Rationale
Week 5 was all about the development of the animatics, focusing on the refining composition of each shot, the overall visual flow of the story and applying minor movements to characters and objects.
Context
Since my project is heavily based on elements from the poet and the environment, I’ve been looking at some ancient traditional Chinese paintings of trees, mountains and waters. One of the significant works that integrated the traditional Chinese painting techniques with animation, The Legend of Shangri-La, uses 3D Chinese puppetry characters on ink-wash painting background to create a distinct visual style. The reference also helped refine my inquiry of integrating ancient Chinese painting with frame-by-frame 2D animation later on.
Method
I was mainly using TV Paint for animating and After Effects for camera movement at this stage.
Reflection
The second version of my animatic has most of the contents completed, however, the part where the poet was recalling his experience was still undecided. The previous idea was the poet running through the crowds and ruined buildings, then some arrows were shooting at the crowds and woke him up from frightening. However, the idea seemed too intense and would break the overall balance of the story. I then decided to have him memorising himself leaving the destroyed temple/building and waking up, to create a smoother transaction from dream to reality.
In addition, I participated in Yang’s storyboard workshop and received some feedback on the composition of some shots which would help the storytelling.
Link to Animatic version 2: https://youtu.be/XBM6OCE1ieY
Link to Animatic version 3: https://youtu.be/JCDR3Xo_ZwI