PREPRODUCTION

The goal of preproduction is to prepare for the pitch, create the story and characters to the point that the committee have a good grasp of the finished product without seeing it.

My preproduction phase lasted about a year, and in that time I went through several variations of story and locations. The biggest change was in story; the original story included many failed attempts at flight, but nearing the end of preproduction it became clear the scope was too grand and cuts had to be made. The final product is one perilous attempt at flight.  

My Pitch presentation resulted in a two week extension, I had two weeks to make adjustments as per the committee’s recommendations and then re-present. After the two week extension, I got the go-ahead for production.

Part of my presentation was a shot planner; A shot by shot description of the animation. The shot planner is for use during production, the kind of information it conveys is how many frames a shot will be, the kind of effects involved, and the difficulty of the animation, It is used during the scheduling process to accurately determine how long a particular shot will take.