What Comes Next?

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What comes after the Storyboard in Pre-Production? After the storyboard is complete, there are a few more steps before production can start.

Animatic

The animatic, also known as leica, comes directly from the storyboard. The animatic is the first movie of the project and is used to help the animators and compositors. The storyboard is scanned in and mounted with the sounds and dialogue. If done digitally, the storyboard will simply be compiled and exported as a movie. There is no complex animation yet. It is simply the storyboard frames changing over time to help evaluate the rhythm and the look of the show. This will help avoid mistakes that would have been found only at the end of production.

Character, Prop, and Background Colour Styling

Once the black and white designs are done, they are sent to colour styling. The colour stylist chooses the colours and ambiance for the production and balances the characters, props and effects with the location palettes. This contributes to consistency in the show, or an emotional contrast where needed. When the colours are approved, colour models are produced and backgrounds are painted. Colour models will often be added to the model pack. The colour models will be used by the colourists and the coloured background will be sent for compositing.

Sound Breakdown

For the dialogue, a sound breakdown can be done. This means that the sound will be broken down in small pieces and written on the traditional exposure sheet for the animator to use. Each frame will have its own bit of sound information which tells the animator what mouth phoneme to place on the character on a particular image.

For digital cut-out and paperless animation, the traditional sound breakdown is not necessary as there are different tools inside Harmony to help the animator achieve the same result.