Animation writing

In this lesson we will understand how writing for animation is conditioned by the creation of the director, taking into account the description it must have, to be clear about its aesthetics, narrative and sequentiality. The animation must be supported by a visual script since the director has to be clear about what should be created and how it should be written, since there is no record and since they are such expensive processes they must be as useful as possible for a good performance.

Objectives:

1. Understand the structure of animation in sequences, scenes and shots.

2. Understand the description that should be used for animation.

3. Create a script and a visual script to understand the structure and clear image of the animation.

4. Create an animatic to understand the temporality of the mix of the visual script and the written script.

Through the knowledge we have acquired:

What is the structure of animation in audiovisual terms?

The animations must coincide from the topic, to be taken to the premise and then to the plot. Taking this into account we can understand that our story must be told in sequences that are the parallel of the theme, which make up the story, these must be divided into scenes that tell us about time and place and these same in shots, that tell us about the camera cuts that are made in time. All these definitions must be used correctly to make the animation have the correct meaning that it wants to communicate.

Based on this we build a script, which should tell me about the moments that I am going to tell in the story, in this way it should be very descriptive because in animation we must create everything, from the characters to the backgrounds. In the script, they dialogue and divide the moments by scenes in order to be taken to the visual script.

What is a visual script and how is it done?

A visual script is all the shots of the animated piece taken one by one to drawings, which together give us the understanding of the structure of the audiovisual piece.

Why is a clear description, a visual script and a clear animatic important within the animation?

The importance is that the better the description, the better the animation team can understand the what and how of the story. The importance of the visual script is that it makes the animator clear about what is on the screen, the backgrounds, the characters and other important elements of it. Finally, the animatic gives us clarity on the temporality of the shots in a timeline, clarifies the rhythm and other important elements such as voices and music.

Examples:

1. Storyboard example

Conclusions

A good script must be constructed correctly, described correctly and drawn correctly for the good understanding of the director and the entire animation team.

Here you have the contents of the lesson in PDF: