MR ERASER

This is an ANIMATIC (a timed storyboard with some limited animation and all camera moves called for in the story)  of an original concept of mine used to test and time out an animated sequence or film. It is constructed by taking the storyboard images and either photographing them in sequence on motion picture film or video, holding each one for a pre-determined length before moving on to the next image, or doing the same using a digital program.  I hand drew the storyboard on paper and scanned the images into the ADOBE ANIMATE software to create the animatic.

The purpose of an ANIMATIC is to see whether the individual storyboard images presented make visual sense and with the right pacing,  moving neither too rushed nor too slow from image to image. Basically, it needs to "feel right" while viewing. Corrections in the staging and timing are generally worked out at this point. Once the film works at this stage, it is sent to animation where each of the images serve as keyframes for the animator. Each of the images will be given a frame number (there are 24 frames for every second of film), corresponding to the frame number it had in the animatic. From this, the animator can figure out how many additional drawings he/she would need to fill up with additional animation  to smooth out the action.

For example, one image may be designated as KEYFRAME # 10 and falls on frame # 60, and the very next image in the animatic designated as KEYFRAME  # 11, falling on  frame # 70. From this, the animator has 9 additional frames in between those keyframes on which to create the additional drawings to make the action look smooth and not jerky like the animatic appears to be.

Not including the opening shot of the pencil at the beginning of the animatic, there were 144 storyboard drawings that were created to visually tell this story. Based on the timing worked out in the animatic stage, the run time is 1 minute, 18seconds (78 seconds total). At 24 frames per second of film, that's 1872 frames. Based on an animator's experience, he/she can figure on needing at least HALF that number, so around 936 in additional drawings.

By-the-way...there is no dialog for the 2 characters, but there will be an original music track (my composition) and appropriate sound effects in the finished version.