Reviewing the Animatic

In today's lesson we returned to our animatic's to review them with Phil and Luke. This gave the teachers a chance to evaluate our edit and see where we needed to go from here in terms of improving our concept. Phil recommended that we filmed the response, and made sure to listen to all the comments especially those that were critical as it is these that are most valuable. Here is their response to the showing of the animatic;

Summary

- Phil initially had some concerns about the concept suggesting that it felt like three different ideas. He was then more comfortable after we explained the way they tie in with one another.

- He mentioned how we must be careful with our green screen so that people understand the irony that we are targeting.

- Luke had a greater understanding of the concept and the image we we are trying to create.

- Luke then suggested that the pop video 'cliches'  should be more staggered throughout the video.

- They both recommended that we give the videos a more periodical structure in terms of the different themes. Giving the video chapters like this would help other people in the project understand what were doing which may also prove important for continuity.

- They went on to suggest that we have a couple more (around 5) of the music video archtypes/cliches to hammer home to fact that it is being done in irony and to consequently make them look less random e.g. smoke bombs.

I think the review of the animatic went well today and confirmed that we are still in a good position as a group. They raised some key issues that we will take on board like the scattering of more pop video 'cliches' within the video to make the ones we do have less random. This is something we will think about and endevour to do. As it stands we have four - the green screen, pretty girl, lyric cards and the smoke machine/bombs. It would be good to have another of these which would take us to five, a number that the pair cited as being adequate later in our discussion. We will also try to give our video more defined chapters which we can then relay to other people working on the project so the understand the direction. Phil later told me that he thought the animation looked good and that him and Luke understood that it is difficult to give a full representation of the ideas in your head when drawing stick men. We can't convey complex motion or movement but they know that we understand what is happening during each shot.