Horsefeathers animatic - crit pls

[Dilarus]

Hello animators

So I've finished an animatic for my animation "horsefeathers" and I'd like to show it off here and maybe get some first impressions from you guys? Like is the pacing okay, is it too short/long, any other changes or improvements you can think of?

Just to explain the events, the story is as follows:
Horsefeathers is abandoned in the wilds by her mother as a child and has to learn to fend for herself. Now an adult, horsefeathers stumbles across her childhood home after being chased through the woods by wolves. She discovers her father's grave and learns that her mother now lives with an attractive young servant who, upon glimpsing the beautiful horsefeathers, finally decides he has had enough of the lecherous old woman who has had him in her clutches.

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/07f8f21a084c7fb260ad748b 4bcb85aa

Always good to take some viewpoints onboard whilst its in the design stages
Sam

[Max-Vador]

looks very good, can't wait to see some of those scenes finished

[Dilarus]

At 3/4/13 04:25 PM, Max-Vador wrote: looks very good, can't wait to see some of those scenes finished

Thanks very much, I still need an animator to help me make it a reality though

[KhanhCPham]

Wow the project is is lengthy and I wonder if your animating this yourself. Its going to take a lot of energy but it is still possible if you have a lot of willpower. Your ability to draw your information is great even if it even if its a just a few lines. your gestural lines show emotion on the character and its a vital skill I believe many frame by frame animators should learn. Although its still an animatic and I still have dont know the context unless you work on it more, your opening shot with the mother walking does get disorienting with your cuts. An example is you have the woman walking left and than it cuts with her walking right. It makes me wonder if the character turned around and adding a scene of her turning can fix that. Unless your doing it a "passage of time" of her walking endlessly , you can add a fade in to make the transition of the scenes.

[dylan]

Looks like it could be a very beautifully done piece. My main (and so far only) gripe is the amount of 180 degree rule breaks you have. Basically, the camera generally stays on one side of the subject. In your animatic, you've got it cutting back and forth over each side quite a bit, making it somewhat confusing to watch.

For example, at the very beginning, you've got the protagonist walking right-to-left, but then you switch the camera's side which makes it look like the protagonist has turned around (going left-to-right).

The rule can be broken purposely for emphasis, and it seems you may have chosen to do this in the last set of shots (the child sitting up). However, this loses emphasis when it's done too often, making it seem like just another confusing scene.

My advice would be to flip the breaks around so all the walking matches up, either all left-to-right or all right-to-left (most prefer left-to-right, as it's natural to look at, almost like a book). Then, if that final crossing was intentional, keep it in.

Of course, if all of these breaks were intentional for one reason or another, just ignore what I said. Perhaps I'm missing some context or something.

[dylan]

I'm stupid. Thought it ended at what turned out to be the title. Apologies. However, what I said still seems to go on a bit throughout the video.

A bit more on the rule, the axis can, of course, be changed without violating the rule between scenes. It can also be changed through camera movements. Just something to keep in mind if you wanted to keep scenes with the current layout.

[Dilarus]

At 3/4/13 10:39 PM, KhanhCPham wrote: your opening shot with the mother walking does get disorienting with your cuts. An example is you have the woman walking left and than it cuts with her walking right. It makes me wonder if the character turned around and adding a scene of her turning can fix that. Unless your doing it a "passage of time" of her walking endlessly , you can add a fade in to make the transition of the scenes.

Thanks so much for the input, I was unaware that this would be a problem, the initial change was done in order to show the girl's face, which was obscured when the character was walking right to left, as it was initially unclear what she was carrying. Perhaps I could hold off the reveal until later when she puts her down.

[Dilarus]

At 3/5/13 12:53 AM, SafePlagiarism wrote: I'm stupid. Thought it ended at what turned out to be the title. Apologies. However, what I said still seems to go on a bit throughout the video.

A bit more on the rule, the axis can, of course, be changed without violating the rule between scenes. It can also be changed through camera movements. Just something to keep in mind if you wanted to keep scenes with the current layout.

I see what you mean, basically the cuts are there to show the faces of the characters, the scene with horsefeathers looking through the window has a few such cuts but I was trying to get her reaction to seeing the boy and then recognising the mother whilst being clear about which one she was looking at and the emotion she was feeling. Im unsure about how to go about this without cutting, and of course without animating difficult camera movements. I see I still have a lot to learn