Unit 3 - Storyboarding, Animatics and Pre-visualisation

For unit 3, the brief was to create an animatic for a scene from a given script and to create a short piece of pre-visualisation of a car chase. I was looking forward to working on the animatic and storyboarding, as I thought it would challenge my drawing skills and improve my drawing when it comes to horizons and perspective. I also looked forward to the blender aspect of the unit, as I enjoyed using the programme during unit 2 and was wanting to become more familiar with it.

The Animatic

We were given two scripts to choose a scene from: 16 Blocks and Breakdown. I read through both and decided that I preferred the pace and drama of Richard Donner's 16 Blocks. There was one scene that stood out to me, where Jack and Eddie become involved in a chase while driving a bus. The scene is fast-paced, intense and has a clear beginning and end, which I thought would work well in an animatic.

After selecting the scene, I went through the script, annotated where each shot would be and numbered them. I also made a shot list, including the shot type, a short description of the action and any dialogue.

After planning the different shots, I moved on to sketching out storyboard frames for each one. At first, I struggled with figuring out the horizons and floor planes, but this became easier as I continued working and most of the time the solution was just to lower the horizon.

After completing almost the entirety of my storyboard using pencil on paper, I decided to move on to working digitally. I scanned in my pencil drawings and then traced over them using Procreate. I found that this made them look a lot neater and made the action portrayed in them more clear. I also found that working digitally made making changes far easier and more efficient. For example, I could simply select the layer of the drawing with the horizon and move it down if I wanted to lower it. I could also zoom in and work on different details if I wanted to.

Looking back at my pencil drawings, I noticed that some shots didn't come across as I pictured them in my head. Two examples of this are the shot where Jack reaches out his hand to press on the accelerator and when Jack suddenly steers left on the steering wheel. There were problems with proportions and scale - because of this, it wasn't obvious what the action in the shot was. To solve this, I actually took a photo of myself doing each action and used these as reference photos for the shots. This really helped make the action look more obvious and clear.

After drawing up all of the frames in Procreate, I moved them into Final Cut Pro to edit them into an animatic. I made sure to get the timing of each shot correct and I also added in zooms to some of the shots. After this, I added in sound effects, such as the engine, tires screeching, gunshots and glass smashing. I also added in subtitles for any dialogue.

The Pre-visualisation

For the pre-vis part of this unit, we had to create a short animation using Blender. Through tutorials, we were taught how to put together a simple car chase. We were given creative freedom when it came to how the car chase was structured and the environment it was set in. When I was deciding on a location, I decided that I wanted to choose something I was familiar with. I am currently at home in The Netherlands instead of at university in The UK, due to COVID19, so I decided to embrace this and choose Amsterdam as the location for my car chase.

I decided to first entirely build the environment and focus on that before bringing the cars in and animating it. To begin, I first made a small mood board of a few photos of Amsterdam that I wanted my pre-vis to emulate.

After this, I sketched out a rough street plan of where the chase would take place. This gave me an idea of the space the cars would have to move around in and also what elements of the scene I would have to model or source from the internet.

After planning out the separate elements I would have to model, I began by modelling the road. I first added a bezier curve and modelled it into a straight line, as I wanted the street to be straight. I also raised an area of the curve in one section to create what would eventually become a bridge. After this, I added a plane and added an array and curve modifier so that it would follow the bezier curve and move and extend with any changes made to the bezier curve. I then added a pavement brick texture to the plane to make it look like a road in Amsterdam.

Next, I added in a sidewalk. I did this by adding in a cube and then modelling it to fit around the road and have raised edges, just like a sidewalk would be raised above the street. I then applied the same array and curve modifiers to it, as the road, so that it would follow and change with the bezier curve. Lastly, I added a pavement texture to it that matched with the look of my mood board photos.

Next, I had to add two more roads in order to replicate the street plan I had sketched up prior to starting to work in blender. To do this, I simply duplicated the road I had already made twice and positioned these on either side of the bridge. I then applied the modifiers to the roads so that I could go into edit mode and delete the sections of sidewalk that intersected in the joining of the roads. After this, I had to make a semi-circle hole in the bridge to make the bridge curved. I did this using the knife tool to section off the parts I wanted deleted. After this, I used the face select tool to delete those sections.

Next, I added the water into the scene. I did this by adding a plane and then resizing it so that it fit in between the two roads and placed it at a level where canal water would sit. I then went into the shading tab and added a glass BSDF node to make it reflective.

The next elements to add to the environment were buildings. I first looked online for a photo of Amsterdam buildings that was front facing. I used this as a reference photo when modelling the buildings. To make each building, I first imported the image as a plane and cropped it until it just showed the one building I wanted to make. I then used edge loops to mark around areas like windows and the roof trim. Finally, I used the face select tool to select the areas I wanted to extrude and then extruded them either inwards or outwards to give the building some depth with those 3D elements.

After I had made a few buildings, I put them into my scene. I had made around 10 buildings in total, so I just repeated those same 10 throughout my scene. The final animation would be set at night and would also be very fast paced so the repetition of the same buildings wouldn't be too noticeable.

After adding buildings, I decided to add lampposts next. This was a small element to the scene, so I decided to source a downloadable asset from the internet that I could use in my scene. I found a simple lamppost model and placed these throughout my scene.

Next, I added some railings for the bridge. As it was another small element of the scene, like the lampposts, I searched online for a downloadable asset to use. However, I couldn't find one that fit the look of my scene. Because of this, I decided to model my own. I first searched online for a reference photo of Amsterdam canal railings and found one to use. I then inserted this photo into a blender file, added a circle and placed this at the base of one of the railings posts. I extruded and scaled the circle to the shape of the post and then duplicated this for the other side. I then used the same method to model the railings in-between. Finally, I added a rusted paint texture to the railing.

Next, I added the railing into the scene and added the array and curve modifiers to it so that it would follow the same bezier curve that the road was following. I duplicated it and placed the duplication on the other side of the bridge.

Since I was happy with all of the elements of the scene's environment, I added the cars next. I sourced two car assets from the internet and placed them into the scene. I added a follow-path object constraint to both of the cars so that they would follow the bezier curve that I had created earlier. I then added a keyframe for where the cars would start at the beginning of the animation and then another keyframe for where they would end.

Finally, I added all the lights and cameras to my scene. I added spot lights to all of the lampposts and I also added a sunlight to imitate the moonlight. I added an HDRI to add ambient lighting and also provide a background. I then added cameras in the places where I wanted each shot to be.

Finally, I added markers for where each shot would be and rendered the full animation. I tried to include a variety of different shots and a lot of quick cuts to make the whole video more fast paced and dramatic.

The Final Products

Overall, I am happy with my final products. I felt that the animatic and storyboarding section of the unit improved my drawing, especially when it comes to the placement of horizons and also depth. I'm satisfied with the final product, as I feel that it communicates the story well and evokes a sense of drama and intensity.

I also dived deeper into the different functions of blender in this unit and became much more fluent and familiar with it while making the pre-vis animation. However, my final animation is much shorter than I wanted it to be and this is due to my not creating a large enough environment for a longer car chase to take place in.