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What do the terms 'animatics' and 'slugging' mean?
Animatics and slugging are classically terms used in the preproduction process of storyboarding.
Animatics are moving storyboards allowing the production teams to see what certain shots will look like before deciding to shoot them. Animatics are made after the soundtrack is created, but before full animation begins. An animatic typically consists of pictures of the storyboard synchronized with the soundtrack. Editing the film at the animatic stage prevents the animation of scenes that would be edited out of the film.
This process is very essential in 2D and 3D animated movies as traditional animation is a very expensive and time-consuming process, creating scenes that will eventually be edited out of the completed cartoon is strictly avoided.
Today, even filmmakers and advertising agencies employ animatics to test their commercials before they are made into full up spots. Animatics use drawn artwork, with moving pieces. This allows the EFX teams to get a sense of what shots can be done practically, and which shots need to be computer generated. They also allow the director the opportunity to share a vision with the entire production team. A great way to synchronise the entire team from, spot boys to actor to the post productions guys.
The term 'slugging' is used to refer to the job of timing the storyboards using the dialogue footages and generating the footages that go between them: the slugs - or the spaces between the dialogue.
This is a necessary job done prior to an animatic. It can be as simple as generating basic footages numbers or as complicated as writing in most of the details prior to sheet timing.
Usually this job is done by a, since this is the first step of the editing process and everything else is generated from this. To do the actual slugging of lines etc you need to use an audio editing programme so you can get the exact lengths of the dialogue edits.
Suzzanne Rebello, 3D artist and educator in computer graphics, will respond to your queries.
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