Building a Film (quickly) - 2

It took less time to produce this film than has to make a series of posts about it.

Here's the second part of a quickly drawn storyboard for a corporate film.  First part is here.

Brian worked up the board in a little over a week.

By the time we got to animating, we had under two weeks.  Like 7 week days or something, it's all a blur.

The key, then, is to figure out all of the narrative details in the board and to keep it all simple.

Even is a style is intentionally crude, like this.  You still have to keep in mind that animation is time consuming.  On the other hand, motion is interesting.

Coming up with means of motion without having to animate will make a quick turnaround feasible.

The wrecking ball in the above board is an example.

Note the cut between 7.7 and 8.1.  Cutting on the action.

The guy flies off.  Cut to full shot of him about to land.

Graphics can also be a time saving device.

Here we let the voice over do the work and slightly reinforce it with visual shapes.

Shapes can be "animated" with AfterEffects (or Flash, as crappy as that application is for filmmaking) trickery.  Turning geometry into dollar signs takes only a few minutes.

Its motion graphic that pretends to be animation.

And the logo.  Its usually a good idea to graphically connect the product to the selling point.

Here saving money is the pitch.  Dollars -> logo.

Guys sitting at a desk is almost as bad as shots of a computer screen.  But sometimes you've got to do it.

This sequence turned out pretty funny.  Since the characters don't have real articulation, they maniacally waved their arms to "type" while a typewriter sound effect telegraphed the action.

A lot of copy to cover.  Using a simple action in multiple repeats can turn a mundane shot into something graphically interesting.

Transitions can also add an element of action.

Still more of this board to come.