Critical analysis of our animatic

A critical analysis of the Animatic Process of your group’s Film Trailer.

As a group we had to create an Animatic of our film trailer.  This is a preliminary version of a film which includes shooting still pictures of a successful sections of a story board and edit them together adding a sound track, voice overs and dialogue. (Wikipedia) The function of a Animatic process is to see how successful the current shots would be and by doing the process of an Animatic you can change scenes as you get a preview of what the scenes will look like in still mode.

The process of an Animatic can be time consuming but is well worth it as, as a group after changing our film trailer plot after we story boarded it and noticed it would not work for the style of film we wanted to create. We improved our storyline to not over complicate ourselves and make the trailer simple for audiences to follow, for example we improved the storyline about the main character. Since doing this it has helped us with our shooting and the story simpler to follow, the audience doesn’t have to keep thinking about what has just happened and try and work it out. There are many steps in the Animatic, so as a group we divided them out into the skills of each individual, for example the majority of the editing was done by Jordan as we discovered he enjoyed and worked best with the editing suite, Jess we discovered was good at creating our ideas and making our ideas seem more exciting and fit more with our trailer and genre. I organised and planned our Animatic for example I arranged dates we could shoot, contacted the actors to make sure they were available, created the props, got the props ready and also arranged the location.

A story board helps you to work out the basics of your trailer for example the time it will cost you, there must be enough time given up for filming and editing also the cost of the props ordered, and also the mise-en-scene you will need. After you have created your Animatic you can critically analyse it and look at its strong points and weak points, we found as a group we had to change certain shots as we were going along due to the locations of our shots and the reality. For example, breaking of the ornaments was too hard in still images so changed to dropping of plastic cups, it was not the same sound or effect but it gave us an idea of what the dropping of the ornaments would look like.

The making of the Animatic is a time consuming project and our story board helped us organise our shooting schedule for our Animatic. We organised each of the shots in to the setting or characters that were needed so we as a group could take the shots together also aiding continuity. Planning our shots this way was easier as timing was better because we would be at one scene for all shots and not going back and forth to various locations or scenes, we could repeat our shots until we as a group were happy. Two members were involved in acting and we decided we wanted to shoot our other characters scenes first as availability for characters could appear difficult if someone is ill as we learnt this from our 4^th shooting. This was when an actor told us they couldn’t make our shooting, this affected the filming and delayed us as they were a main character in the trailer, however as a group we got about this task by shooting other scenes that the actor wasn’t present in.

As a group we organised shoots accordingly, sometimes where two of us would be involved or the group we also communicated with one another but knew sometimes it was not possible for us all to be together as our time would run out. We did 6 shoots, which completed our animatic. At the start of each shoot we would look at the shots we needed to shoot that day and discuss them to see if they would fit in with our trailer if not we would sometimes change them to be more realistic as some shots were difficult to take stills of, for example the glass/ ornaments falling off the shelf because it was hard to catch them falling without getting blurred photos during the ornament falling. Our location was based at my house where we shot all of our photos however, we used interior and exterior locations, and different locations within the house to create an interesting narrative. For our animatic we improvised our props to see what the real props would look like before buying/ making our real props and are currently in the middle of making our main prop which is our diary. Our main props that we used were empty alcohol bottles, ketchup (blood stains) knife, toy baby. As a group we discussed the idea of having a baby in our trailer, it shows the innoncence of a baby who does not know what is going on but is surrounded by horror and the act of jealousy by the mother Katherine.

Choosing our actors was vital for us as a group because our story line was about students meaning we had to pick actors who looked like university students (18/19). As a group we were lucky and could choose actors in our year as they are at the university age. For our character representation we wanted each of the students to have a different personality but similar such as fun, outgoing but individually have their own hobbies for examples Jacks hobby is playing the drums where Tessas in boxing. Our students must act stereotypical for university students

During our animatic shooting we had to revise a few of the shots that were difficult to do as we are students with no budget. An example of this was several knife marks through the door. The group thought it would be difficult to do so instead we removed that shot and replaced it with a close up shot where blood is dripping down the door. This would replicate a stereotypical horror film as the door has blood dripping down it which would give the audience that creepy feeling.

As a group we discussed our length of shots based on the dialogue used and what was happening in the scene for example the shot when the four characters are round the table is quite a lengthy shot in comparison to our other shots, this is because we were establishing each of the characters to the audience. Some of our shots where we were establishing the location were about 2 seconds long. For example our first shot is an establishing shot which is of the student’s house, this informs the audience that the scenes are taking place in the house. As a group we decided to make our establishing shot short as it was self-explanatory.

As a group we discussed a range of titles for our trailer and we even did a video interview to ask pupils from our target audience what they thought of our titles such as ‘Shattered’ ‘Approaching’ ‘Helena’ ‘The unseen’. This gave us good audience feedback alongside a questionnaire, and decided on our chosen title which was Shattered, we chose this because of elements such as the glass ‘shattering’ the students getting tired of it all and the ornaments breaking, personally I thought it gave it the full effect of the film. In our trailer we have used the inter subtitles ‘ You’ll never see her coming ‘

The music track we chose was from a free download website which had a good selection of horror soundtracks however we have faded in a horror track with a dance/ music track at the start of our animatic because it shows normality of the student lifestyle. The music then fades to a horror soundtrack when the disturbance of equilibrium occurs for example this happens on shots where ornaments start falling off the shelf and when the diary is found. Personally I think the soundtrack changes the mood and gives the audience the eerie feeling and also creates suspense as they do not know what is going to happen next.

From our animatic there aren’t many shots we would change however there are some which we would definitely improve as moving images would be easier compared to our animatic, to give the audience that feeling and suspicion of what is going to happen next. During our shoots we revised our order of shots such as rearranged certain shots if it was stating to look like a proper movie storyline, this looked better in our animatic so we have decided to keep this. We are going to change our music choice as we are hoping to create our own music track which creates more suspense and be more eerie at certain parts of the trailer, we will probably keep the first part of our music soundtrack which states normality.

Personally I think our film trailer appeals to our target audience because the actors may reflect the lifestyle of the audience, the age of the actors are the same age as the audience. 

As a group we discussed the improvements that we agree on for our film trailer, our props need to look more realistic and modern, our diary needs to look like a proper diary for example tea stained. Also as a group we had massive changes on our plot which we felt improved us as a group and improved the understanding of the audiences. Our improvements were based on a change in the narrative, a simpler plot, for example we had a great great great grandmother in the storyline which confused the audience so changed it to her mothers best friend. Our new storyline is based around a daughter, mother and her mothers best friend and the diary her mother wrote when younger when she had a friendship with the best friend. The daughter is living through these reoccurring events using flashbacks to identify the past when the situations happened.

My role during the process of making the animatic was organising our shooting schedule and also organising us as a group for example, our group meetings and checking up where we were and what needed doing next. Also as part of each of our roles at the start of the preliminary task we took 30 shots each of the storyboard. After splitting it up into start, middle and end we were given the task to draw the shots and discuss as a group what we thought, we all contributed equally as a group.  I think my role contributed to my group quite well as each of us had strong roles and would always communicate with one another to keep track in what each member was doing and to see if we all agreed with each other. Another role that I am involved in is an acting role in the film trailer, I am the main female character and have to had to learn my scenes and also the script.