Assignment (4): Developing, Storyboarding, and Creating an Animatic for an Original Idea

Value: 35 out of 100 course points

Due Date: TBD - Finals Week

Developing, Storyboarding, and Creating an Animatic for an Original Idea. (3 - 5 minutes).

• Concept, Story, Script: Develop an original concept into a story idea.


• Visual Development: Create the elements around bringing this story to life.


• Storyboards: Develop full storyboards for the piece.


• Animatic: Create an animatic using the storyboards which effectively depicts the sequence of short story's major plot elements, from beginning-to-end.


• Running time: Piece presented should have a projected total running time (TRT) of 3 to 5 minutes.

The purpose of this assignment is synthesize all topics we've have discussed in this course, and should illustrate your understanding of concept and story development, the necessary steps to create the assets for the story and development of the story through the storyboard and animatic phase of production.

Assignment (4) Requirements:

• Brief character descriptions and basic designs
   
• Setting / environment / prop descriptions and basic designs
   
• Brief Plot Outline / Synopsis
  Prepare a brief plot outline of the piece and a concise description of major plot events, including:
       1. Conflict and/or drive motivation
       2. Resolution /conclusion
  
  
• Visual Development Pages and Designs
  For the purposes of this assignment, compile the visuals to support the creation of the elements essential to your story, including: characters, props, settings
       1. Inspirational reference materials

     2. Original conceptual studies of primary characters, settings, and props
 
• Storyboards
  The storyboards must convey a clear sense of plot development, show staging of primary mise-en-scene elements, and specify:
  • Numbering of scene & shot
  • Camera shots
  • Camera moves
  • Transitions
  
  Storyboard Presentation: Visual materials must be formatted for effective display within a screen resolution of 1024X768 and presented in a slideshow formatted.
  
  Suggested delivery methods include:
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Linked web pages
  • Microsoft Powerpoint
  • Windows XP slide tool.


• Animatic
  The animatic must clearly depict the following elements:
  
  • Staging
  • Major plot elements: characters, setting, props
  • Shot duration
  • Transition between shots and scenes. Duration of transitions
  • Camera moves
  • Rough audio treatments (music, dialogue and sfx proxies)
  • Opening title & credits
    
    
    
• FURTHER ANIMATIC NOTES
  
  • *The finished animatic should be between 3 and 5 minutes in duration, including opening title & credits.
  
  
  • *The clear depiction of continuity is important.
    Elements of discontinuity may be used only to the extent that they support the narrative.
  
  
  • *Animatics may be hand drawn and/or employ actual props and/or computer generated imagery.
    Drawings should be mo derately finished and must clearly depict scene elements and layout. The use of color is optional but encouraged.
  
  
  • *Significant environmental elements (fog, rain, snow, etc.) and effects (e.g. explosions, etc.) should be represented in animated form.
  
  
  • *Finished animatics must include a sound treatment.
    This treatment may employ proxies, i.e. footage that represents or approximates what would be used in a final film. Background music and/OR sound effects are required; dialogue proxies are optional.
  
  
  • *The finished assignment will be handed in as a Quicktime movie with the following specifications:
          Screen size: 720x480
          Framerate: 15 fps
    

Presentation:
Students will prepare a 6-10 minute in-class presentation of their storyboards and animatic in either electronic or physical form. Hardcopy presentations must be formatted so they can be seen from 15 feet away. Electronic presentations can be presented in following forms:

**Students are responsible for ensuring that presentations function properly by the due date.**

Grading Criteria for Assignment (4):

Handing in Assignment (4):

Students will place their projects in the course drop box for Assignment (4), located in the Fishbowl at Y:\Courses\2009-2010\AC730_Garrett_Fall_AU09\Assign_4_Drop_Box. The file must be named using the following convention:

   Students first initial-last name_assign1.file extension

   For example: Jane Doe would hand in an Adobe Acrobat file as: j-doe_assign4.pdf

Students placing a sequence of files into a folder for use with Windows XP slide tool should name the folder using the convention described above without a file extension.