Karen "Kay" Ross has asked me to share any tips I may have that those in live action production can use in animation. so, here goes.
1. Storyboards - even if you can't draw, try storyboarding your shot list, it can be stick figures. Spielberg drew some of his own in the early days. It will help you visualize your film and convey to the DP and crew what you are trying to achieve.
2. Animatic - take the boards and put them to scratch audio of the script and lay them out with rough transitions into a visual animatic of your film. This will help you see the overall shot progression and timing, which may help in how you direct actors in a scene. Share this with you DP and editor to get their input and tweak it.
3. Pre Viz. - this is incorporating the above, but maybe even adding color treatments to the boards to help establish mood for your DP when it coms to lighting and so forth.
This preplanning can make everything go faster and more affordable, and it is why they are incorporating in the Mandalorian. If you have this stuff figured out, then you won't have your crew standing around while you decide how you are going to set up your shots. You'll also make sure that you will make your days and not frustrate actors with tons of unnecessary takes and have time to discover those magic moments and time for cutaways and coverage if needed.
It will also speed up your editing session, since your editor already knows what you are trying to achieve, the Oscar winning editor once told me that Tim Burton spent less than forty hours total to edit Edward Scissorhands with him. This was due to Tim's animation training and knowing the shots, the timing and the mood he wanted.
Hope this is helpful for some of you.
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OMG, I ADORE THIS POST! <3 I'm going to stop for dinner and then come back and re-read it so I can respond in more depth. Thank you for sharing, Bob!
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It is helpful, thanks! I had thought of doing something very much like it, then thought that would probably be silly. You just explained why it's legit.
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I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and fully appreciate how preparation early in the process makes execution later in the process SO MUCH EASIER! Less than 40 hours to edit a film?! HOLY COW!
Also, I love how each of these steps seems geared towards "let's see if it works before it costs us too much money". Yes, they can keep your crew on the same page but I think taking it out of the imagination and just one step closer to that audio/visual medium helps the originator to really flesh out what was only once no more than a dream. I want to dig in just to experience the evolution of an idea!
And I think I'm going to share this in the Post-Production Lounge, too. Let's see if anyone else has benefited from Pre-Vis!
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Any prep you get, especially previs if there are heavy FX will most always make things "EASIER." I think when I have this opportunity in post it makes seeing what the director is seeing easier, plus you have the added addition of being able to cut in previs shots before any finals come your way.
Grilled Cheese Media! Now that name made me smile because way back in 1978 when I was an undergraduate studying for a B.Sc degree in Psychology, Philosophy and Sociology, I wrote a spoof film review for a student magazine of a ficticious movie I had made up, called "Cheese On Toast". The film was avant garde, and showed two film directors discussing a film while in the background some cheese was bubbling away on a piece of toast on the grill. The audience never hears exactly the actually dialogue because it is being drowned out by the sound effect of the cheese roasting, sounding like molten lava. Anyway, to cut a short movie even shorter, the movie's climax comes when one director sees that the cheese has grilled perfectly, gets up and eats it. The other director complains that it should have been left until it was burnt to cinders, then the film could have been a tragedy,
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Nabil Shaban Sounds fun!
Still one of my favorite cross-over posts! You know, when someone from another lounge helps out in a different lounge? In this case, someone who frequents the Animation Lounge lets the Filmmaking Lounge in on a little secret. SO GREAT!