Intro to Making of Semester 2/ Storytelling script to screen: Week 9:17/4/18: Intro to storyboard pro
Week 9's session of Intro to Making of coincided with Storytelling script to screen, and in this session we were introduced to a program called Storyboard pro which shares similar grounds and origins of Toon Boom animation software. Using this software we would be making mock up animatics using our thumbnail storyboards from last week and to get us acquainted with the software should we decide to use it. I felt rather excited and curious about the software and wondered how it could improve over what we've learned about Premier and After Effects. I was especially surprised that if we didn't wish to use Storyboard Pro, Premier was the fallback option, which to me did make sense as most of us had gotten used to using the software by now.
We were briefed about what controls were available to us, and I noticed that much like Clip Studio Paint, this software has pre made materials and backgrounds for us to utilise for a mock up. The controls seemed rather similar to photoshop which acts with the use of layers but wasn't a frame by frame program like Toon Boom or Animate. What I felt to be a rather interesting possibility was how we could import 3D images from Maya into the software and use our turnaround sheets to create an animated version. In short the software was as Annabeth put it "Just a fancy powerpoint" and was an asset to understand should we decide to do 2D animation.
When formatting our animatic we had two options as a simple quick time movie or as a PDF. I was amazed that the PDF would create a storyboard out of the animatic, which would've saved me the trouble of putting it together in Photoshop. We set to work on our tasks and I set about scanning in my storyboards, in the library. However my first attempts didn't seem clear in presentation on the pencil lines or seemed to come together as images when folded in half. My second attempt was much clearer and so I began rendering the frames one by one using the levels option and imported each frame into Storyboard pro. I asked Annabeth for help in some areas of the software as I was still unfamiliar with the process and felt a second pair of eyes would help.
She showed me to introduce a new scene from my storyboard I would need to use the import as new scene option and select my storyboard scene and it would immediately be imported. The same function was used in new scenes, however I was curious about how to introduce transitions, and she informed me to right click in the middle of two frames and select insert transition which inserted a fade in effect. For camera angles there was a feature in the keyframes options where we could place a camera keyframe at the start and end of each frame and adjust the camera zoom in or move across marked in red whilst the start was in green.
My one concern was making sure it would fit into a minute on the time line given the requirement. Thankfully my story fitted the 1 minute requirement, and in all honesty I was completely surprised that I would be able to fit my story into a minute long short animatic.
Looking back I would think that I made a good start on my animatic and a good use of the camera movement in the moment Joseph catches eye of Elise really emphasised the overall theme of romance of the story. I would've done some things differently if I had more time in the session I would've tried adding some sound if I had some recorded ahead of time or use sound from the website that Annabeth recommended to us for the Aesop fables task. I would've also used the time to do work on the video essay, however with conflicting agendas in the other modules I wasn't sure if I would have time in this session.
In hindsight I should've had the storyboard scanned into the computer ahead of time so that I could finish the mock animatic in a faster time so that I could edit my clips to create an opening sequence to give me a starting point. However the lesson was insightful into Premiers distant relative, and its given me an idea of what to include in the showreel for the whole course. In conclusion I would think that this exercise has proven that I can fit my desired story into a minute timeframe putting some of my concerns to rest. However the real test shall be in the final animatic so I shall need to work on backgrounds and separate layer characters for movements in the story.
In future I shall have my storyboard scenes scanned and saved onto a pen drive before the lesson begins so that I'll be able to finish the animatic and work on other module projects.
We were briefed about what controls were available to us, and I noticed that much like Clip Studio Paint, this software has pre made materials and backgrounds for us to utilise for a mock up. The controls seemed rather similar to photoshop which acts with the use of layers but wasn't a frame by frame program like Toon Boom or Animate. What I felt to be a rather interesting possibility was how we could import 3D images from Maya into the software and use our turnaround sheets to create an animated version. In short the software was as Annabeth put it "Just a fancy powerpoint" and was an asset to understand should we decide to do 2D animation.
When formatting our animatic we had two options as a simple quick time movie or as a PDF. I was amazed that the PDF would create a storyboard out of the animatic, which would've saved me the trouble of putting it together in Photoshop. We set to work on our tasks and I set about scanning in my storyboards, in the library. However my first attempts didn't seem clear in presentation on the pencil lines or seemed to come together as images when folded in half. My second attempt was much clearer and so I began rendering the frames one by one using the levels option and imported each frame into Storyboard pro. I asked Annabeth for help in some areas of the software as I was still unfamiliar with the process and felt a second pair of eyes would help.
She showed me to introduce a new scene from my storyboard I would need to use the import as new scene option and select my storyboard scene and it would immediately be imported. The same function was used in new scenes, however I was curious about how to introduce transitions, and she informed me to right click in the middle of two frames and select insert transition which inserted a fade in effect. For camera angles there was a feature in the keyframes options where we could place a camera keyframe at the start and end of each frame and adjust the camera zoom in or move across marked in red whilst the start was in green.
My one concern was making sure it would fit into a minute on the time line given the requirement. Thankfully my story fitted the 1 minute requirement, and in all honesty I was completely surprised that I would be able to fit my story into a minute long short animatic.
Looking back I would think that I made a good start on my animatic and a good use of the camera movement in the moment Joseph catches eye of Elise really emphasised the overall theme of romance of the story. I would've done some things differently if I had more time in the session I would've tried adding some sound if I had some recorded ahead of time or use sound from the website that Annabeth recommended to us for the Aesop fables task. I would've also used the time to do work on the video essay, however with conflicting agendas in the other modules I wasn't sure if I would have time in this session.
In hindsight I should've had the storyboard scanned into the computer ahead of time so that I could finish the mock animatic in a faster time so that I could edit my clips to create an opening sequence to give me a starting point. However the lesson was insightful into Premiers distant relative, and its given me an idea of what to include in the showreel for the whole course. In conclusion I would think that this exercise has proven that I can fit my desired story into a minute timeframe putting some of my concerns to rest. However the real test shall be in the final animatic so I shall need to work on backgrounds and separate layer characters for movements in the story.
In future I shall have my storyboard scenes scanned and saved onto a pen drive before the lesson begins so that I'll be able to finish the animatic and work on other module projects.
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