2D Animation in Flash – Part 2: Making an Animatic

Once again, this is part of a multi-part series about the making of, “Link’s Prize,” a short 2D animation done in Flash. This is part two, 'Making an Animatic'.

Previous: Part 1: Idea and Storyboards

Materials used:

Flash, wacom tablet

Outline

-What is an animatic?
-Making the animatic

What is an animatic?

So, those of you who are animation fans know that before starting any serious animation for a film, animators first make an animatic. An animatic is basically a rough version of the entire film. The purpose of the animatic is to get a sense of the timing and pace of the film before starting the hard work of making it.

Here's the animatic for "Link's Prize":
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.larkinheather.com/Images/artwork/animation/LinksPrizeAnimatic.swf" /]

[/kml_flashembed]

The whole animation is there, in essence. The length of each shot, camera motions, music and sounds are all set up. Even most of the keyframes of the animation are exactly as I made them in final version. Basically, you want as much of a picture of what the final product will be like before putting in the heavy work. It's easier to work on comic timing and mood and things like that BEFORE you start animating.

Making the Animatic

The animatic took only one afternoon to make. First, I copied the scenes into Flash exactly as I had them in my storyboards. After quickly throwing them into Flash, I went back and adjusted the timing of the shots. For example, I made the opening shot longer to fit better with the music. Overall, there weren't so many big changes, this being such a short animation.

This is also the time when I added the music and the sounds. The sound effects came from "Help the Wretched" at http://noproblo.dayjo.org/ZeldaSounds/. There, you can find tons of sounds effects from the Zelda series, like 'Link drowning' or 'Link falling off a cliff'. Good stuff. It's an incredible resource for any Zelda-related multimedia endeavor.

Obviously I couldn't get the animation timing down exactly to what it would be in the final product, but I got it somewhere close. If I was an animator at a studio, the timing of the animatic would then determine how many seconds I would have to work with within a given shot. For example, you might get assigned to a shot where a character has to walk across a room within approximately 200 frames.

As you make progress with individual shots, it's good to them stick them in your animatic. Replace the rough shots in the animatic with the nice, polished shots and watch the whole thing together. With each new addition, you can see how new things fit into the general flow of the film.

If you're not used to making animatics for your long projects, I highly recommend it. It's an easy way to check that your story makes sense as a whole and also keep track of your progress.

Next: Drawing the Backgrounds!

Part 1: Idea and Storyboards
Part 2: Making an Animatic
Part 3: Drawing the Backgrounds
Part 4: Animation Preplanning and Animating
Part 5: Painting the Backgrounds
Part 6: Coloring the Animations