June 2001
Animatics: Getting off on the right frame
by: Brigitte Marie Hoarau
Excerpts:
Before the days of videotape, storyboards visualized key aspects of a production before shooting began. While storyboards are still instrumental to visualization, animatics have take the concept one step further by producing those previsualized images on videotape. Though the quality of an animatic can be high enough for a limited-animation final product, animatics are largely used for presentation purposes such as market testing, approvals and preproduction.
Mark Simon, president of Orlando’s Storyboards & Animatics, Inc., says using animatics for previsualization often saves a great deal of money in the long run because the productions run more quickly and smoothly, and the client is able to get exactly what he or she wants. Simon’s animatics and storyboards have been used by HBO, MTM and Nickelodeon, as well as Amblin Entertainment’s seaQuest DSV .
Animatic presentations also work well in selling concepts to the client, since “a lot of people can’t see in their heads what you’re talking about with just still drawings,” Simon explains. Working with Soundelux, & recently designed the video wall content for NASA’s new expansion of the East Visitor’s Wing, winning Soundelux the opportunity to create the finished product. “What you see in there now is very close to what I had envisioned with the animatic,” Simon says.