Digit 2005-04 - Clevernotions.com

asked the then 24-year-old Dozoretz to help him with his fourth Star
Wars movie.
“George’s storyboards were fantastic,” says Dozoretz, “but as he
got into doing animatics we left many of them behind.”
But Lucas wasn’t into the technology for its own sake: “It’s about
filmmaking,” says Dozoretz, who originally used Form.Z but now uses
Maya with After Effects and Premier for compositing. “George knows
what filmmaking tools work for him and animatics are one of those
tools.” In the end, 45 minutes of Episode I was previsualized in 3D
before filming started. By the time it came to work on Episode II,
the entire movie was shot in animatics.
Narrative and control
Lucas uses animatics as a narrative tool: his animatic team headed
by Dozoretz concentrate almost entirely on storytelling, plot, and
character development.
Learning to fly
Oliver Hotz took pre-viz and animatics a step further
when working on The Aviator. While steps 1-4 show
the XF-11 spy plane and the pilot, Howard Hughes
(Leonardo DiCaprio), crashing in Beverly Hills, stills 5
and 6 show Hotz’s motion control camera and motion
Above: George Lucas’
remarkably detailed
storyboards were left
redundant when he
discovered what could
be achieved with
animatics.
control base. Shots developed in animatic
were programmed into the live action rig and
the camera and the sequence was then run.
If the rig set-up couldn’t handle the
movement required for the shot, the filmmakers
But as well as creative control, animatics give filmmakers
acute technical control. California-based company Pixel
Liberation Front (PLF) has a reputation for hardcore problemsolving
using animatics. The company has worked on dozens
of films, from Disney’s My Favourite Martian to the Matrix
series. Ron Frankel was a member of PLF before setting up
his own company, Proof Inc. Frankel says he worked with
both creative- and technical-minded directors.
Spielberg, he says, wanted to “get the major beats down.”
David Fincher on the other hand wanted: “a map for each setup
– with equipment, what lens was needed, camera moves,
and actor placements,” when he came to make Panic Room.
Panic Room is set in a four-storey Manhatten brownstown.
The house is equipped with a “panic room”, a refuge in case
of intruders. On the first night in their new home Meg Altman
and her daughter are burgled, forcing them to retreat to the
panic room. The film unfolds from there, as the intruders try
to force their way in. The camera is king in this movie,
sweeping seamlessly through the building and between
floors, ratcheting up the tension.
Each shot was meticulously prepared. “David decided
to previsualize the entire film,” says Frankel. “We rendered
everything out as AVI files … we could load up an AVI file,
the director could make changes as he was sitting there
and we could hit a button for the next frame capture.
Sometimes he’d still be talking when we were able to
show him the new version.”
A feature of animatic is its un-realism. It means
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IN 2005, ANIMATICS
IS AN IMPORTANT AND
INFLUENTIAL PART OF
THE MOVIE-MAKING
PROCESS
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could compensate with camera movement.
Hotz says: “For me and everyone on set, that was
the most fascinating and beneficial part. The motion
control/base worked so well I’m going to use it on
every project now.”
d 45
animatics
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