Production II Blog Post #3

This week, I continued working on the rendered animatic. I really wanted to make this iteration of the animatic more readable to the audience so I made sure to include lighting and shot composition to this layout animatic. One thing I noticed that helped push a narrative is the use of skydomes, even if they are temporary they are excellent in telling the time of day, passage of time, etc.

I utilized cinematography from other forms of media for the shot composition. Primarily Kubo and the Two Strings, and even How to Train your Dragon. I also used varying focal lengths to achieve certain aesthetic choices.

I finished the scenes in the field which were 10 shots, as well as the scenes in the interior of the house which were another 10-15 shots. The battle scene was particularly tricky, as there were a lot of quick cuts and perspective changes, I had around 28 shots total in that scene alone.

Doing an in depth layout animatic was incredibly useful in pointing out incontinuity and breaking the 180 degree rule. As well as technical trial and error. Krislyn did an excellent job making a rudimentary rig which I started using in specific shots. An issue I ran into was that the rig would not appear in the renders but only in playblasts, I wonder if this has to do with a referencing issue or something to do with the performers. It's good to ask these questions now before we work on the shots for real. Next week, I will work on the destroyed school scene. And then we need an intro and end scene, so only 3 scenes left!