An animatic is a preliminary version of a movie produced from a storyboard with added soundtrack. It allows filmmakers to visualize how the plot, props, shots, and locations will work before finalizing the film trailer. The process of an animatic involves creating a storyboard, shooting schedule, choosing actors, taking photos from different angles, and editing shots together while discussing the plot and soundtrack. During production, some shots were cut or added and the plot was revised based on what worked during editing. The narrative changed from the initial individual plots merged together. During production, some shots were cut or added as they didn't make sense or gave away too much of the plot. The storyboard provided structure when

2. 1. Define what an animatic is and what its function is.
An animatic is a preliminary version of a movie, produced by shooting successive
sections of a storyboard and adding a soundtrack. Its function is to visually see if the plot
works with the props, location camera shots etc. from this you are able to determine
what doesn’t work and what needs to be changed before finalising it into a film trailer.
2. Explain the process of an animatic and how it works.
You first begin by creating a storyboard this helps to show you how all your ideas look on paper, from
this you can organise the shots together by changing the order and layout of each shot to make sure it
has the right fluency to it. The next step was to organise our shooting schedule this is where we looked
at all our free and came up with times that we could all go to our location and film together, we had to
make sure that we had all our props, make-up and costumes ready for each shot that we needed so we
were able to bunch together the shots that required those specific props etc. We then had to choose
actors that we believed would fit our characters best and were reliable people. However our schedule
didn’t always turn out the same as we couldn’t rely on the weather being good, we had to postpone a
couple of shoots due to the rain, but when we were able to take photos we had to consider what
camera angles would complement the shot best, we did this by taking numerous shots of the same
picture from all different angles this was so that we had a variety to choose between. Our group did
play around with the shots adding a couple where we think were necessary to add to the effect. The
next stage was to put these shots into the editing suite, this was the first time we had seen the shots all
put together and could determine how successful they looked together, we discussed the plot while
editing, this was where we chose a soundtrack that highlighted our trailer best, this was also where we
changed the majority of our plot as we moved the shots around and cut some out that weren’t
needed. This made us become familiar with the equipment in the editing suite and we completed our
finished animatic on Tuesday 11th December.

3. 3. How did you create and develop the narrative of your animatic, post your original storyboard on your
blog and discuss how you moved from deciding on this to making the animatic.
Our group began by taking all three of our individual plots and merged them together, to complete one
plot that we all had input in. The narrative first changed when we began taking photos as we noticed
some of the shots didn’t make sense, this was where we cut some shots out as we believed it gave away
too much of the plot and did not create a code of enigma which we wanted. The benefits of having a
storyboard is that you have a structure to follow when you are taking the photos instead of getting lost
with some shots as all our ideas would be jumbled up.
4. Evaluate your experience during the actual making of your animatic.
We used our storyboard to organise our shots by looking at the camera angles to see what looked best
with each shot, it also help to bunch all our shots that were in the same location together which helped a
lot. Altogether we went on 11 different shoots at 3 different locations (classroom, woods, and lake) we
had one costume change for the character Emily from being normal to the possessed version of her, we
chose to film in those locations as we believed they would reflect our shots the best from our
storyboard. To choose our characters we had to figure out what we wanted our characters to be
perceived, we did this by giving each character a different personality, going by this we chose Amy to
play the quite, vulnerable one who would be Garin girlfriend, Tom to play the loud, outgoing
character, Garin to play the brave/heroic male(Jack) Lucy to play the little sister Emily as she would be
able to switch the character quickly, we chose these specific actors/actresses as they all fit into the ages
of our target audience and we believed they suitable as they had similar personalities to the characters.
As we were taking the shots we decided to add a couple more shots of the 3 girls looking lonely as that
would introduce a possible red-herring, we also revised the camera angles during each photo shoot, this
helped to improve the timing of each shot taken, The only shot that we were unable to take was the one
where Emily clambers out of the lake this was due to health and safety and the fact that it was too cold
for her to be able to do it safely.

4. 5. During the editing process how did you construct your animatic?
We constructed our animatic in the editing suite by cutting the shots that we thought were
unnecessary and added transitions such as the fade to black and the flash effect where we
decided looked best, by adding the inter titles and directing to shots into the correct places
by doing this it helped to improve our overall skills and gave us an vision to know what
looks best in a film trailer.
6. How did you choose the length of shots/transitions etc.
We chose the lengths of our shots and transitions by following the estimated timing made
on our storyboard, although we did change a couple of the timings as when we were taking
the shots we realised that the length of some were ridiculous, so we shortened a couple of
scenes to make them more dramatic instead of dragging on.
7. Discuss your choice of titles and the use of font and style to create meaning.
We discussed what we thought should be included in our inter titles carefully as we wanted to give
the audience enough information but still remain the code of enigma, when we were looking over
our titles we realised that we had too many, we did this by comparing it to real film trailers,
therefore we decided to take one out. We went online to download a free font as the fonts in the
editing suite didn’t look as good as we hoped, so we downloaded a scratchy font instead and added
it into our animatic as a jpeg image and we believe it would create more meaning and link our
whole animatic together.

5. 8. Evaluate your choice of soundtrack music, how does it affect the mood of your film trailer
and the pace of your editing?
The choice we made for our soundtrack was pretty easy as we looked over our shots and
researched psychological thriller looking at the soundtracks they used and reflected that
into our animatic, keeping this in mind we decided to use a chilling, airy music mostly string
instruments as it set the mood of our film well, leaving the audience feeling scared and
nervous, the soundtrack affected the pace of editing as when the music hit its climax we
would have to mirror the shots by making them quick, sharp cuts making it more dramatic.
9. How does your completed animatic appeal to your chosen target audience?
Our completed animatic appeals to our target audience (ages 17-30 mixed gender) as it’s
about a group of friends who go camping to celebrate the end of summer, this tends to be
when the majority of the teenagers go camping making the trailer more relatable to them, It
appeals to females as it focuses on the romance between Amy and Jack attracting a wider
range of viewers.

6. 10. What would you change/ improve before you begin making your
actual moving image trailer?
Before we begin making our actual moving trailer we are going to change a
lot of our plot such as the location as we were originally going to set it in
the woods whereas now we have decided to use a house instead as it’s
easy to access and we thought that camping in the woods was very
stereotypical for a thriller/horror. The basis of our plot is going to stay the
same but now we are going to focus on the obsessive relationship Emily
has with her brother and what happened in her past to make her become
this way (abusive father, the brother stood up for her) We decided to
change our trailer as it revealed to much of plot and wasn’t very
imaginative with the story, we believe our new plot will work a lot better
and fir in our genre of psychological thriller as it has the USP of the
obsessive relationship which is peculiar for a sister to have towards her
brother.

7. 11. Choose 5 key images from your completed animatic to post on your blog and
evaluate how they make meaning for your target audience.
I chose this particular shot as it
shows that someone has been
killed, but are left with the question
of who it is. It makes the audience
feel compassion for the victim who
has been murdered as well as
creating an intellectual puzzle for
them to work out.
This shot makes the audience wonder
how she has become this way and is she
going to attack anyone, this will make
them want to watch further to see what
will unfold.

8. This shot was intentionally distorted to
make the audience wonder it is, I believe
that this is a particularly good shot as it
not only makes the audience fearful of the
character Emily but also questions who
she is looking at and if that person will
survive.
The meaning of this shot to the audience
is that you must stay strong and stick
together through everything. It also
emphasises the love these to have for
each other, the fact that they will be
there for each other; this targets the
females of the audience who like to
watch romance.

9. This shot suggests that there has
been conflict within the
friendships; this will intrigue the
audience to know why they have
argued and what has happened to
make them break such a strong
friendship.
12. Consider your role during this process and how you will contribute to the moving image
trailer.
My role during this process was to organise things such as when we were going to take
shots, what props we will need and I had to drive to the locations. I believe this will come
in handy when we are filming our moving trailer as we will need to ensure that our timing
is correct so that we are able to produce and complete our trailer to a high standard, I will
also contribute my ideas when we create our storyboard and plot again with the
corrections we have made.