🐌 MEMOIR OF A SNAIL - Managing an Indie Stop Motion Animation Production - PART 1 | WHERE TO START

Before pre-production even began, Adam Elliot drew every storyboard panel, completed the film's animatic (entirely), and illustrated at least one concept design for each and every character, set/location, and prop that was required for the film. With Adam's prior 'clayographies' as visual reference, the four basic materials (clay, wire, paper and paint) and a muted colour palette of browns, greys and beiges, we were left wondering only one question:

How were we going to make a 90 minute stop motion animated film in 46 weeks (16 weeks build, 30 weeks shoot), all while having a lower budget than MARY & MAX, which came out more than 15 years ago?

The answer: 

BEING ECONOMICALLY CREATIVE

BEING CREATIVELY ECONOMICAL 

BEING BRAVE & CONFIDENT

in every facet of this production.

While preparations were underway getting our studio in shape for the commencement of artists and the endless deliveries of art supplies and camera/lighting equipment, I had to define three things quite promptly:

1. THE SHOTS

   Breaking down a 90 minute animatic into sequences and shots was an arduous yet rewarding task. I had the opportunity to completely dive into Grace's story, understand the needs of Adam and the film, as well as really start to think about how I might schedule this film with our resources, studio space and crew size.

   
   

   This process identified: 

   1. the total number of shots (this differed to the number of storyboard panels as some panels indicated potential camera moves); 

   2. how many shots and seconds of footage we must achieve each week to stay on target;

   3. a file naming convention limited to Dragonframe's rules, ensuring we had a functional system in place to create, communicate, carry and store shots efficiently and effectively through each department, from schedule to stage, edit to post (external).

   4. lip sync... 🙈

   5. VFX... 🔥 

      
      

2. THE ASSETS

   Once the shots were established I could then continue with the asset breakdown, moving through the animatic, shot by shot, and identifying every character (including ages, like child, teen or standard, young and old, and any costume variants), every set (whether standard size, small or large scale), and every identifiable prop (at that point in time). Using Shotgrid/Excel, every asset was systematically created and linked to each shot. An asset digital library was also generated, and I developed production tracking pages for all assets and shots to assist with weekly reporting.

   
   

   The outcome: it was apparent which assets yielded the largest results ("unlocked the most shots") and therefore likely assets to prioritise, setting the stage for scheduling.

   
   

3. THE SCHEDULE

   With shots and assets determined, I could then knuckle down and schedule them. The shoot loomed up ahead...

Keep a snail eye out for my next post! 

To be continued in PART 2: Scheduling & How Economical Thinking Saved Our Backs... Quite Literally.