Common Steps in Pre-production

Creating a full-length animated movie can be a complicated and expensive process. Sometimes, it can be more expensive than creating a live action film. Many people like graphic designers, animators, writers, voice talents, and cinematographers are required for creating animated character and accomplish a movie project. With the help of motion capture, many realistic movements and emotions of animated characters in many 3D movies are made. The bodily movements like walking and facial expressions are digitized and manipulated to create realistic characters like humans, aliens or monsters.

3D Animation Production Stages

In most of the 3D animation production, the process can be divided into 3 main stages;

• pre-production
• production
• post-production

What is Pre-Production?

Pre-production is the phase where ideas are developed and planning is done prior to the process of production. In a live action movie, it is the period before filming starts. In an animation movie, it is the period before any real animating takes place.

Steps Involved in Pre-Production

Before creation of an animated film could start, the initial pre-production steps must begun. Irrespective of the intricacy and length of an animated film, it undergoes the basic preproduction steps that can be summarized in the general steps explained below.

Step 1: Concept Design - This is the first step that will serve as the stimulus for creating an animated film. Whether you are making any short or a full-length animated film, portion of live action-shots everything begins with the concept design. The concept design could be inspired from anything like current events, classic literature, ordinary objects or by innovative ideas. For example, in the movie Toy Story, concept design was based on mundane or ordinary objects, i.e., toys in a boy's room. The storyline, script and animation all progressed from that basic concept design. This process also typically comprises the initial sketches of characters and settings. Concept designs are produced after having various brainstorming sessions from among the writers and artists.

Step 2: Storyboarding - After the concept design is made, the storyline is finalized using storyboards. Just as done in concept design, sequences of brainstorming activities might be conducted to come out with a storyboard. There might be times when a group of artists would individualistically write and illustrate their storyboards for later approval and combination of ideas. Basically, a storyboard is like a comic strip that is complete with dialogs. It includes a storyline and major scenes. This whole process will become the base of the script and movie sequences. Storyboards plays an important role as a guide for interdependent teams.

Step 3: Finalizing Layouts - In this step, the approved storyboards are sent to the layout department. The artistic team of the department is the one that work together closely with the director in finalizing the scenes, costumes and appearance of the characters.

Step 4: Model Sheets Creation - They are drawn precisely for uniformity of the characters. Model sheets are groups of pictures that portray the range of imaginable facial expressions and body movements that a character can make. After model sheets are prepared, they are sent to the modeling department for creating the final models. These could be in the form of clay models, puppets or digital models of the characters.

Step 5: Animatics - This is the last or final stage of pre-production, where the complex animation sequences and VFX-heavy scenes are envisaged in simplified forms or mock-ups known as animatics. In this process, a better grasp of the motion and timing is established. It helps the director to enhance the overall scenes and visual effects.

It is recommended to revisit all the stages more than once. The main reason is because each stage may either reveal a flaw in the work to date or highlight how an aspect of the project could be further developed. Having the right skill set, understanding of minute details, patience to recognize and make modifications when suitable is the key for success and creating quality animation.

Author: ADMEC Multimedia Institute is one of the best animation institutes that conducts training in 3D Animation and VFX. Improve your skills and career opportunities in the animation industry with our advanced animation diploma courses and short-term animation classes like Animation Master Plus, Animation Master, Animation Standard, Autodesk Maya Master, Cinema 4D Master.

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Created on Feb 6th 2018 06:16. Viewed 506 times.

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