Taking Multiplex 10 from the script to your screen

This video show three early steps in the (long, long) process of getting from script to screen. Here, we’re looking at a shot in the first scene of the short, in which Jay — the snarky Asian employee of Flickhead Video — is seen getting smart with a customer.

Our script is already written, so after some time designing the locations and characters, I’ll finish the storyboards.

The next step is to do a rough animatic, which is essentially the storyboard but timed out and with a little (very rough) animation added, temp dialogue and sound effects (but no music). Once the timing and everything in this stage is looking good, we’ll record final dialogue. We don’t have that at this point, of course.

The next step would be do design and draw the art assets for the shot, and to build the shot files in Animate CC (Flash) and/or After Effects, depending on which is better suited for the action in the shot. (Note: The background is not final in the video above.)

The third/last shot in this video shows a little movement added between the poses. I’d also sync the mouths at this point, though I didn’t do that here because this clip just has temp audio in it. You get the idea, I hope!

Related: Idiot Customer #1 (on the left) could be you. At the $600 level, you can appear in the Multiplex 10 short. If you haven’t already pledged your support, please stop by the Multiplex 10: the animated short Kickstarter project page to learn more about it!

We’re hovering at just over $9,500 right now, and the sooner we get past the minimum goal, the sooner Multiplex 10 will officially enter pre-production. Actual animation can’t start until after the funding period, because the final budget determines two crucial specs: what resolution the video will be (1080p vs 4K), and how many frames per second the animation will be drawn at (18 vs 24).