Rough Animatic

In the space of a week or so I created a Rough version of my Animatic.

Rough because I decided that more than likely I would be encountering many changes once the Rough version was locked down.

With this rough version the main thing I wanted to do was make sure things had a sense of flow to them. Let's talk about the process and the problems;

When I finished roughing out the last shot I realised I had a MAJOR problem; time. The Animatic with all 3 Act's was running up to approximately 6 minutes or so, which was FAR too long. Also some sections were not jelling quite as well, and some just felt like they were extraneous to my film.

Drastic action had to be taken, so the first thing I started to do was make large cuts in places. As you can see from the Rough Version above, the entire first third of Act 2 is gone (the section where Bagboy attempts to grab Sofia's attention), this section of the film was always a bit unbalanced in my mind, and unnecessary, and while I AM glad that I was able to board it out and then time it in the Animatic, it just HAD to go as it was really putting a back-burner on this film.

Next I went and made smaller cuts, and cut out several shots or simply make shots link more easily and fluid while also saving time. Little by little I was successfully able to cut my film down to the length that it is now (5 minutes), and whilst that is still too long; it's going to be easier from here on out to trim it down.

When showing Neil and Hillary my animatic, and while also repeatedly viewing it myself I noticed a number of things I needed to improve on;

• Too many shots wind up going on longer than they should. This is one of those habits I KNOW I have a tendency to repeatedly do, but luckily I was able to notice it myself this time round.
• Some cutting points are slightly messy.
• After Bagboy runs off towards the ranch in the opening shot, have the camera pan up higher into the sky and then show the title of the film..."On The Fence".
• Show a shot of Sofia daydreaming and looking at shapes in her clouds to further emphasise her world being turned upside down by this 'Bagboy' and his interrupting Kite!
• Sofia ought to be grumpy when she first sees Bagboy, to further embellish her character, which leads on to her motive and quite possibly the most drastic change/addition...
• SOFIA NEEDS TO BE SHOWN GOING TO PULL THE KITE DOWN AFTER BAGBOY LEAVES HER THE FIRST TIME. This is an extremely important decision at it is the cherry on top and final bit of exposition as to why she would want to bring the Kite down in the first place!
• The Kite needs to be established that it is actually flying in the scene where Bagboy goes back to his stump the first time.
• Show a reaction shot of Bagboy being happy that his Kite is in the air the first time just before it is cut.
• The montage sequence - when Bagboy is sat at his stump, make the action of him actually sitting down the cutting point for the shot (eg; Shot starts - Bagboy sits - THEN reacts to Kite falling)
• Sofia needs to be doing something else other than tending to a horse in the last act (purely for technical reasons) Perhaps now that the start of Act 2 is out I can show her working with the haystacks here instead.
• When Bagboy is putting the moves on Sofia in Act 3; show the red kite drifting to the floor slowly.
• After Bagboy presents the Spindle with the broken string in the last act, have an OTS shot to Sofia showing her reacting and then pointing past him to the road where the broken kite lies.
• Reduce the number of shots when Sofia approaches Bagboy near the end with the fixed Spindle.

With all this in mind it's time for me to move forward again and start creating my clean animatic, with locked down timing and all the changes from above.