Final Animatic

Voice Over / Script

The script is below. I wanted some sort of intro rather than just jumping into the scene, I decided on having a Genghis quote show for a few seconds before starting the animatic. The timing will have to be adjusted as I havent yet tested the time it would take for the speech to be said comfortably.

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Text pops up

The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions, to see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms. – Genghis Khan.

(first scene starts to play) Voice starts…
“I am the land and the bones of the hills. I am the winter.
“Temujin had united the Mongols as one; however the new nation was still outnumbered by the Tartar bastards.”
“The fighting was brutal but the Mongols were a strong race, born and bred with the bow and sword.”
“The Tartars were not Temujin’s only worry however; even with them defeated his lifetime enemy Eeluk leader of his old tribe the Wolves threatened his life. Revenge was long overdue”

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After editing it in I found the voice was ok but brilliant. I used my own voice and lowered the pitch, while this gives a nice older man kind of voice the way I spoke the script wasn’t to my liking, even after a few takes I knew I just was not going to be able to do it like I wanted. In the future I should plan a voice actor sooner. The volumes of the battle also needed to be toned down to hear the voice, this is not a problem but the slashes and action are less effective. If I had more time I would bring these out a bit more and also blend the music better.

Final Cut and Sounds

Sound was going to be very important to this animatic as it will help give the effect of a fast paced battle and give the subtle animations much more as a immersive animation. I decided to rip my sounds from the film “Mongol”. I took the sounds from various clips from a final battle scene in the film. I used the subtle music of quiet scenes for when my armies are facing eachother, by having a quiet scene before the action, the action scenes will have more impact. My fighting scenes consist of 4 deaths, 1 by arrow 3 by swords and spears. From the arrow I have charging sounds and with every death I made sure it wasn’t just the sound of one person dying. I wanted there to be sounds in the background going off as to show this is a large scale battle. This happens especially with the sword kills, I have timed slash sounds with the animations however loud shouting, cries and more slashing can be heard throughout the rest of the animations. For the end of the battle I tried to blend the music in so the final scene did not seem so abrupt an ending. I have a script for a voice over which I will attempt, originally I was going to have it spoken in Russian and subtitled (Russian is very similar to Mongolian) there a Russian speaking people in the college but not so much Mongolian. I will however have to record myself, if it does not work or add anything to the animation I may just add subtitles but include both animatics.

Editing the Cinematic (2.5D)

Being a cinematic I needed to bring my pictures to life. Each picture had multiple layers and when for example an arm would move the picture underneath would be solid black to make the motion seem more clean. I was trying to give some sort of slow animation in every scene so the viewer feels like they are going from slow motion scene to another but in a fast paced action scene… Much like the 300 fight scene. Blood was added from the action essentials pack which worked really well as the red bought out some colour in the pictures, this allows the viewer to focus more on the blood. For this reason the blood splats are near the detail of the pictures to keep the viewers gaze away from roughly painted areas. I worked out each scene should be around 5-7 seconds with action scenes being 3 seconds this worked well for pace.

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Final Paintings

With the advice given to me over the course I was trying hard to get a good range of values in my paintings, I considered the light source more and also the consistency of light between all the scenes. I will next time take pictures of perhaps a wooden mannikin or a person in the poses just to see a more precise idea of where the light hits. If you look back at the “flat” images I hope you can see the difference and the new picture jumping out a bit more. I painted with light grey around 20% backgrounds and blocked out my characters with a darker grey and line drawing, shadow was added then highlights were added with a 5% grey. I combined the soft brush with the hard to create edges. Colour dodge and overlay were used a lot with lighting and shadows.

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