storyboards and animatic

These were my final story boards for the project. They are the product of all the post it note storyboards I did. I'm happy with the shots I've chosen however I have not finalised all the camera movements as I'm going to do aftereffects for the animation I think I will change some of the movements slightly to what looks best.

I then created my animatic after I'd finished story boarding. The most important thing I felt to start with my animatic which I actually decided upon before story boarding was the music that would accompany the title sequence. I wanted to choose a track early on so I would know ruffly how the track would flow. I ended up choosing a bluegrass song which is relatively quick paced but is not too joyful. The song should help keep the flow of the title sequence whilst also helping promoting the themes. I cut the animatic together in after effects however I feel I should have use premiere as its easier to match clips to sound in the software. I cut the song using audacity to elongate the part of the song I liked however I did this quite quickly so I will redo this to make sure it sounds the same as the original. 

main points/title research

I looked a quite a few different title sequences from both post apocalyptic genre and many others to gain an understanding to what makes an effective title sequence. The four that I found were both the most effective and had themes I could apply to mine were the following:

The first one I can across was the Marco Polo title sequence. The TV show is about Gengis Kahn and an Italian man who is captured by him. The sequence is one of the best Ive seen mainly because of the media they chose to use for it. Is set out like a old master Chinese ink painting but the ink moves across the screen and paints scenes from the show autonomously. Use ink fits the genre and tone of the show incredibly well and is also visually stunning. They animators were clever with how the ink revealed the full image. A the ink spread to create an initial image but then spread further to reveal that the images have a more sinister tone.
There was also a behind the scenes video on the title sequence which was very interesting to see the working process behind the title sequence.
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/marco-polo/

The next title sequence that stood out to me was the True Detective title sequence. The TV show is about to detective in Louisiana whom are following  gruesome murder. The title sequence fits the 

themes of the show very well which became clear to me at this point how important it is for the title sequence to set the tone correctly. The title frame composites characters silhouettes and translucent portraitures with backgrounds from the setting of the show. The sequence flows very nicely there is constant smooth motion throughout.

The twin peaks title sequence is pretty renowned for being an effective one especially for the eerie sound track created by David Lynch. The sequence itself its actually very simplistic there isn't that much motion in the shots that are there but its incredibly fitting with the music. The little subtle movements and shots chosen highlight the remoteness of the setting in twin peaks which is something I could definitely apply to my title sequence.

One good title sequence that was very different from the others was a fan made trailer for the walking dead. Since I'm doing an adaptation of a comic I thought this would be very relevant to what I was doing. This title sequence is almost like a music video which works really well and highlighted the importance of the music used and how the animation fits to it. The title sequence uses sections of the original comic cut into different layers then the camera moves through the scenes. Something Ive found is that environmental panning shots are heavily used in title sequences not matter what the media used is. This is because the main function of a title sequence is to portray quickly the tone and the setting of the show/film.

mood boards

I started to mood board ideas around post apocalyptic, forest and plague themes. I wrote down lots of key points of the genre and points I felt were important to get across in my title sequence. I tried to pin point the key themes within these images to input into my work. I found doing my mood board on paper very effective compared to doing it on the computer as it was easier to make notes on them and easier to refer back to them. It also meant it was easier to refer back to the images when I needed them. I referred to the images a lot whilst I was story boarding. 

Starting to storyboard

I started storyboarding my initial ideas for the brief on post it notes. I used the themes in my mood boards to help create them. I used post it notes as they are close to a 16:9 aspect ratio and its good to make sure my ideas are a suitable scale to fit the screen. I like to draw out lots of possible storyboard ideas (post it's are great for this) and then pick ones at the end to refine or combine mulitiple ones.