradles a listless infant in her arms. CATHY sits at the end of the first row of plastic chairs. Her head is bent over, and she stares intently at the floor. She raises her head slowly, brushes her long, silky hair away from her face. We see fear in her eyes as they focus on a clock that hangs above the front desk. She twists a tissue between her fingers and is unaware that bits of it are falling on the floor. The door to the emergency treatment room opens, and a middle-aged DOCTOR dressed in hospital green walks through the door toward Cathy, who bolts out of the chair and hurries toward him. Screenplay Example

DOCTOR (apologetically) We did everything possible CATHY (gasps) What are you saying? DOCTOR I'm sorry… CATHY (screaming) No! All eyes in the waiting room are riveted on Cathy and the Doctor. Cathy lunges at the Doctor, beating her fists against his chest CATHY (CONT'D) (shouting) You killed him! Screenplay Example

Visual development Setting a visual direction and style for the project. Includes – creation of the characters, types of environments and props, overall styling, colour schemes, atmosphere and ‘look’. Visual development team is charged with creating concept art including painters, sculptors and illustrators Storytelling & Storyboarding

Color keys help to define the palette and mood of a particular shot

Character Design – the look of characters is developed through drawings, sculptures, maquette and computer-generated rendering.  Set of drawings : define the attitudes and poses of the characters (body position, facial expressions)  Props used in a scene (by assistant character designers). Pre-production

Character Design