One of the most crucial stages in the production of our film, the animatic has to be done right - as mentioned in earlier entries, the timing is a big factor for how well the humour can be expressed.
Chuck Jones, who had directed several Merry Melodies cartoons (Road Runner, Bugs Bunny etc) was a master of timing the humour in his animations. His cartoons have several tricks such as delaying the inevitable misfortune, giving the actions a tempo and most commonly tricking expectations - one of the older tricks in the book.
Having mentioned this, these are the tricks we intend to use with our team's animation!
Today, we went into G14 once again to re-record the voice acting one final time. Issues with the track's 'bouncing' from last time meant that the animatics couldn't be created - the animation is certainly one key factor, of course, but the timing with the audio means everything for this feature. Ben and Liam were charitable to come along in the morning for one final round. Unfortunately however, the recording studio had difficulties with correctly sending the output through to the speakers from the main mic. Sara, our producer, was frantically trying to fix the cause and eventually turned to finding some technical support. Al Green and James - both technicians for the sound studios, were away though. Sara eventually requested Jon Hunt to see if he can find a solution, despite sound not being his area of expertise. Jon resolved the problem - restarting the computer. Hurray!
We jumped right into recording the audio once more and finished in suitable timing. The lines were done so often that Ben, Liam and Tom had no difficulties in delivering them. We finished somewhat early despite the issues, so what better way to spend time in the recording studio than to sing some of our favourites?
Later in G01, Ben processed the sound recording and as a group we pieced together where to put the audio in for our first draft of the animatics.
Tom had some issues with the continuity in the later scene of Bruce dropping his trousers; he believes it couldn't make sense that he's still there and decides to drop them suddenly. I gave my two cents, stating that the shock factor is more important at that stage of the story than why he'd do it.
Next week, we can finally begin the animation! Flash is a versatile piece of software, and we spent most of last week getting to grips with the program, working on the Animatics as we did it.
Can't wait to get this underway!
