Once we had roped down the basics of the story and what we wanted to tell, it was time to start working out the shots and put together something representing a rough of our film. First we made an animatic, which is a rough 2D draught of the film that lets us test pacing, camera work and framing before we lock anything down.
The animatic was largely put together by our very talented animator, Corentin Monnier, so all credit due goes to him, although we all participated in suggesting pacing and camera shot tweaks.
After that was decided the animators went back to learning Maya and the rest of the pipeline was handed over to the CG students. At this point we got two weeks to make a rough 3D draught of the animatic, otherwise called a DLO (Digital Lay Out). It was very hectic for us as the large sets and expansive camera movements as well as a flying bicycle made it a real challenge, but we eventually got it together. We found that we needed more time than 30 seconds to convey the message though, and so we pushed for - and eventually recieved - a larger time budget.
After that was done the next step was to start modelling! Which I will cover tomorrow.
